Interesting, can you point me in the direction of this longer version with the radar track?

I know the video is edited, my question was on the way it was edited. It raises question on what the drone was doing in the time between the first footage giving its location and the shoot down itself.

As it is modern Integrated avionics take into account radar and other sensors for target aquiring , wouldnt a JSF with its APG-81 and EOTS combo be able to provide equal info to the missle ? More sensors working on the aircraft , as it is they will be more powerful then on the missiles ?

Hey, I’m sorry but I’m not sure what point you are trying to make. :confused: Would you mind clarifying that a little for me please? Cheers.

Nope, but I can name other bombers and interdiction aircrafts…no matter how unique B2 is, it still isen’t fighter…

And what the hell is that supposed to mean? :rolleyes:

The B2 example is to show the folly in your reasoning that the Type 022 can’t be used for long range attack because no other FAC has been used as such. It is simply dumbass to argue that something you possibly be able to do something just because nothing else has done it before.

Here we get to the essence of your proplems. You compare the physical factors of the hull and compare it to ships by only physical size. The whole issue however is the operability. Hell, you can travel around the world with small yacths and cutters, but its completely different thing to wage naval warfare in similar distances.

No, that was YOUR problem. Because you asserted that the Type 022 can’t possibly have the range to operate beyound coastal defence because it is too small to hold enough fuel and provisions to do so. Your words, not mine. My example with the yacht was just to prove that a ship that size can easily have the range far beyound what your insist it is limited to. The folly is yours and you have the nerve to try and twist this around as if I was the one making judgements purely on superifical observations. Pathetic. :rolleyes:

The further you get of from the shore, your operational area increases expotentially. The distances and engaging areas grew in size and are far further apart from your own position. To be able to performance in such enviroment you need long range weapons. But those are useless if you don’t have sensor suite corresponding to those distances. As you are further away from your land based support elements, you need heavier selfdefence suite.

Please tell me now, do you have the necessary skills to read and comprehand basic english? Because the above is just repleating the same stupid questions after they have already been addressed many times before. If you keep acting like a fool, I will start treating you like one. For the last time, long range attack does not equal long range patrol. Type 022 does not have the sensor range or sustained cruise capability to go independently hunting for enemy ships in the oceons. They are meant to operate as a wolfpack to attack targets that have been found with the aid of off-board sensors. As such, they would be heading on a straight line approach (or as close to one as they can manage) to their target and then head straight home after firing their missiles instead of the miandering patrol route of real blue water warships.

As for the second part of that sentence. Well hello! Anyone home? Have you have a look at a type 022 before? Their primary weapon are heavy weight long range AShMs and they have a puny radar probably only fit for navigation and maybe giving targeting info to the AK on the front. They need off-board sensors no matter where they operate, so why must they be tied down to coastal radars when airboren assets are far better suited to giving their targeting and guidence info? Nothing but you.

As the distances rose, you operational time increases as you need to cover up those distances between your starting point and target point. That requires endurance. Good endurance requires fuel, water, food and other basic supplies which all requires volume to be stored inside the boat. Endurance means that you need to have rotating shifts for your crews which means you need to have more than one man for every single task that requires manning onboard the ship.

Yet more pointless information. Unless you have a detailed breakdown of the internal space available, you simply cannot judge that these things are too small to carry enough provisions and fuel for beyound coastal defence ranges based solely on their external appearence.

Ehh…once again nope. I have repeated the same stuff as someone cannot get to his head the very basics of both naval and land warfare. There is nothing to analyze, just video-game commanders nationalistically driven fantasies and plain fanboyism. Like some other members said I really should be wasting my time on this, and he is 100% right…I’m just too weak to resist the temptation.

More baseless theoratics. Quit your pathetic sniping and personal attacks and actually give us some evidence you know better if you think yourself so superior. Because so far, all you have shown is a total inablity to comprehand a different point of view and a sad inflated sense of self worth just because you spent a few years hulling shells. Boo hoo, big deal, but just because you can lug shells doesn’t add anything to you analytical ability, which from what you have written, is woefully inadequite and confinded by dogma.

Nope. I haven’t “invented” any ideas here, I’ve have studied these matters and reading what people far more intelligent and informed than I have has to say about it. Add to that I’ve tried to adjust what I’ve read to what I’ve done personally and create some sort of overall picture.

So, where are the papers written by these ‘far more intelligent and informed’ individuals that says the Type 022 is incapable of long range attack missions?

Or in otherwords (as the stuff that makes sense to you is in fact the stuff that you want to hear) you just take all the BS people is throwing and as it suites your fantasy of China being super-hyper superpower what comes to military issues. Real nice…

Pathetic attempt to avoid what you do not want to face. :rolleyes:

I have already explained the main criteria I use to judge if something is likely to be BS or not – why is it needed?

And so far, you have offered up nothing to support your beleif that the Type 022 is purely a coastal defence platform expect the very shallow observational view that its size would put it in that class.

But you have avoided completely the most important question – why?

Why the need?

Why the haste to build them so fast?

Why so many of them?

Nothing but silence.

When I make an argeument, at least I have the ability to explain why I beleive that instead of just hiding behind ‘far more intellegent and informed people’ every time my views are challenged. :rolleyes:

Depends how far they wish to strike inside the Chinese territory. If there is no coastal defence, then yeas why not as there is no bluewater elements to counter them.

So according to you, the Chinese coast would be totally defenceless without the Type 022? Care to fill us in as to what happened to the PLAn surface and subsurface fleet, its massive EXISTING FAC fleet, the PLAAF and all land based AShMs? :rolleyes:

Basic philosofy of justification of any armed forces in any part of the world…common thumprule is that if there is nothing to prevent it, then yeas there propably will be.

Pure, unadulterated BS. :rolleyes:

For someone who evidently thinks so highly of himself, you do talk pure rubbish.

Lets see you go to the defence procurement board of any military with that line and see if they would give you a dime for whatever project you are advocating.

Budgets for specific projects are given out based on merits, not hot air. And one of the most important criteria is – why is this needed?

For that, you have no answer so you came up with this drivel, probably thinking yourself pretty clever too. Not anywhere near good enough.

Well altough my awnser to those was different I can still awnser to this (or In fact I have already done it):

Really good standing point for todays PLAN is the Type022 FACs which brings focus few good points.
In otherhand, PLAN is still willing to invest into inshore coastal defences, but what makes this class peculiar, its that despite the Large combatants and other services in the PLAN, the Type022 still presents the Soviet model coastal defence thinking. Why? I think becouse these crafts will be the last of the line in PLAN inshore attack vessels. After they are worn out PLAN is to be large enough atleast to keep the martime figthing well beyond Chinese shore line. (similar fashion than in most Western larger fleets)
So the schedule of when the grand-strategical choises of PLAN comes prevailing is IMO when the Type022 class is laid up. The current fleet of DDGs, and FFGs is to give stopgap during this transistion period, and to give experience and forge the PLANs know-how of how to operate in blue water navy, possible even in power projection role

Couldn’t come up with a plausable answer so you just repeat yourself. Why am I not supprised? :rolleyes:

If you haven’t noticed that the PLAN shipbuilding is taking babysteps towards the bluewater capability and certainly isen’t running straight to the unvisible corner. In the meantime PLA still needs workable solution for its naval forces and if it cannot fully use the bluewater concept (as it lacks the cabability) it has to rely on the alternative, which is coastal defence.

You call the likes of the 052C, 093, 094 and 054A baby steps? :rolleyes:

You forgot what the PLAN were using before these programmes came to fruitation?

Besides, from that it can be clearly seen you really have no frigging idea what you are talking about.

Just because a fleet is not blue water capable does not make then useless. They can still fight well enough closer to home with land based air support and SSK cover. So with so many FFGs and DDGs already operating in ‘coastal defence’ according to you, why the need for the Type 022? Why is there a need for them when the likes of the 054A FFG and 052C DDGs are already doing ‘coastal defence’?

You cannot even reconcile your own various arguments. :rolleyes:

Quite what I’ve tought…explains alot of your lack of perspective. Tell me, how many of those have waged war on those small boats at deep in the oceans??

Yet more transpatent attempts to twist things. :rolleyes:

You were insisting that the Type 022 was too small to venture into the open oceons. You were basing that purely on its size and that has been proved wrong.

