All correct except the last sentence, which is wishful thinking to stay polite.

And idiots have been saying the same thing about every achievement China has made in modern history.

‘They can never do this, they can never do that.’ When China has achieved something declared ‘impossible’ by such prophets, they claim China stole the technology or move the goalpost.

Its pathetic, irrational (unless you think there is something inherently ‘inferior’ about the Chinese that means they can never do something better then the white man even with more resources and better technology), irrelevant and typical of the kind of commentary you make about China, and its frankly getting tiresome.

What did your post add to the discussion except for your own baseless, and I suspect racially motivated, trolling?

Use them where?. How?. Apart from nuclear ordnance deployed in ASW roles, IF the USN could even bring operational stocks to readiness and deploy them, the list of suitable retaliatory targets would be a very small one. From the PRC perspective well worth the gain of removing US forces from theatre.

Well a nuke strike on Chinese soil would be seen as a major escalation, but there are still plenty of targets. A nuke in the middle of the landing fleet of or a beachhead would be a huge threat.

Even if the US does not exercise the option of a retaliatory nuclear strike, even if the US concentrate on taking out China’s nuclear assets, it might seem perfectly reasonable and restrained, but presents China with a ‘loose it or use it’ dilemma.

Who’s to say the US is not just delaying a nuclear retaliatory strike until such time as they feel they can do so without fear of a Chinese response? In Which case, what restrains will there be on the US?

The fact is that the tinniest misunderstanding or misinterpretation could so easily start a chain of escalation that could lead to total nuclear war.

I think you may be underestimating the reaction of the US to having a couple of carriers and many thousands of its service personnel perforated. A nuclear airburst, fused correctly, could actually mission kill a carrier group with less casualties than a conventional penetrating unitary or cluster warhead.

Not really. So long as its done conventionally, then that’s just the price of war. You make your choices and live with the consequences. If there is public outrage, it will be directed at the decision making that sent those ships and men into harms way. Just look at Iraq and Afghanistan. Already people are asking, ‘did we need to go in?’

As soon as you bring in Nukes, it would be easy to lay the blame firmly at China’s door, by creating the general impression that China was somehow ‘playing dirty’ and no doubt many in the US will use that to bring back memories of Pearl Harbor to try and ignite a nation’s anger.

China doesn’t want to beak America in total war, it can’t. What it can and want to do is make any war so costly for the Americans that they re-evaluate their choices.

Besides, America’s main ‘stick’ used to enforce its will abroad is its carriers. Once you can effectively counter them, the only means left to America to seem retribution would be to either build up a bigger carrier fleet or use nukes. Neither are particularly likely.

As opposed to the, say, US involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan in which thousands of US servicemen have been lost and untold billions committed to the cause. I think, again, you are constructing a very contrived set of circumstances to try and make this ASBM ‘valuable’.

Why wouldnt he?. The USN would be hitting a discrete and specific number of orbital targets. If the PRC, as you theorise, were then to start firing ASATs in every direction (though at what I’m not sure – there aren’t hundreds of US satellites overflying China to be targets in the first place!) and polluted LEO to a saturation level then the compensation demands would be put at Beijings door not Washingtons!.

You honestly think the US can start shooting down satellites and no-one would notice? Please. The blame will go to the side that starts shooting satellites.

And as I said before, China’s goal is not be make NEO inaccessible, but merely to deny US military access over the battlefield. They will shoot down every US satellite that can be used for military purposes over the Asia Pacific region and any replacements the US sends in. The US can have all its satellites on the other side of the planet and China shoots none of them down, but that’s still job done. US forces operating in the region will be without space support and their combat effectiveness will be degraded as a result.

Not so the intercept problem is very much different and different hardware is required to make the attempt. You move from direct intercept to in-orbit interception.

No, either method is just a means to the same end, and if anything, direct intercept is far harder then orbital merge. Hell, anyone with a satellite in the same orbit can do an orbital merge intercept to bring down somebody else’s satellite. Docking between spacecraft in orbit is just a controlled merge intercept and China has done that as well.

