plawolfWell what did you expect from an irrational Taiwan independance supporter looking to start a flame war?
LOL… he was banned on many a forums for conduct unbecomming its not even funny.
Just ignore the troll. The only thing he ever contribute to any discussion is flamebait and lies.
plawolf😀 With his arguments found wanting and his position throughly demolished, Plawolf now resorts to personal attacks! Way to go, wolfie! 😉
Just the kind of pointless and blatently wrong BS people have learnt to expect from you. Sad. :rolleyes:
plawolfPinko/Wolf
To be honest with you lads I think your two posts above exhaust any possibility of further debate on this.
Pinko is talking about a ‘software fix’ to an OTH radar that gives it a range resolution of 3km which demonstrates a thorough lack of understanding regarding the physics of tropbounce and Wolf, you, are talking about ASAT’s having to transit the thermal atmosphere interface thoroughly in ignorance of a little thing called a shroud which protects the RV/EKV through the outbound interface.
Then we come to the point that both of you are deliberately being ignorant of the fact that firing radar through a 100kms of usually quite soggy atmosphere is a slightly tougher proposition than radar transmission through the vacuum of space. This is just one factor to the fervent desire to make some tenuous connection between an ASAT test and the as-yet science-fiction of getting a strategic RV to hit a moving target!
And you are just bring back the same excuses time and again. You think the ASAT test would have worked if they were unable to solve the shrouding problem? Also, modern fighter and even missile radars can handle ‘soggy’ weather just fine, and hypersonic AShMs are hardly new either. There will obviously be differences and new challenges and the ASAT weapon could not be used without change as an AShBM, but that is small potatos compaired to what has already been achieved and what we know to be possible. Its not even very revolutionary stuff anyone is suggesting, just using different parts of weapons systems that we already know for a fact are operational or workable.
The PLA is never going to give you a step by step flow chart showing you have they did everything, and it seems that you are never going to be convinced until they do.
Despite such lack of comprehension of the basic technologies and practicalities we see repeated statements crediting Chinese technological wizadry, possibly, with the ability to do it ‘cos its never wise to underestimate them’ said sagely?!. Utter twaddle!. There is not one shred of evidence that an AshBM exists or is even in testing. There is a picture of something that looks like a Pershing II RV stage on a Chinese missile…and the fact that the US system had guidance is enough to lend credence to these fantasies. That is despite the fact, as I pointed out, RADAG is completely unsuitable for anything other than precision land attack.
There is never going to be ‘evidence’ if you dismiss everything short of the PLA putting up a show and sinking a ship with a ballistic missile.
The choice of the DF21 missile itself is evidence that the warhead is intended for more then merely targeting fixed land based targets as there is simply nothing on land that needs such range to hit. The DF21 is clearly overkill for Taiwan, but it doesn’t have the range for anywhere else. It is also far more expansive and scarce then the DF15, which would have made a far better testbed for a precision land attack weapon. Yet you conveniently miss that out.
The fact that the missile has been test fired is as concrete a piece as evidence as you are likely to get that there is a percision ASBM programme, and the range of the missile indicates its meant for something that is going to be a lot further then Taiwan. Go figure what else it could be aimed at.
Something else you might want to keep in mind is that the US never releases all the intel they have on the development of the PLA. The ASAT test being a very good example as they seemed to have noted at least two previous failed tests without making a peep. So there are huge gaping holes in your claims that there can’t possibly be a Chinese AShBM programme.
Thus far, no-one has said that they are 100% sure that there is a Chinese AShBM programme, we are merely stating that there is a very good chance that there is such a programme, and it is likely to have progressed quite far already, based on points meantioned before. Yet it is you who is claiming that there is no way the PLA could have an AShBM programme based entirely on information that everyone knows is incomplete at best and widely inaccurate to worst. And its not even like you don’t know any of this. But no, you must set the bar at a level you know will never be reached until years if not decades after a system has become operational.
It is not unheard of for people to resist changes that might threaten their set, comfortable perception of the world.
Next thing you are inventing monopulse seeker heads and cobbled-together RORSATs that must just simply be there otherwise ‘whats the point developing the missile’. Its the cart before the horse as we see so often with Chinese systems. There is no proof that the missile is developed yet it must be because….because….er…because we really, really want something to make sure we can snot those damned yankee carriers a treat!.