Well Its more of the ultra-lightweight construction of Hamina that makes it so light compared to what it carries onboard. 200 tons is actually quite small displacement, in fact all other combatants of that size are suprise suprise…well you know it without saying already

And that proves nothing. It comes from nothing more the superfical analysis based solely on obversations on the physical appearences.

And where did I said Hamina was better? I said that despite the deniable performance superiority, Hamina is still regarded as a coastal defence boat just is every single other missile FAC in the world as well.

Irrelevent. A ship does what it was designed to do, and as has already been explained, just because something has been need used for a role before does not automatically mean it can’t be used in such a role.

There we almoust agree, tough IMO Hamina is far too small to its given function which is due the fact that the design was a compromise in the changing operational doctrines. But thats completely different story and we shouldn’t go to it. Still interestingly enough Hamina is exactly what you think 022 would be, a coastal defence vessel given tasks which are starting to sound bit blueish..

No, completely different things. The Hamina is what a modern coastal defence platform should be because it is designed to deal with the threats threatening coasts these days – priates, and maybe the odd hijacked plane or cruise missile. They are designed to be able to do everything a FFG can do, but much cheaper, and so can take over defence of the home front and allow the main surface fleet to go off on expeditionary missions elsewhere.

The Type 022 is purely an offensive platform. Its only mission in life is to attack. And since nothing is likely to close within a few hundred miles of the Chinese coast in times of war, the only way these things can be used in war is if they go out far to sea and went hunting for targets. That is not the preview of traditional coastal defence.

Yeas…generationally behind of almoust every other western missile FACs. Its tied to the centralized shore-base commanded, inflexible and stiff operational concept. Its like the old soviet ground controlled fighter/interceptor doctrines where as Hamina for instance represents the idea that the decisions and commanding is made from the ships themselves, and it has the neccerical equipments to do so.

Nothing but old sterotypes and baseless generalisations.

Where is your evidence that the Type 022 has to be tied to shore-based command? And have you seen the 07/08 PLAN training manuals to be so sure that they are still basing their tactics on old soviet doctorine?

You have absolutely no evidence to support that view.

Nope…its more like against the advancing USMC landing fleet. Or disturping any other enemy naval activities in the coastal waters. It cannot survive against any aerial threads, which are quite often the case with carriers…Also its weapon suite hardly match the requirements of anti-carrier task. Remember that Soviets didn’t regarded even the 3M80s, the largest SSM that china has as primary anti-carrier missiles, so what makes you think twice the smaller missile would do the job better?

PLA air borne, sub surface and land based missiles as well as its existing FAC fleet are already more then capable to denying all hostile surface ships use of Chinese coastal waters. If the PLAN main surface fleet does not venture out into the open waters in times of war, they will also be able to add their own firepower to that role. Quite simply, the Type 022 is superflous for that role. There is just no need for it.

The second part of that paragraph is just plain stupid. The soviets went with the ‘silver bullet’ approach when designing AShMs, but China choose the swarm approach as did all western navies. One YJ83 might not kill a carrier, but even a supercarrier would have to be superemely luckly to survive 6-8 hits, and thats just the firepower of one Type 022. If used as a wolfpack, you can have dozens of missiles from a single salvo. Whether a sinlge supersonic AShM or a swam of subsonic missiles have a better probability of sucessfully penetrating the defences of a carrier battle group is of much detabe. You cannot not know that.

Finnish doctrines does vary from the chinese ones, but the very basics of naval warfare still aplies both countries.

Rubbish. The basics of naval warfare changes with technology, unless you think ships still try to form battle lines to broadship each other at a hundred yards.

So first you tried to apply the logic that “civil ships does it too” and then completely controverse it but the above statement…so which one is it?:rolleyes

Guezz. That was hardly rocket science. :rolleyes:

As I have already explained, the civilian yacht example was used to disprove your suggestion that the Type 022 is to physically small to be able to have the range to operate beyound a purely coastal defence role. Since civilan yachts of that size (and using waterjet engines as well) can have a range of 1000nm, then so could a ship the size of the Type 022.

The paragraph you were refering to with the above was to tell you that the Chinese designed the Type 022 to suit their needs. That means that PLAN generals could have, and almost certainly would have, gone to the shipyard responsible with a set of design criteria for them to meet. That means the Type 022 is not faced with the design limitations the civilian ferry it was suggested to be based on had. In other words, the PLAN can have the Type 022 designed to do anything they want, within the limitations of the size, but even that could easily have been changed to meet requirements.

Now its back on the “but civilships does it…” I’m starting to loose the tracks:confused

see above.

It can and it will. But it cannot completely whipe out the enemy landforces, not of the size of ROCA and not with the capacity of PLAAF. Weren’t stating that “type 99G will start to manuvre and PLAAF just takes out everything that tries to pin them down”??? Now a question which I might ask later on as well: How can a less than a division size unit without complete organisations and all the required support units manuvre against minium of Army size (in this case four to six fully equiped divisions) defender? Even with US airpower, it would be the first time in history of warfare if it would happen.

And who says the PLA can only get a division sized force without all the support elements to Taiwan? And those six divisions are all only to be waiting on the beach for the PLA to land? :rolleyes:

Not artillery at alone (tough it would do most of the actual destruction of enemy forces) but the overall power and performance of the ROCA armed forces.

Well thats not what you said before and thats not what I took exception to.

The reason why I’ve raised the artillery to the pedestral is to give you the idea of how landwarfare is fought.

You did not raise it on a pedestal, you stated flat out that it was all that was needed and that was plainly wrong and that was why I too exception. Admit it and move on.

You seem to take it that the artillery is some sort of seperate branch which operates independently and failed to understand that the artillery is just one part of every basic division or battalions operation and is tied to its performance as a depending and giving fraction. I’ve tried to explain just what exact unit of the division does what and what others wont and what whithout the whole division/battalion cannot function without.

And you would be wrong. I know full well that artillary is intergral to a normal fighting force’s structure and that was never the issue. You are only raising it to try and distract from your own blatently wrong suggestion that started this all.

Oh yeas climate messed the LGBs…

Are you going to argue with offical NATO reports that the climate interfered with LGB performance now? :rolleyes:

Funny, becouse I once asked about our instructors what good does the low-level anti-aircraft network gives us and you should have seen their faces and I was given quite a lecture what exactly it gives…Which correspond quite well from what I’ve read about the Kosovo conflict. The Serbian low-level airdefence network was regardless of its obvious outdateness still way too tense and powerfull to prevent NATO airpower to dive in to the lowlevel operations which are essential if you wish to inflict serious damage to mobile landforce units.

Land forces cannot be mobile all the time, to try to stay mobile 24/7 would seriously degrade a units combat capabilities after only a few days.

High level bombing would be fine if you knew where your targets were to bomb. NATO’s over reliance on technology with effectively no human intell on the ground was another of the main problems faced by NATO air forces and that is why I meantioned it.

Well lets just say that as the ROCAF fought hard, gaining the airsuperiority took heavy toll to PLAAF and thus severly reduced the ammount of damage which it would have inflicted if operated freely and also limiting the capacity of PLAAF to give decent airsupport. The toll was most severe to Su-30MKK’s and J-10s which are/were the best air-to-ground assets of PLAAF. They are left with round 60% of the quantity of those planes. (the toll was numerically larger to the older Q-5s)

And this is based on what?

The ammount of damage to the ROCA landforces, to its armoured and infantry divisions and to its airdefence assets, exspecially to the lowlevel-ones was far smaller than the most upfront fanboys might think…around the same as in Serbia bombings in 1999:dev2

Again, based on what?

Yes, I set the stage to be unreaslitically favourable to me, hehe, I’m so smart. :rolleyes:

So as the fixed capacity of PLANs landing ships can only bring around all the tanks of one division to the shore at one sortie, without any supporting equipments, lets play along with the idea that one fully equipted marine brigade reached to the shores (I left mines and all other nasty stuff aside from this first assault so that we could see where to go on) Your turn. What do you plan to do with that brigade?

And how many times have I said it? The PLA will not just be using the landing ships it has on its books. It is a well documented fact that the PLA intents to requesition civilian ships to use to deliver men and material to Taiwan in the event to war. SO your division sized restriction is plainly wrong.

As for the war game, well there are far too many viables and uncertainties to do. Taiwan does this sort of thing every year with a supercomputer and it is still said to be unrealistic. Its just going to be an impossible task and a waste of time that will yield absolutely nothing useful.

But then you could ask, why does ROC field a large defensive landforces if they think they have no hope if PLAN would reach the shores?