When, If, Maybe!. People seem very sure of the ASBM but there are still no signs of the operational MPA squadrons etc to provide the kind of sea surveillance necessary to support it. I’ve never understood that leap of faith!.

They have a missile with a small enough CEP that if loaded with submunitions, could easily have a very high percentage chance of causing ships serious damage. All they need to do is develop a dispenser that can work at re-entry speeds. Hardly an insurmountable challenge, and the testing of such a dispenser could easily be interpreted as a failed normal missile test with the RV breaking up on re-entry.

They have an extensive, and evidently highly developed UVA programme with large HALE sized UAVs very close to, if not already in operational service. They also have a very extensive programme with the Y8 to develop them into all sorts of specialists aircraft, all of them navy programmes. Go figure what they are for.

You asked and I delivered, and now you are shifting the goalposts.

If you want irrefutable proof, you best give up because China is not stupid. It will never give you irrefutable proof that they have this capacity as the last thing they want to do is give more ammunition to the ‘China threat’ camp and give the US military more leverage to get a bigger defense budget.

The only time China might show off this capacity is if war has broken out across the straits and before the US makes any commitment.

China has the financial and technological resources to make a rival to the old soviet ocean search satellite network. Do you see them in any great hurry to put one in place?

Regardless of whether there is actually an AShM BM programme, China needs a way of finding and targeting USN carriers. Why are they so nonchalant about doing that or seem every more confident and assertive if they have no means of doing this?

Is it more likely that they somehow overlooked this problem or are not really bothered, or is it more likely that they have developed an alternative tracking and targeting means to a space based sensor network highly vulnerable to US attack?

Words and just words and can be shaped to convey any message the sender sees fit. Deeds are where you see the truth.

If the nation 2 has more satellites does that not make them more survivable? Also which satellites would nation 1 go for?

The GPS’s ones that most of the world relies on for navigation? How many of those would they be able to attack? Not all unless the missiles are long range enough to reach the other side of the world.

You seem to be missing the answer to your own question. As you pointed out, space (or rather near earth space) is not infinite. You make a big enough mess on one side of the earth and the debris will take out sats hiding on the other side of the planet for you.

And also, drop the nation 1,2,3,4 pretense. It’s pointless.

Secondly how many Anti sattelite missiles does nation 1 have to be able to hit all the satellites in space?

If you look at this one from the nation 2 perspective, they have it easy. They knock out 1 or 2 satellites that are helping the nation 1 aim ASBM at CBG’s.

IF nation 1 does re-taliate at the scale you mention, it will be like it had locked itself inside a round steel drum and a let off a shot gun.

Significant amounts of friendly fire.

Space above the earth is not as infinite as you would like to believe when you have debris in excess of 5MeV’s and more of energy. Look on google for hypervelocity impact events. you will see the type of damage that can be done by tiny pinheads.

Nation 1 would be in danger of alienating itself from the world, and it has not mastered PR as the nation 2 has.

As I already pointed out, you don’t have to physically hit every satellite to make space inaccessible for everyone.

Also, China does not believe in silver bullets. What it does believe in is redundancy and there is no such thing as overkill. China does not field anything it cannot mass produce on a huge scale if required. China already has hundreds if not thousands of missiles capable of being used as ASAT carriers so the only thing that needs to be mass produced are the warheads. Do you really think America can build and launch satellites faster then China can build warheads to take them out?

And frankly, you need to be re-evaluation your priorities if you think anyone would give a toss about PR if China and the US start shooting at each other.

If Nation 1 takes out Nation 2 spy sats over Nation 1 then good but it would not do any significant harm. The carriers would be in the straights by then, predator would be patrolling the shores with Aerostats, J STARS etc etc etc etc..basically war would be as it was without the ASBM, giving no side any significant advantage but still allowing a CBG to be present in the straights.

Go repeat that to any naval professional and watch them wriggle on the floor laughing.

