The issue is less what was actually disclosed, but rather the principle that the US seems ready and willing to give sensitive information that the British government considers as ‘classified’ to the Russians without telling the British.

It might be something small and non-consequential this time, but what guarantees does the British have that next time it won’t be something that actually matters?

Britain still awaits the day it gets a Prime Minister with the wisdom to realize the UK’s real bargaining power with the US and the balls to use that to demand decent treatment from the Americans. We are probably in for a very long wait by the looks of things. :rolleyes:

:diablo::dev2::cool:
all of them are dwarives?
notice I was not talking about that man who carried bag aside the wheel.

Hate to burst your snide little bubble, but if you bothered to even look at your own oh so straight lines, you would notice that on some of them, a guy is levitating about half a foot off the ground.

That’s just a plain example of the difficulty you would get in trying to guess dimensions from a picture when the picture was taken from an elevated position from who knows how far away, and the person you are using as a measuring stick is at a different distance from the plane itself.

With just those factors at play you would expect a sizeable margin for error even if you knew exactly how tall the person you were measuring the plane against was. Since you do not, that adds even more variability to the mix.

Finally, when we mix in your own strong pre-conceptions coloring everything you see, it all adds up to a very questionable conclusion.

I have no idea why you are getting so defensive and dismissive of fair and honest advice on how you could try and eliminate any questionable assumptions or techniques you are using so we can get the most accurate estimate of this plane’s dimensions. That is what this is all about, right?

Making a 1.75m assumption for the height of the man is baseless. You cannot just randomly pick a number out of the air.

The assumption that the wheel is the same size as a Su27’s is also a guess at best.

Its the same thing with the engines. We know that it is NOT an AL31, so assuming it to be the same size as an AL31 is clearly a leap of faith at best.

Using the intakes would also be a none-starter since the J20 is designed to have more powerful engines, so that will affect the inlet size.

What you need is a common constant that is known to use as an estimate.

There have been pictures of the little tow cart dragging the J20 alone. There are photos of the same cart dragging J10s, and the cart will be the exact same distance as the planes in each instance.

All you need to do is wait for a picture of the j20 being towed from an angle that matches a picture of the J10 being towed, adjusted it so the cart is exactly the same size on both pictures, apply the known size of the J10 to work out the dimensions of the J20.

Why did you start a new thread when the mods haven’t closed the previous one and is only half way through its lifespan of 1,000 posts? :confused:

Because he is so desperate to get his name in the title. :rolleyes:

The Italian AMXs flew 250 sorties over Serbia and they turned out fine

When did NATO ground troops go into Serbia/Kosovo?

Those AMXs would have been flying precision strike or interdiction missiles, just like all other multirole fastjets.

CAS often involves getting your hands a lot ‘dirtier’. For example, if your forward ground advance runs into serious organised opposition, that would be the perfect time for CAS planes to come in.

I am not convinced how effective unarmoured planes would be in such situations where you can expect heavy AA fire from small arms and HMGs, and where your own grunts might be calling in danger close fire missions that may well require the pilots to visually ID targets.

A fast jet CAS plane relies on its speed to zoom in and drop ordinates on a well identified target and be gone before the enemy can properly respond.

An armoured CAS plane like the A10 or Su25 can have the flexibility to stay on station over the combat zone for a while to use their own initiative to engage targets of opportunity your own guys on the ground might not have been able to see coming.

The job of a CAS plane can be very similar to an attack helo, and there is no question whether a dedicated armoured attach helo is better or a armed transport?

also we cant really tell how armored or even what engine it will use. All we can tell the nose has been enlarged and slightly canted downwards.

Well if you are going to base the design on an existing plane there is only so much modification you can do before you are better off starting from scratch.

Also, almost all armoured vehicles are aircraft has a distinctive angular feel to them.

Based on those two factors, looking at the design, its hard to see how they could have incorporated a decent level of armour protection.

For attack aircraft nowadays, we can see from experience in Yugoslavia and Georgia that for jet powered attack aircraft, unlike COIN aircraft, the major concern is SAM missiles, there should be emphasis on electronic countermeasures in that case

Well bare in mind that CAS planes will be facing MANPADs most often, and most MANPADs carry a relatively small warhead and relies of proximity fuses.

Adding armour is not an alternative to having decent countermeasures, so I don’t see why you need to give up one to get the other as you seem to be suggesting.

If we take two planes with the same level of decoys and jamming equipment, but one is armoured and the other isn’t, the same MANPAD missile might get through the jamming and decoys of both. But while a close range proximity hit might bring down the unarmoured plane, an armoured plane might easily be able to shrug off the impacts and not only be able to get home later, but could continue to fight in the meantime.

Even if the hit doesn’t bring down the unarmoured plane, armour plating is still a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to replace than having to patch up dozens or hundreds of holes in your plane.

I wonder how long it will be before someone does away with the radar homer and puts a good IR sensor onto of a long range SAM.

Use long wave radar to get an approximate location for the stealth to get the missile close enough for the seeker to take over.

Best way to counter stealth is to not try to beat it at its own game.

I’m quite surprised there is that much rivalry between CAC and SAC. I would have thought that considering the importance of the J20 to the broader national security of China, such rivalry would be put aside, and in particular, the PLAF or Chinese government at least forcing them to work together for an important project. Having some competition is fine to drive innovation and new technologies, but not at the cost of an important project, doesn’t sound like the Chinese way of doing things.

I don’t think the CCP or PLAAF is in the business of micro-managing companies any more. Especially not ones like CAC that seem to be doing such a bang up job.

So long as CAC can deliver on their promises on time and on budget (and probably even to a degree if targets slide), Beijing and the PLAAF couldn’t care less about CAC and SAC’s petty rivalry.

The most they would get involved is to ‘suggest’ that CAC sub-contract some work to SAC, but that’s on par with what happened between LockMart and Boeing after the F35 won.

Obviously they might step in if things started to really get out of hand and national interests were actually put in jeopardy, but we are far far from that point just yet.

At the end of the day, if CAC says they can delivery the J20 as promised without SAC’s help and looks likely to be able to do so, no-one is going to force them into partnering up with SAC, as doing so may well actually damage the programme by causing unnecessary disruption.