Whoever said they think the PLA has no hope to reach Taiwan’s shores? Are you making this up as you go along?

Taiwan keeps a large army as an insurance, but just look at how the military budget is broken up and you can clearly see where the emphysis is, and it sure ain’t the jar heads.

Yeah I don’t understand…a quate, not by mine but Dongfengs:
The system provides positioning data of 100m accuracy. By using ground- and/or space-based (the 3rd and 4th satellites) differential methods, the accuracy can be increased to under 20m. The system capacity is 540,000 user per hour, and serve up to 150 users simultaneously.

ghh…Now a counterquestion: Does that in your obinion sufficies to undisturped and smooth artillery work?? :rolleyes

And that data is from where and describe what stage of development?

But not accurate nor wide-networked enough to serve modern artillery requirements (We for instance managed to gain millimeter-level accuracy of you positioning with plain old theodolites)

Again, based on what?

…Not sufficient enough, I want to know all the phases between the artillery radar spotting the enemy shells and when heroic PLAAF hurries to rescue.

A pointless request. Or are you suggesting that the PLA ground controlers cannot call down a strike or the artillery spotting radar does not work?

All it takes to combine the two is for the artillery spotting radar to do its job and then for a ground controler to do his job. What the intermediate steps are are of no consequence.

Did you say your math teacher “irrelevant!” if you don’t know the awnsers to his/hers equations??

More brainlessness.

Do you know how a computer works from the moment you turn it on and start type to the moment you print out your work? Does not knowing that stop you from using that computer? You are just trying to confuse the issue by bringing in pointless detail.

Forward aircontrollers may be somewhere in the middle, but you see my question was toughted to be a test wheter you can casp the idea of how organisational features, chain-of-command and more importantly the difference of various size units affects on “simple” action like this.

Irrelevent. I will not have to call down the blood air strike now will I? So it doesn’t matter if I can’t do it so long as someone can. How hard is that to grasp? :rolleyes:

Joint training is one thing, the full set of doctrines and equipments to conduct full joint-branch operations is another.

And you have hard, up to date evidence that the PLA lack these?

Yeas…a good boy (1 point). Now can we now seddle for the idea that counter-battery radars operate mainly alongside your own artillery and move on?

And what is stopping your from using targeting data from artillery radars to guide in other assets? Nothing. Can we move on? :rolleyes:

Nope. Its effective against all adversors that tries to use the counter-battery radars by the means of determine your location.

Wrong. That will depend on the radar and how many targets it can track at any one time. Being AESA, it would be a lot. A simple software tool could easily allow them to distinguish the different locations the shells are coming from. Shoot and scoot is hardly a new tactic and it would have been factored into the design of artillery spotting radars.

And yeas figters could do that in some cases, but that would require them to come down to the level where the organic airdefence of the divisions and battalions is able to engage them. Those aircrafts cannot hover and circle the area constantly when trying to search the ants from the surface of the woods if so to say.

SAR modes on fighter radars ring a bell?

So now you really are being quite dump. Sense when does AAA guns have to fire from surface of the ground to surface on the ground behind the horizon? You cannot be saying that the targetting of AAA and indirect artillery is done by using the same methods and concepts…man you are a noob.

You apparently have no idea how normal artillery is aimed and to what it bases its aiming, do you?

No, it is you who is being dumb. I know full well how artillery works and it works by a set of fixed principles that is usually written down on a set of tables. So much elevation gives you so much range. Accuracy need to be adjusted for wind etc. The PLA anti-air gunners I saw training had memoried all those tables off by heart. They were going given the range, heading speed of the target and wind directions. They did the calculations themselves. It was not just about pointing the barrels in the direction they were told to.

I would expect nothing less of PLA artillarymen. Give them a range and direction with wind data and they can calculate the settings themselves.

Worst case, a single computer can calculate the necessary settings for the entire battery and the troopers would only need to adjust their guns accordingly.

Ahh…the real treat, simple taken out of concept and cotext penis vs. penis comparison of Type 99 and M1s under the logic that “Number A was better than number B, number C is only as good as number B, so number D must be better consideralby than number C becouse number B was inferior to number A…”

Man how I miss the old days:diablo

So, in Gollevainen’s magical world, so what if the M1A2 has superior armour, weapons and targeting equipment as well as better trained crews to Iraqi T72s? The T72s will still win. Because, you know, numbers aren’t everything. :rolleyes:

Based on what? And how does, if the situation changes, the data from SAR be transfered to the units needed to take out those guns?

Based on, oh I don’t know, maybe the ability of SAR to see rght throw camo netting as if they were not there? :rolleyes:

And the spysats will give targeting info for fighters and cruise missile strikes before the landings begin.

Well what if the agents have been tied to so exiting came of bridge or blackjack that they did forget to snoop around the ROCA armed forces barracks alltogether?

Pure stupidity. Can’t come up with a response so you make any random crap up. :rolleyes:

So not seven days but few days at least Please note my other replies regarding to this matter.

Whoever said 7 days?

Well in country with 60 fighters and one regiment of Buks in area defence role(!), what would you think?? Every single time we took the battlegear on we were under enemy airsuperiority…and man did the instructors just love to shout “ILMAHÄLYYTYS!!! or “VIHELTÄÄÄ!!!”

Please. As if there was any chance you would be fighting anyone who had an airforce able to take out NATO’s. And besides, training for it does not equal being ready for it. Faced against the air forces of any of the P5, you guys would be out of business within days.

No my lad. The one unable to grasp is you and the fact and idea how tied to the srutctures the whole warfighting is. Military hieracy and chain-of-commands are essential in all phases and in all branches. You can try it yourself: Try to get 100 randomly selected people to walk from location A to location B in given tight timeframe and that all the people are in the location B at the same time.

Ah yes, yet more wonderfully pointless and obvious nuggets of knowledge to try to create the impression you know what you are talking about. :rolleyes:

Tacktical awerenes and the ability to adjust to the changing situation is huge important but frankly the stiff tri-logical organisations and the dual-leadership idea of PLA is basicly against this from the conceptual point of view. In fact one certain northern little country managed to stop the invasion of certain large super power which used exactly the same structual components than PLA still today with that mentioned ability.

Again, out dated info, unless you know what the PLA 07/08 training manuals are.

It has been widely reported that the PLA has been working extremely hard and has made good progress towards developing a far more fluid, flexible and responsive structure and that the PLA has been studying the US military very intented and use it as a model.

Few outside the PLA has the confidence to say with certaintly how much progress the PLA has made, but few deny that there has been progress. Yet here you are, blitheringly making shallow analysis based on the view that the PLA is the same as the soviet army of decades ago. No wonder your views are so out of touch.

It has been clear that I have been wasting my time with a true fanboy, who dismisses any differing view as nationalistic chest bashing and who think he is the greatest military buff alive because he spent a few years as a grunt. Big deal!

Unless you start showing some intellengence in your posts, I will stop relying since I have a lot more important things to do with my time other then try to reason with an armchair general with a superiority complex.

Laughtable BS…yeas…and yet you claim that, in your own words 40m long and 12m wide ship is bluewater combatant….Just for curiosity, could you point out which other similar size ship is classified as such or have similar roles like you wish to give the type022?

Could you point out another design like the B2? Does that mean that the B2 can’t do what it can?

The Type 022 can’t operate in typhoons, but then now other surface ships can expect to be able to conduct combat operates in extreme weather. It might face more operating limitations then true blue water ships, but that does not mean it cannot operate at long range from shore.

Besides, at 40+m, it is only marginally smaller then the smaller corvettes some navies use, and far smaller boats are routinely used by civilians for oceon going operations. There is no physical limitation that stops these boats going into deep water at all, they might not be able to go out in especially bad storms, but then even the biggest warships try to avoid those so you are making a big deal out of nothing.

Now I’ve said several times that we actually almoust agree the basic idea of how the boat is used, only thing is that you lack to realize that it is actually coastal defence what we are talking about. Apparently your pride cannot deal the concept as it somehow sounds decatory to your ears.

What utter nonesenes. One really has to wonder what you were reading. It seem the only thing you have been doing is sticking your fingers in your ears and repeat the same stuff without any independent thought or analysis.

Unless USN carriers intend to operate within a couple hundred miles of the Chinese coast, then these FACs will need to go far from shore to hunt for them. As I said before, unless you think striking at targets make up to a thousand miles from the coast is coastal defence, then you can call it that for all I care.