To send anything into the straits without China’s permission in times of war is to send them to their deaths.

The USN’s best defense against China is its mobility and the size of the ocean. If China can reliably track USN carries, then its effectively game over as China can put enough missiles in the air to saturate any defense.

Would Nation 1 really attack Iraq and Afghanistan and risk the UN and NATO coming into the conflict?

Or watch NATO countries scramble for the exists more likely.

Name me one single NATO country that would not pull out right this minute if given the chance or one single NATO country that thinks the casualty rates its suffering is ‘not that bad’.

The last thing any NATO country wants is to go looking for trouble and stand in the way of an enraged China out looking for blood.

NATO will stand together if one of its members is facing invasion, but to suffer WWII level casualties half way around the world because of American misadventure? I don’t think so. It would be just like NATO’s response to Georgia.

Also if Nation 2 can target Ballistic missiles i am sure it will be able to target an ASAT. The CBG’s waiting to go into the Taiwan straights just out of shot of the D-21C’s or D’s would be on the look out for missile launches.

You need to get your numbers right. To be able to target BMs on the assent stage, a ship will have to be well within land based conventional AShM range of China. You really want to be holding up a great big neon sign saying ‘we are over here’ by going active with targeting radars and shooting missiles there? Have you really given this any though?

Satellite MAD?. You think that the US are going to allow its primary theatre entry capability to be tracked for fear of Chinese reprisals against their own sats?. Not a chance – any more than China would tolerate, in time of elevated threat, US Keyholes touring over its territory when it had the means to prevent it!?.

Of course the Chinese ASAT shot was a declaration of intent – just as the SM3 shot was a statement of intent by the US that it could not only take down sats, but, could do so from anywhere it could park a destroyer.

I think you are being a tad naive and a touch arrogant here mate. If China and the US does come to blows, it will be a grown-ups war, not the kind of superpower and mates gangbanging some hapless 3rd rate power, like all the other wars the US has fought since Korea.

In such a war, there will be limits and red lines that neither side wants/can afford to cross, because crossing them so will very likely result in the kind of rapid escalation that might lead to a place everyone dreads. And thats one of the better worst case scenarios.

So if you are the US SecDef, are you willing to make a 20 for 1 exchange with the Chinese on MilSats? Because as soon as they shoot down one Chinese sat, its open season on all US satellites, and the same will apply to US re Chinese sats, but the fact is the US has more Sats to loose and is far more reliant on them then China. That means China is more then happy to make everyone blind in the sky as that evens the playing field in their favor.

Now, the only way to stop that would be to target the Chinese ASAT launchers and tracking stations. What kind of response the Chinese will make to that is anyone’s guess, but what if China responds like for like and attacks the CONUS? Do you think the US can be seen to do nothing if China levels the pentagon with cruise missiles or takes out NASA? If China can’t reach the CONUS, how about they widen the conflict and attack US assets they can reach, like in South Korea or Iraq and Afghanistan for example?

Any conflict between China and the US will be because of a small matter, not a fundamental clash that means the two cannot co-exist anymore. Thus its in both side’s interest to establish limits so that things like the above scenario cannot happen.

The US government has set up limits for the military whenever they have operated near China since the Korea war for a reason. And the balance of power between China and the US has never been as narrow as it is today. What makes you think they US will abandon its aged old playbook now?

People really need sort fact from marketing hype here. The successful tests have all been against short range missiles, medium range BMs are many times faster and no missile defense system has reliably demonstrated an ability to stop them yet.

Throw in terminal maneuvering as is standard with a guided terminal RV and it gets far harder still.

CEP can be as low as 20-30m, and even if you take the far more conservative 150m, that still becomes irrelevant as soon as you take out the direct hit requirement.

With a 2 ton payload, the DF21Cs can carry a guidance package and thousands of 20-30mm equivalent APFSDS for the carrier, or hundreds of 125mm equivalents for the escorts. And these will be arriving at twice the speeds conventional guns can fire them at. Even if only a tiny proportion of the submunitions hit, its still going to be a very bad day for the targeted ship. Throw in multiple missiles for each ship for redundancy and overkill. Then add a massed conventional air attack timed to arrive a few minutes after the ballistic missiles and suddenly one might get an idea of why the USN is getting worried.

Plus, you should also consider the possibility that there is no such thing as a Chinese AShM project and what they are showing us is missiles for their ASAT program or just fiberglass dummies. In which case, how many billions is the USN spending to counter a threat that does not exist? And how many mk41 cells are going to be wasted carrying these useless rounds instead of SAMs to deal with mass saturation attacks from conventional AShMs?

Dunno where the problem is. The UK is JUNIOR partner in JSF. With 5% or something like that contributed to development costs. The British industry gets already more then 5% of technology transfered.

The big deal is that britain only committed to the JSF after we had obtain specific and explicit assurances over access to the source code at great cost.

If the US does not want to share the code, they should have said right from the get go, not years down the line and billions of british taxpayer pounds later. Thats not how u treat ANY partner and it is double insulting and unacceptable because of the vaunted ‘special relationship’ we r supposed to enjoy.

Others have already pointed out quite clearly the dangerous of not having access to the source code. But its more then just this one incident, but a clear pattern of american behaviour that is simply unacceptable, and its abt damn time the british demand to be treated with the respect and fairness we deserve, or we should end this one-sided relationship and be done with this sham.

It always mystify me how people in the uk can keep taking this ‘special relationship’ gibberish seriously.

The UK has always been fully committed and sinceirly in upholding its obligations in this relationship, but all the US has ever done was screw the brits over every single time the UK needed them. The brits loyally followed amercia into afghanistan and iraq. Where was the US when argentia invaded the falklands? Where was this special relationship when the american military closed ranks when the uk was trying to investigate friendly fire incidents involving american aircrews? Where was this special relationship when american citizens were all but publiclly fundraising for the IRA?

So far the UK has always came through when the yanks needed us, but the americans seem to be willing and ready to screw us over every time it suits them.

It is shameful that the uk seems to just be willing to bend over and take it and pretend the screwing over never happened. Hell, with this kind of behaviour, is it any wonder the americans treat us like crap?

The uk seriously need a PM with the balls to look the americans and say, ‘this is’t *******ing good enough’ when something like this happens.

The uk can either demand to be treated as an a ‘special’ ally or we should abandon this piece of crap deal we have and just ‘settle’ to be a normal NATO partner and ally like france and germany. A tinny bit fewer perks, but a hell of a lot less cost. I’m more then happy with that arrangement because if the brits did something drastic, like citing a fundermental breach of contract and pulled out of the JSF and demanded all our money back. It will be the americans who would be forced to answer for when the special relationship fell apart and they may even start treating us with the fairness and damned respect we deserve.

But i suspect Brown will do what every british pm has before him, keep the protesting to the minimum and behind the scenes to preserve the facade of a ‘special relationship’ and just lump it.

For the Gripen to win ‘hands down’, one would assume you know both sets of stats to be able to reach such a conclusion. Care to share this never before heard of source of classified data or are you taking a wild unsubstantiated guess as usual? :rolleyes:

‘Maintain’? When did the IAF enjoy air superiority over the PLAAF to start with?

Besides, the PLAAF second in command just went on record that the Chinese 4th gen (5th gen equivalent) will have its first flight ‘very soon’, so the IAF is hardly in any position to gain any ground in the years to come assuming the best outcomes with the PAKAF.

Home built V imported will also effectively guarantee that the PLAAF can field many more 5th gens then the IAF for the same money, and India is hardly in any position to try and outspend China on defense.

India has neither the economic might nor the technological industrial base to try to match let alone surpass China militarily.

The difference between India and China is not dissimilar to that between China and the US. Only China has the sense to realise who is stronger and chooses to avoid mounting a direct military challenge to the US while building up its economy and industrial strength.

For India to try starting an arms race with China now or in the near future will be extremely unwise.