How about you? Why don’t you provide proofs or bases to your ideas? Can you point me to some “real experts” doorsteps who would tell me same thing that you are rambling about? Its lame to accuse me from dodging the ball if you aren’t able to give anything from your behalf.

So you can only have an idea if someone else had it first? No wonder your views are so out of date. :rolleyes:

I don’t care where an idea comes from, only if it makes sense, and what you are suggesting is just pure nonesense.

If you disagree, answer these questions:
1) Are USN carrier battle groups likely to close within a few hundred miles of the Chinese coast in times of war?

2) Is anyone likely to try to invade China from the Sea in the foreseeable future?

If the answer to 1) and 2) are both “No”, then:
3) Why is the PLAN to mass producing Type 022s for coastal defence when there is no pressing need for coastal defence FACs at a time when the PLAN budeget is being tightly squeezed by so many other high priority projects ranging from LPDs to new gen FFGs, SSKs, SSNs, SSBNs and DDGs etc?

Unless you can come up with a plausable explaintion to the above questions, your arguement that the Type 022s are only meant for coastal defence falls flat on its face.

Do you ever actually been onboard ship of that size in open waters? You seem to have lost the perspective all together in there.

No, but plenty of people have been to the deep oceon in smaller boats that are not catamarans, they have come back and go out on a regular basis.

Lets take few examples. First our Hamina class for instance. Its marginally, 50 meters long and displacement around 250t. Now the overall superstructure of Hamina alone is almoust as big as is the whole volumetrical space of the 022 which can even in theory field all the needed equipment. But with Hamina class, there is the displacement hull to add that.

Its not volume but displacement that is important. If anything, this example goes to show that the Type 022 is meant for deep water operations. It has much less volume and about half the crew of the Hamina class, but weighs only 30 tons less.

We know that it carries only a very basic sensor suit (so a lot less weight) and does not carry a main gun or SAMs and mines/depthcharges. Even if a lot of that is offset by the 022’s larger missile load, you cannot deny that the 022 is usually heavy for its size. That points to large fuel/store carry ability and/or heavily reinforce hull design, which in turn points to open water operations.

And boy would your claim that a smaller boat which has smaller indoor spaces, weaker sensor and equipment suite and is catamaran is better ocean boat create some fuzz up here…I mean I’ve never heard any ex-finnish sailor or senior officer to descripe our missileboats nothing more than what they are, a coastal defence boats which are not suited for long sea operations.

One really has to wonder if you understanding what has been written if that is what you think. :rolleyes:

No one said anything about the Type 022 being better, merely that it is extremely likely that they can operate further out to sea then that required of coastal defence.

The Hamina class is what a coastal defence boat should be like – well rounded and able to operate indepedently to a large degree and perform a wide range of missions.

The Type 022 is nothing like that, it is a purely offensive attack platform who’s only capacity is to zoom towards a target with the aim of off-board sensor platforms to unleash enough firepower to potentially sink any ship afloat.

As I have said before so many times, the only use for such a dedicate weapons system is against USN carrier battle groups, and unless you think they are going to be operating within a mere few hundred miles from the Chinese coast, then the Type 022 is going to have to go into the open oceon to hunt them out.

And also, please, your view that ‘if we don’t use if then nobody else will’ is small minded and arogent in the extreme. Just because the Finnish navy uses a certain doctorine does not make that universal. What more, the Finnish navy and PLAN are operating under very different historical, geographical and operational requirements. If the Finnish navy was threatened by hostile carriers, do you not think they would also develop ships with the range neccessary to threaten those carriers?

Seccondly lets go back to your passanger ship comparison. Like I allready asked, have you ever been onboard ship of the size of 022?
I have, and in catamaran for matter of fact. And it was bit larger even than the 022, around 50 meters long or so. I never forget that voyage. It was agross the narrow 80 km gulf of finland and in moderate wind (all the catamarans and other speedboats are not allowed to go to the sea if the wind get over storm-numbers) and boy did that ship roll and pitch. All the booze bottles almoust jumped of from the shells and you couldn’t let your mugs on the table without holding them tight…Not a seaboat I can tell you that.

Yet more presumption.

The PLAN did not just buy a few civilian cats and slap missiles onto them, they designed these boats from the bottom up and that is the key – they designed them to fit their requirements. Civilian cats are designed with carry capacity as a prirority and also only designed to operate in littirol conditions. Was the cat you were on multi-story to allow more passengers? If so, then that is going to affect its sea going capabilities.

I have been in plenty of civilan aircraft, but I make not assumptions about them being anything like how military planes would handle.

Well I’m not the one making claims like 022 can travel between the straight of Taiwan several times without any resupply. How else can you proof that if not having accses to those informations. Or are you making that one up? Gee…never would tought that one from you. So again, were did you base that claim of yours?

I was basing that on the cruise range of civilian yachts of similar size, as a counter example to your original claim that the Type 022 was too small to be able to carry enough fuel and provisions for long voyages. That is clearly not the case since civilan yachts seem to be able to give a 40m vessal a 1000nm range and still have gobs of internal space left over for all the comforts of home. All at ~150t to boot.

That proves that the size of the Type 022 is no limitation to it being able to have the fuel and provision carry capacity for long distance travel.

Oh I can…thrust me on that one. But the point isen’t my lack of ideas, its yours. You are so deep in the hype of the airpower that you replace all the other real elements of the warfare with the all-covering wonder, airpower.

So how about we actually see how of these vaunted ideas of yours then? :rolleyes:

None is denying the importance of airforces, but to remind that no matter how strong your airforce might be, it still cannot do the task of the land forces which you so keenly try to set it upon it. If it would, then there would not be any organic fire support units alongside the manuvering infantry or armoured units nor continious development of new equipments for those. Exspecially in the USA, which is the number one in the size of the airforces. Yet the US artillery development have not ceeded.

That is just plain nonesense. I have never claimed that airpower can replace boots on the ground. However, it would be enough to majorly weaken an enemy before you attack and air support would allow a landing to take place and to give it necessary fire support until the land units get ashore in enougth number and with the right kind of equipment to start operating effectively by themselves.

To think that artillary on its own would be able to repell an amphibious landing attack when you have already surrendered control of the skies is just day dream ego trips.

I have never said airpower along would win the war. On the other hand, it is you who has been claiming that artillery power would.

Like how the NATO troops bombed the crab out of JNA in 1999? Interestingly enough the NATO bombings managed to destroy less than a full brigade of JNAs landforce equipments. The army was still there and it was the biggest reason why NATO didn’t enter to the land farware phase.

But ofcourse PLAAF is far superior than the NATO airpower so beating up far larger ROCA is piece of cake, right:diablo:

Yet more evidence that you simply cannot process or understand basic information. :rolleyes:

We have already been through this before. Serbia was a special case because of climate that messed with LGBs (which were the primary PGM used by NATO then) and also because of NATO’s own limitation of over-reliance on technology with effective no human intell.

NATO’s problem was that it was not able to find targets to hit and when it did find targets, their weapons did not work as well as usual. The size of the NATO air force was of no importance because of that.

Eh…? ROCA invading mainland china and PLA tries to counter it?? Prhh thats just queer…

Or did you ment that how would ROCA defend themselves against the PLA in the invasion attempt of Taiwan? Well thats another case. But wait…Since when did the defender make the first strike? Wouldn’t it be your task to first laid down the assault?

A lot of times in history in fact, its called a pre-emptive strike, but thats another discussion.

Well the rest is just transparent evasion strategy. Lets just say the PLA has taken complete control of the skies and have been bombing your coastal defences relentlessly. The invasion fleet is assemblying on the Chinese coast. Come up with a reasonable percentage of artillery units to be still operational and we can move on from there.

Well like I said, you have to point them out for me. Give me direct quotes or links to those generals (I don’t mind that much about politicans, they ususally knows **** about military affairs) saying that. Please…

The notion that Taiwan would be as good as defeated once the PLA land in numbers has never been challenged before, which just goes to show how out of touch you are with reality.

Taiwan’s President Chen Shui Bian’s ‘decisive battle outside the territory’ strategy is a good example of the emphysis on stopping the PLA before they reach Taiwan. Another can be found in Taiwan’s own annual Han Kuang military excerises, which only ever train to stop an invasion and to repell a landing. They never bother practicing what to do after the PLA have taken a beachhead because there is just no hope after that.

How about you try finding some sources and experts that think Taiwan would be able to defeat the PLA once they get ashore in numbers?

Now we actually get to the point. I would first like to ask another set of questions:

1. How can you calculate the co-ordinates of the incomming artilleryshells without knowing your own co-ordinates? How would you determine your own location? With Beidou which is not yeat working or with GPS which is heavily distruped by the US (According to my survey teachers, the non-US army GPS recievers where released for this disturpion-singal only in recent years, before that it was impossiple to make surveing with GPS with accuracy bellow 100m)

That just shows how poor your knowledge is. Beidou is already operational and there have been plenty of photographic evidence of PLA soldiers training with them to prove the point. Then there is also the Russian GPS system.

2. How do you translate the locational data of the enemy artillery (assuming you somehow have aquired it) into co-ordinates which correspond the ones using by the PLAAF attack aircrafts?

Again, that is only a problem you invented based on the false assumption that Beidou is not yet operational. It is, so that issue is resolved easily.

3. Where the “guy” exactly calls?

Either a forward air controller or whoever the chain of command directs him to call to order and air strike.

4. To which unit does the artillery observation radar belongs to? (a hint…it might have something to do with your own artiller;))

Irrelevent. The PLA has been working hard on cross forces co-operative operations. There are well documented cases of PLAAF forward air controlers training with PLA infantry units. Its hardly an insurmountable task to assign a PLAAF forward air controled to the artillery spotting radar to relay attack orders to PLAAF assets or even to just train and equip the crew of the radar truck to be able to call in air strikes on their own.

Well thats not really the case as the coutdown starts only after the enemy fires it first rounds. The radar can be in shores for days.

In which case the PLA would have gotten its own artillery ashore, set up and ready.

So now the artillery observation radar is transformed itself into mobile multifunction combat-data managing unit which has all the needed datalinks and communication tools (and full aircraft control-suite) in order to command and guide all the different aircrafts in the battlefield. Wow!!!

Its nowhere near that complicated and I suspect you know that or else you have even less of a clue then I first feared. :rolleyes:

The radar itself does not need any additional changes. All that is required is for the crew to be able to reply the targeting information they get from the radar to friendly fighters overhead. A simple radio with the right codes can do that. Or failing that, the PLA merely need to assign a PLAAF forward air controler to the radar and have him rely the targeting info into the system. Its a very simple thing to do.

Why would we just seddle to facts, ok? How about if we take a little trip to the actual organisations and unit structure and see where artillery radars actually works and with what type of units.

As I said before, there have been well documented evidence of inter-branch co-operative training between PLA services. It does not matter where the unit draws its pay so long as they can work together. And it hardly takes a lot of training to be able to give someone a set of co-ordinates after you have read them off a computer screen now is it? Then the PLAAF forward air controler can do his job and reply that info to call in strike assets.

Well here you hit quite near the target. Yeas they do move, constantly. Its called “fire-position rally” by artillerists. The basic idea is that the artillery battalion (or the whole regiment) has surveyed several optional fire positions to each batteries (or battalions) in its order. First one or two battery fires, porpaply something that we called “este” or “isku” (rough translation obstacle and strike, they are names for different type of fire-sorties) and scoops out from the firepostions. After they are on the move another battery fires similar type of sortie and again scoops of from the fireposition and another one starts to fire. Soon after the batteries that were on the move have reached to their new fire positions and will start firing again.
With this method you can sustain long and constant fire without exposing your units too much at the same time to the enemy counter-batter radars.

Thank you for telling me what I already know. But your scoot tactic is only really effective against other artillery, and even then it would not be effective against modern artillery spotting radars as they give an almost instantanious fix on the enemy location. You just physically can’t move that quickly. That problem is compounded when air strikes and CAS planes come into play because unlike an artillery shell, fighters can independently search and attack a target even after it has moved.

Against other artillery, you might be safe after moving a few miles but a fighter will still very likely spot you and engage you, especially if you are on the move.

Nope. You see without the fully digitalised fire-controll and navigation/localization suites, your own artillery (which is the one that recieves the information from the counter-battery radars if you didn’t know that) cannot recive and fullfill the given fireoperations in the timeframe need in order to prevent the enemy exscaping from its initial firepositions.

Simply not true. Have you seen PLA units train? I have and they have no need for such things. I have seen a PLA AAA unit with no digital targeting equipment on their cannons respond instantly to a siumlated radar contact and had the target lock within 5 seconds. If the PLA expects AAA to be able to hit fast moving planes by aiming their cannons manually, then I would expect PLA artillerymen to be able to aim their cannons manually and hit a fixed enemy battery in a simular time frame.

Iraqi artillery wasen’t exactly the most upfront example of flexible and innovative tacktical or strategical thinkings. And yet the Iraqi artillery was far from being completely whiped out in the air campaings. They were mostly outrunned by the Allied landforces.

Those Iraqi artillery units that were overrun were not really batteries, but the odd gun here and there. That was because US air power was such that any larger concerntrations would surely have attracked attention and been attacked.

Besides, the above only serve to prove another point of mine that artillery is only really useful if you can pin the enemy down. That is why I keep mentioning the Type 99G – there is nothing in the ROC armoured forces that can hope to slow, never mind stop these things. The ROCA’s M60s are about as capable as Iraqi T72s, and thats only because the M60s had been heavily modified. But they can not hope to have a much better chance against Type 99s the T72s did against M1A1/A2s. Unless the ROCA can showhow stop the Type 99s, ROCA artillery would either be too busy being overrun or running away to be of much use.

Hardly. The level of consilements requires a) a camoflage net and b) some sticks and vóila you have your artillery pieces alongside with the assorted stuff masked from all optical and in best case scenario even from thermal imaging spectators. Modern day artillery doesen’t “dig in” unless you have plenty of time and no need to change your fire positions rabidly.

Such simple measures would not fool SAR. The PLA has had SAR spysats for years and most of the strike planes have SAR modes on their radar.

So SAR satelites see trough buildings? Didn’t know that, sorry my mistake…:o 😮

Unless you plan on hiding you artillery in buildings throughout the war, then that is a pointless remark. Besides, storage facilities for artillery are well known and would be some of the first targets hit by air strikes.

…or do you toughted that all ROCA artillery is all the time in the fire postions, and the artillerist waving on the overflying satelites?

In times of war they will be outside. In peace time, their storage facilities would be well known to the PLA through agents working on the ground. There is simply no hiding them.

A flight operations where you hower around the designed target area 24h, 7 days a week with heavy percision strike ordanance with you all the time…nice, Who needs land forces any longer…

Please tell me you are being stupid on purpose. :rolleyes:

What part of ‘during the landings’ can you not understand? That is the most critical stage and once the PLA has established a beachhead, they can use any old boat to bring in anything and everything they would want.

During the landing stages, you can be sure that the PLAAF would be operating at maximum capacity to provide air support for the landing forces, and they can quite easily keep several hundred combat aircraft airborne over the landing areas for a few days without problems. They can then scale back their operations to recover once the ground forces are ashore in sifficient number to take care of themselves.

Well world has moved…4 years since I left the artillery. Back then I served with the most sohisticated towed artillery systems fielded (not outmatched by anything even today) in the world and was teached by the developters of that system in the retrospect of the current trends and doctrines…

And were you trained to fight under enemy air superiority?

Well funny thing is that I cannot keep laughing more and more while trying to do so…

Simple pleasures for simple minds…

I’m not saying that artillery saves the day. Nor that artillery would somehow be all the thing that you need.
What I’m trying to get you to understand the very basic idea of how land warfare is fought in nowadays and years beofre and many years to come. I’ve tried to explain the idea of the difference between the “fire and motion”, the A & O of land combat. I’ve tried to explain what units and equipments provides the fire and what units provides the motion. I’ve tried to make you understand how all the fighting units in the battlefield are tied to their organisations and operational concepts and you cannot blidly just take stuff out of context and invent scenarios of where those keep reeping glory and appraisal in the parade to Taipeng…

Sheesh, if you started with that artitude from the start we could have save a lot of time and energies. Instead it took me several thousand words to make you climb down from the plainly ridiculous notion that:

The changes of succeed in such operation are all centered into the guestion of indirect fire and logistics. Now you can take look of PLA and ROCAs capacities and think of your own, how well do they perform.

IMHO as long as ROCA has meaningfull artillery, PLA is doomed in its efforts. (And this has nothing to do with my own branch-pride )

Which is the position you started with. :rolleyes:

As for the rest of that paragraph, I do understand, but what you seems to be unable to grasp is the idea that units can operate with a little bit of flexibility to easily overcome some minor shortoming without the need for a new dedicate system or survice.

The only time that the PLA would be without its organic fire support is during the initial stages of a landing. And the PLA would be fully aware of that and would be stupid not to develop tactics and equipment to address that. I have merely give an example of how existing PLA equipment can be easily and pretty much effortlessly adapted to counter ROCA artillery fire during the landing phase of any attack. Once that is done, the PLA can fight quite happily with its own intergrate organic fire support. Add in air support, unmatched armour and superior numbers and the outcome is clear.

There is no point continue this depate Plawolf. I hate to go to personalities but from your posts it can be seen that you lack the ability to understand the very basic terminology, doctrines and operational enchelons of modern naval warfare.

What laughable BS. Thats the most basic trick in the trolling handbook – try to go after the messenger if you can’t deal with the message. :rolleyes:

It is you who keep insisting that the Type 022 is just a coastal defence boat and you accuse others of not knowing their stuff because they disagree with you on that fundermental point. That just sad.

You keep insisting that a small-volume hull catamaran with inadequate self-defence armamament can somehow transform into multi-role littorial combat ship without actually giving any facts or sources to support that view of yours. Also you started to make even more dangerous claims in your very latest post like “022 can travel between the straight of Taiwan several times without any resupply.” That claim is so ridicilous that I do wish that you proof it to me.

You call a 40m long and 12m wide ship ‘small-volume’? The AMD 350 that the Type 022 is claimed to be derived from can carry 350 passengers, and even then have a range of 300 miles. You take away the passenger compartments and you are left with a huge amount of room to play with. The Type 022 lost a lot of that room by loosing the top deck, but the missiles are mounted outside the hull so don’t take up much internal space, and that still leaves a huge amount of space for things like extra fuel tanks and provisions.

Give me the size of the fuel tanks onboard that vessel, the fuel-consumption rates in various speeds and the ammount of crew comftability-stores. If you cannot proof your claims, don’t make them.

Another common trolling tactic. Ask for information you know is not in the public domain and use the lack of response as some kind of proof. :rolleyes:

But altough you may have even the slightest clue about some sort of naval matters, you lack totally the idea of land warfare in modern (or any other) day. Your boasting about “Type 99Gs will start manuvre and with little help of pre-MiG-21 era technology supersonic attack aircrafts (which can move at the speed of light, in order to make your claims valid) can whipe out just about anything that comes agross them” and other, well frankly, mambo jambo just reveals all this. I hate to say this but you sound that your only qualification is to check the performance data from Globalsecurity.org and adjust that data to what you have learned from playing BF2 or some other similar computergames. You take equipments out of their concept, completely ignore the tacktical/strategical implication of them and not even hint of idea about the organisations and their roles of using those equipments.

I have seldomly heard a worst case of projection and utter baseless BSing, and thats saying something.

If you have no idea what air power can do to a standing army, then one really has to wonder which planet you have been on these last couple of decades. :rolleyes:

The only substantive thing in that entire rant is about planes. But even after all this time and after having explicitly stated it, you still can’t seem to grasp the most elementry concept that if the PLA launches an invasion, they are going to first bomb the crap out of the island before hand, and secondly, that during the actual lands, the PLAAF is going to beout in force over the battlefield and not waiting back at base for the landing troops at start being shelled before they scramble. So much for that stupid point about planes traveling ‘at the speed of light’ then.

From this one point, it can be seen just how inflexible and outdated your thinking can be.

But your worse crime is that you ignore the ROCA all together. Your “scenarios” would work perfectly if there would’nt be any sizeable enemy units to defend the Iland. Every time in your video-game campaing when the ROCA suprisingly shows up, you just whipe it out in flick of the frist…like you would do in BF2 at the easist level.

Ha, more baseless BS. I have not ignored them, I have looked at things from their point of view and cannot think of any decent counter strategies to use against a landing force after Taiwan looses control of the skies.

If you think you can do better, how about you actually do something other then rant and come up with a strategy you think will work and I will tell you how the PLA can counter that? :rolleyes:

You keep saying that As everyone who has ever studies this subject in detail will tell you, once the PLA get ashore in numbers, the game is up. Taiwan’s best and only chance is to stop the invasion in the sea.

Please, I mean Please point them out to me. I insist.

Er, how about you go and have a read of speaches by Taiwanese Generals and politions for the last decade or so. Not one of them has ever said they can stop the PLA once they are ashore on numbers, and have pretty much all said that the best way to stop the invasion is to stop the PLA landing at all.

You go and ask any defence analysis worth their salt and they will tell you the same thing.

When the radar spots the enemy artillery shells, explain all the following phases from that point to the point where your onw shells are airbrone, and give the timeframe of these phases (accurace in minutes)

Again, more trolling rule number 2. Such information is highly classified and even if I knew it I would not post it on an open forum for the sake of scoring some cheap points.

Any once again you are demonstrating the total inflexibilty of your mind to think outside the box or even to adapt slightly.

An artillary spotting radar can give you the location of incoming artillary fire by tracking the shells. It does not matter what form that information is given, be it map co-ordiates or even just a direction and range. For the first, all you need ashore is the radar itself and a radio. Radar sets up (takes a matter of minutes at most), and gives you the co-ordinates of the incoming artillary within seconds of operations. You then use your radio to call in an air strike on those co-ordinates. That should take you less then a minute. A person manning such artillary spotting radars should get top priority, and since the planes are overhead already, bombs and missiles should be landing in the middle of the battery within a few minutes after the air strike has been called.

The whole process from the radar truck hitting the beach to air strikes falling on artillary positions could take as little as 5 minutes and should take no longer then 15.

And bare in mind that these radar trucks will be continously scanning and can give multiple attack orders with seconds of one another, so can direct air strikes against every hostile battery in range (35km).

If the radar only gives a direction and range, then all you need is a GPS/Beidou divice to give you your exact location and a map to find the location of the hostile battery. That should take me no more then a minute to do, and I would expect a professional soldier who would be training obsessively to do that to be able to do it within seconds, so what formate the tracking data is given has pretty much no impact in the ability of the radar to call down pin-point accurate strikes on hostile artillary.

After completing this task, I will then explain what the enemy artillery units did after firing their intial first round and everything else that you might possiply want to know about artillery in general (in the means of my ability, I’m not artillery-god after all;))

Well, unless those artillary units start moving after firing a single volley, then they are very likely to be hit by air strikes or caught by CAS planes. If they move too often, then they are not going to be shelling the beachhead now are they?

Eh…no. Read the abouve question and try again. And I don’t have low expectation of any artillery mens, I just know what they are actually capable to do in real life

So whats with all the nonesense about the artillary needing digital fire control to be able to take advanatge of being able to know where the enemy artillary positions are?

I’m not forgetting anything. Do you actually even know what belongs to artillery battery? how many guns, troops, equipments? What it even look like? Your description of it makes it sound it is like some fixed structure, acient battery of some heavy forteress.

Yes I do, and from my prospectively, towed artillary might as well be that if you do not control the skies, because no matter how fast you can re-locate, it will not be quick enough. Just look at the Iraqis. They were in a purely defensive position and the Americans were attacking. By your argument, Iraqi artillary should have slaughtered the Americans. But in reality, what happened? Iraqi artillary units were devastated by air strikes long before the American ground forces get in range.

I bet my hat that you can walk right into “artillery battery” and not even notice it untill some of the troopers tells you to: “**** of, we firing!!”

And I would have your hat in that case. 😀 Besides, for an artillary battery to get anywhere like that level of concelement would require a lot of work beforehand. So you either waste time digging in when you should be firing, or you are using pre-propared positions that are very likely to be known to the enemy.

And apparently you have never seen a camoflage net in practice. Thrust me, when a net is deployed, you wont see squat, exspecially if you are flying near 1000km/h in altitude.

And it seems you can’t read. SAR sypsats ring a bell? Camo netting does buggar all against them. That means that before the war, the PLA will know how many and where abouts all of the ROCA’s artillary are, and those are likely to be some of the first targets to be hit in the bombing campaign.

And yeas, even the dumbest towed artillery battery can get away from its firepositions faster than it takes to fly from China to Taiwan. I’m not saying it can all the time outrun the airopponent, but it’s not anyway doomed like you are trying to implicate.

And what the hell are those strike planes doing at their base in China during the landings? How the hell can you expect that to be typical of the situation during the landings? They should, and will be flying over the battlefield before, during and after the landings to give air support. Bombs should be hitting their targets within a few minutes of a priority strike request, and CAS planes should be overflying the area soon after that to mop up and to confirm that the target has been destroyed.

So please, why not quit teaching me about the very basics of artillery, I’ve already got them, with blood, sweat and tears. 😉

I’m not trying to teach you about artillary, I’m trying to tell you how the world has moved on since you were in the artillary.

But again, don’t be too offended, my intentions are not to hurt your feelings but to point out obvious ridicilousness.

Well they might not seem so ‘ridiculous’ if you put a little bit more thought into it.

But aside from the pointed out questions, I’m ending this. There is no reason to me to repeat myself hundreds of times. Claim yourself victorius or what ever but I strongly suggest that you start paying attention to the bigger picture, not just for the guns. Perhaps you should join your local army??

It is you who is not paying attention to the bigger picture.

No one weapon system (short of nukes or other WMD, but that is irrelevent to this discussion) can be expected to win a war, especially not when faced with a near-peer adversary with similar weapons. Yet here you are, insisting that artillary alone can save the day, never mind what would happen if the enemy gain control of the skies and can bomb at will, because ‘even towed artillary can move position faster then it takes to fly from China to Taiwan’.

Please! Stop letting your past experiences blind you to the changing world of modern warfare.

Sorry to say but the PLAAF has a very good chance of winning the air war if it’s just dealing with the ROCAF alone. Their superiority is literally at this point multidimensional, venturing into overkill. Meaning, they’re not just superior in numbers (sheer numbers of Flankers, J-10s, JH-7s, upgraded J-8IIs and J-7s), they’re superior even in technologies such as HOBS and HMS. They have been more active in training. They got lots more BVRAAM, as the Russians sold them a lot, and they’re making their own now. The combination of HMS, PL-12 and R-73 alone are better than what the ROCAF has for dogfights. Furthermore, the PLAAF now got a lot of force multiipliers like KJ-2000s for AWACS and the Y-8 High News, which do ISAR, C31 and ECM. This is not to mention all the standoff weapons from the H-6s and JH-7s, these can be launched even from the mainland.

That is just in a straight fight. In reality, the PLA’s initial ballistic missile barrage is likely to seriously degrade the ROCAF’s fighting strength in terms of the number of planes it can get into the air before the airfields are taken out of action. If the PLA can keep them out of action for long enough, it can decimate the ROCAF without having to send a single fighter to Taiwan – just wait for the ROCAF’s fighters to start running out of fuel.

If the ROCAF decide to attack, they will have to face S300 and other land based SAMs (maybe even naval SAMs) as well as the PLAAF. If they wait, the PLAAF can just wait longer and keep them in the air by continously taking out the runways. Then move in and mop up when the plans start running out of fuel.

PLANs modernisation is progressing, but yet we haven’t got any evidence that its coastal defence doctrines would have been under major reconstruction. Why?
PLAN doesent yet posess blue water fleet it needs to build up a sea controll even to its direct offshore elements. Its currently creating one, but that work has just begun and thus PLAN cannot simply scrap its current strategies before it reaches strength and presence sufficent to make one obsolete.

Defence modernisation is not just about doing everything someone else has done, its about what is needed and what the long-term goals are.

The PLAN’s long-term goal is to become a credible world class blue water navy with global reach and power projection capabilities. Its more immediate goal is to move from a brown water force to a green water one. A purely coastal defence platform would be a major step backwards when the PLAN is trying to move away from coastal defence.

There is also the matter of opperational need. What has suddenly changed about China’s defence requirements that they suddenly need a dedicated stealthy missile boat for coastal defence? No one is going to try to invade China so what is the point in needing a dedicated coastal defence FAC? The only thing China needs to worry about on its coast is pirates and smuggling, but thats not the kind of mission you need YJ83s for.

Looking at the rate of production of the 2208s, its not just another project, this is something the PLAN think it is going to need in huge numbers very quickly. As already pointed out, no one is going to be invading China, so why the urgent need?

The only likely flashpoint that may lead to war in the forseeable future was Taiwan. But the USN is not going to be closing to within a few hundred miles of the Chinese coast, so the only way 2208s are ever going to be useful is if they were used in an offensive role, and that is exactly what I think that are intended for. They are to be sent out in packs, guided by off-board platforms to attack USN carrier battlegroups in concert with air and subsurface elements to totally saturate the fleet’s defences. You might call that ‘coastal defence’, but that is offensive operations in my book.

Now, PLANs organisation echelon where it operates is stiff and unpractical, but yet well forged and deeply introduced into the ranks. You dont change those in over nigth. It takes generation to reform it, as it takes generation to move the PLANs presence into open seas. So therefore its natural that PLAN doesent go on for building coastal defence assets with modern western approach but simply takes out the best of its current infastructure and creates a craft that works best in it.

I remember similar things being said about the PLAAF when it was first starting to modernise. The PLAN has very specific details of where it wants to be, just look at the lastest Chinese defence white paper, and that certainly does not fit with your timeline. As with most things in China, if there is a will, then a way will be found.

Type022 is classic in that sense, best possible platform for ground led army style organised organic coastal defence force of large air, ground and sea elements. Its like WWII era ultimate MTB, all what every captain of such organistion would want in its hands.

Well the PLAN might be call the PLAN, but its very much its own force these days. Hell, if anything it looks like the air force is now top dog within the Chinese military, with the navy second and army last.

The PLAN has been very clear and explicit about its aims of moving AWAY from being merely a coastal defence force, and it is doing just that. 2208 FACs are an abriation caused by the necessity of the PLAN needing to be ready and able to take Taiwan while fighting off the USN. Now that tensions are easing, I would not be surpised if production of them are majorly cut back or even stopped unless export orders are found. I could see Pakistan being very interested in such a type, with Iran being another potential customer.

If PLAN would have changed its doctrine in coastal defences and begun reorganising it, we would have seen vessel more akin to the abortive Houjain desing mass produced.

Purhaps you are underestimating the degree of modernisation. The PLAN is no longer interested in coastal defence because there is no threat of invasion to China, and any naval force that can strike at the mainland will be doing so from ranges beyound that a coastal defence platform can reasonably engage to.

No one shouldn’t try to see Type022 out of its contest. It is Fast attack craft, with emphasis on the words fast and craft. Its twin hulled to make it stable missile platform in high-speeds, and its sthealth as that is cheapest way to give it passive defences against air and missile threads, as the crafts are mented to operate in co-operation with other elements of the massive PLAN coastal defence force.

I think you are putting emphasis on the wrong words. FACs are fast ATTACK crafts. They are meant to attack enemy fleets, and the twin hull design only serves to emphasis its intended role of open waters operations that would not usually fall within the remit of coastal defence.

It has limited sensor suite and side armament, becouse its single purpose use. If it would have been mented for Taiwan, it would need to have capacities needed to operate in open seas: Stores and endurance. Type022 lacks them both. Its catamaran desing sacrifies lot for speed and handling.
It has limited bellow water space to carry effective stores for long patrols, and there isent simply enough volume or usable top weigth to store them in elsewhere. It has crew of 9 mens which doesent allow shift-sharing also needed on long patrols and Most notably, it doesent have sufficent armaments to survive against air and submarine thread.

2208s are not meant to be frigates or destroyers. They are meant to be a cheap long range missile strike platform. They are not meant to go on extended patrols. You send them out against a target you have found and want killed. That reduces the fuel needs considerably. The small crew also helps to reduce the amount of provisions the ships need to carry.

You point on the small crew not allowing shift-sharing is baseless as you cannot know the degree of automation of the ship. For all you know, only one or two crew members are needed on station at any one time while the rest are only called for when in combat.

But the most important thing you fail to see is that these things are designed to be expandable. So the PLAN can actually send them out against a carrier battle group in battle, whereas they would not be able to do so with pretty much any other of China’s major surface combatants.

If the PLA sends a Sov or 052C against a carrier battle group, then its suicide for the PLAN ships with little chance of doing anything to the USN fleet. Sending FACs on such suicide missions are much more viable.

As for lack of defence against air and subs. Well the stealthy design is the defence against air targets. And if used as part of a much larger air, surface and sub strike package, a carrier’s air wing is going to be too preoccupied to have time combing the seas for FACs. Even if they are spotted, large AShMs like harpoons are going to be of greatly reduce effectiveness against these FACs. Subs simply lack the means to engage them as they carry too few and the wrong sort of torpedeos to deal with FACs.

That is almoust an insult;)
Type022 are very nice boats (thougth word flexibility has nothing to do with it) and I like them alot, simply becouse they are so pure as coastal defence platforms, which as a naval branch is closest to my heart.
You seem to have the same sort of approach to naval matters than many other westener, from big blue water navy stand point, but for PLAN that is completely wrong one. Quarter of century and all what PLAN needs in coastal waters is coast guard, but claiming coastal defence forces, with their mines and their FACs a coast guard is simply dump.

You do not seem to understand that the PLA looks towards the west, not Russia, as its role model for modernisation.

If there is no threat to China from the seas, what is the purpose of such a pure ‘defensive’ weapon? All China needs to defend its coast is the coast guard. The PLAN is developing itself into a blue water force, and the only use it can have for FACs is attack.

I suggest that you take futher reading on PLAN and expecially about Soviet VMF to which PLAN pays inheritage in its coastal defence orientation

I think that is why you got such a wrong idea of what 2208s are supposed to do. As I have said before, the PLA look towards the west, not Russia for the model on which to base its modernisation efforts.

As for Taiwan, All that matters is the how will the Taiwanese figth back. PLAN doesen’t have sufficent Amphibious forces, nor PLAAF close support, nor there is sufficent PLAN marines to operate in modern combat enverioment if ROCA put up an credible resistance.

The PLA does not need dedicated amphibious forces to get to Taiwan. There is no question that China has enough shipping the PLA can requisition to get troops and equipment across. As for CAS, well the entire PLAAF Q5 fleet is dedicated to CAS, and every jet the PLAAF operates has a secondary ground attack ability. The PLAAF also has a huge JH7 and Su30 fleet for precision strike as well as its QW2 MLRS that can reach Taiwan from the mainland, and we have seen pics of dedicated fire support ships as well as MLRS firing from converted ships.

The PLA’s MBTs are at least two generations ahead of the ROCA’s and pretty much all of the PLA’s front line troops are career soilders while the ROC still relies heavily on conscripted college kids who are only in the army because it is the law and they couldnt find a good enough excuse to get out of it.

Just by the standard of equipment and quality of troops, the PLA will win hands down without any air support.

And if we go to the root of this type of warfare and strip it down from PLAN and ROCA and focus on the scenario of army of nation A trying to invade nation B and there is no land between them. The A army has to put its amhpibious force against the whole army B and withstand the artillery elements of the B army without change of retreat nor reliefing supplies and reinforcements. The army A cannot use its own artillery nor has its support units with it. It is completely under the mercy of indirect fire-support from completely seperate branches.

That is an entirely artificial and unrealistic scenario.

China has had 50 years to plan an invasion of Taiwan. It has almost certainly examined every square metre of the island with spysats and have a vast network of operatives on the ground to provide first hand intell. It will be quite something for the ROC to be able to hide entire artillary batteries from the PLA and even if they did manage it, the PLA have artillary spotting radars that can pinpoint the source of incoming artillary fire to allow immediate counter barrages or to call in air strikes or even naval artillary fire support.

In times of war, you can also be sure that large numbers of PLA SpecOp units would have been deployed onto the island long before the landings to check out the situation on the ground and to call in air strikes on any targets of interest. They can even engage high value targets directly if needed.

If any of Taiwan’s guns survive the initial bombardments, they will not be firing for long before they are taken out during a landing.

The changes of succeed in such operation are all centered into the guestion of indirect fire and logistics. Now you can take look of PLA and ROCAs capacities and think of your own, how well do they perform.

IMHO as long as ROCA has meaningfull artillery, PLA is doomed in its efforts. (And this has nothing to do with my own branch-pride:D 😀 😀 )

I think your views are coloured by your own experiences despite your claim that they have not been. 😉

Taiwan is fairly mountonus, meaning that if key transportation nodes are taken out, it will be very hard to move men and supplies around. The island also has no strategic depth, which means anything and everything on the island can be hit from the first minute of the war. That includes munitions stores and factories as well as transportation networks.

If the PLAAF wins the air war, the PLA will be able to attack the ROC’s entire war machine, from front line troops right to the munitions factories and stores of war time essentials. It will be the ROCA that will be facing the crippling supply problems you suggested, while the PLA can move supplies to Taiwan on coal barges and fishing boats if needs be. It wont be very glamorus, but it will get the job done.

The key to any war in the straits is control of the skies. Whoever wins that will win the war. And a present, that someone looks ever more like the PLA.

The Taiwan scenario disappeared forever this week when Taiwanese elections went overwhelmingly in favor of the pro-Chinese KMT party – despite the media hysteria over the Tibetan riots. Obviously Taiwanese voters were more concern about economics than Tibetan monks.

I think you are jumping the gun a bit there mate. While it is true that the election result in Taiwan has eased tensons enormously to the point where open war now seems like a fantasy, but the PLA could not have known how the result would have gone years before. Indeed, it was widely believed that 2008 would have been a ‘make or break’ year for those pushing for Taiwan Independence.

The balance of power has already shifted decisively in the PRC’s favour, and that advantage will only grow with time, so 2008 would be the last chance for Taiwan to have a realistic chance of declearing independence and being able to fight off the inevatable Chinese attack. As such, the PLA’s top priority since China won the Olympics has pretty much been to be ready and able to take Taiwan by force, with or without outside intervention, by 2008. There have been rumours that the entire PLAN sub fleet dissappeared a week before the elections were held in Taiwan. The unrest in Tibet and the massive troop movements in response to that probably diverted international attention away from most of the other military deployments.

I believe that it is this that has caused such a confused development approach as we have seen with the PLAN. Ultimately, the PLAN wants to be a true first rate ‘Blue Water’ that can match any other navy in the world. That is why they are spending some much money developing LPDs, 052C, 051C DDGs, 093 SSNs etc.

On the other hand, the PLAN is always consious that their immediate top priority is ensuring a high probability of success in being able to launch an invasion of Taiwan, while fighting off the USN if needed. That is why the PLAN has also spent some much money mass producing 2208 stealthy missile boats and may also explain why the PLAN is operating SSKs alongside SSNs – China can’t afford to trade SSNs with the US, but they can with SSKs as they are a lot cheaper to build. That may also be another reason why the PLAN has only bought two of each of the 051 an 052Cs while are mass producing the 054A FFGs instead – the new DDGs are too expansive to deploy in large enough numbers to have any chance of facing down a USN battle group.

Now that the threat of war has all but passed, I expect the PLAN to streamline their development in the near future, and a more coherant strategy is likely to emerge around building a true ‘blue water’ navy. I would not be suprised if 2208 production is majorly cut back or even stopped altogether. Same with the Song, but Yuan production might carry on for a while longer since it is such a new design.

China has significant economic interests in Africa, with railways, construction, mining and petroleum interests employing tens of thousands of Chinese engineers and managers. China has invested in Africa, and like it or not, China has a need to safeguard its civilians. Consider the French evacuation of civilians from the Ivory coast, or British intervention in Sierra Leone. The LPD/LCAC combination allows China a form or “soft intervention,” much in the same way Western nations regularly deploy small naval contingents to protect their nationals in Africa.

That is a very good point, and would have very likely been one of the main arguements used to win funding for the type 071.

It is premature to assume that the China has the same sort of disinterested, non-interventionist humanitarian agenda in Africa as the West

Haha! Sorry, but that just cracks me up! Before the riots in Tibet, every bleeding heart in the world was blaming Sudan’s ills all on China precisely because of China’s strict non-interventionist principle when dealing with African countries! Have you forgotten so quickly all those calling for China to use its leverage with Sudan to get Sudan to ‘stop the killings’?

China’s agenda in Africa might not be humanitarian driven (and then again, neither is America’s or Britain’s or France’s etc), but it is far far more non-interventionist then any Western power. Just look at the recent American backed invasion of Somalia and French troops in Chad for proof.

Unless there is a dramatic policy shift in Beijing, or a major unexpect event occurs, then the most likely war China’s 071 LDP and new LCAC will see any real action is if they were flying UN blue.

but entirely wrong to assume that the Chinese leadership is seeking to invade Taiwan, or any other country, to impose the sort of Maoism that no longer exists in China itself. Modern China is no longer the China of Mao, but it also isn’t Imperial Japan, or even the Colonialist Europe of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Very true. Although it is sad that the above needed to be said at all as one would have thought that would have been obvious.