So, are you suggestion that the PLA have invested all that time and money to develop their new gen AShBM with hundreds of kms of extra range that they cannot take advanatge of? How stupid of them! If only they had the foresight of Jonsey before they started on that fools errand! :rolleyes:
What is more likely? That the PLAN has deliberately moved away from speed to focus on range, yet forgot to invest in assets to allow them to take advanatge of that extra range, or that they have something in place which would allow them to expand their current engagement envolope that the western intellegence agencies either don’t know about or don’t want to let people know they know about? Even if such a system is not yet operational, the fact that the YJ63 is is a good indication that the PLA is developing such a system and has been doing so for quite some time already.
Anyway I do slightly start to feel guilty when I rain on others parades like this and I can see you both have a need to believe so I’ll leave it there!.
From where I stand, it looks like you are the one who needs to beleive that such a weapons system cannot possibly exist or be anywhere near being operational until the western navies have something that can comfortably counter it.
As for Yourfather’s posts. Well its no suprise to see this well know sinophobe is up to his usual trick of taking any and every opportunity to try and discredit anything and everything Chinese. Everything you have said is just as meritless and transparent as usual and hardly worth any of my time to respond to. Get a life kid. :rolleyes:
plawolfIt amazes me that because you watched a video clip you found on the internet that you assume you know the situation and what the people who were there were actually doing and thinking…..
As far as the F-15 incident (and other blue one blue accidents) goes, this whole thread makes me very sad not only because of the unfortunate loss of life in this particular incident, but because of the number of people who are again jumping on the “Americans are careless and very prone to friendly fire” bandwagon.
Maybe you didn’t notice that everyone had refrained from blaming anyone until one of your fellow Americans dragged the issue out of nowhere.
As others have said, blue-on-blue is just a sad reality of war that will never go away, and I think the vast majority of people realise that. However, when the US military is being deliberately and systematically obstructive and uncooperative in the investigation of blue-on-blue incidents involving allied troops, can you really blame people for getting a little suspicious and bitter? Its doubly bad for the British as it also feels like a betral when the US is willing to close ranks so easily to try and protect its own after all the sacrifices the British have made for the Americans in going to war in the first place.
And it seems like such a stupid and pointless thing to do! As in the case of the A10s. Anyone who has seen the vids could clearly tell that it was a genuine case of mistaken identity, even if some things could have been done better. Was the cotents of that tape really so important as to warrent the US military to first deny its existence and then rate it as classified material and refuse requests for its use in an offical investigation of the incident after several years had lapsed?
Had the US just release the tapes to the families of those killed and injured with an offical letter of condolence for their loss as soon as possible, the case would have been quietly closed years ago. And the family members of those killed and wounded could have moved on with their lives years eariler and with far less grief, anger and bitterness.
The fact that the British need to rely on American CAS can’t have helped either as they are still two different organisations with different MOs, and in the heat of battle, small details might be forgotten that might make a huge difference. More examples of defence cuts costing the lives of soldiers.:(
plawolfAs YF so accurately notes one would derive the idea that we are not talking about a tactical-range weapon entirely because we are not talking about a tactical range weapon!!!. The DF-21 is knocking on the door of what would be classed an IRBM!. If we are talking, as was mentioned somewhere, about a DF-31 based system then that is a circa 7000km ranged weapon….whatever else is true about the PRC’s AShBM project it is not a local-defence system!!!
The DF21’s range is needed to hit a carrier before it can strike with its own fighter wings. Anything shorter ranged would be ineffective as a US carrier is going to stay as far away from the Chinese mainland as it can get away with.
Of course, we don’t know how big the new warhead is or how heavy, thus we can not say for sure if the new DF21 will have the same range as the vanilla version.
As for a DF31 version, well I can’t remember such a comment, and I haven’t the time right now to go and search for it, so I’ll take your word for it. However, have you ever considered how far into the future it would be before such a weapon could realistically be fielded? The PLA is hard pressed to make enough DF31/DF31As and JL2s to meet the needs of the strategic forces, never mind making more for AShBM use.
What more, the limitations you have listed in your previous posts show just how far Chinese is from fielding a globally effective AShBM system.
I mean, what is there for the PLA to gain from trying to acquire such a system now or ever? The PLA could never hope to make enough missiles to truly have the ability to deny the USN the use of the oceans, and even if it could, what would be the point? China has no far away territories to defend apart from some islands in the South China sea. But those claims are not with the US, and the USN is very unlikely to get dragged into a shooting war down there, which in itself is very unlikely.
The new warhead technology might be used to improve the accuracy of the DF31 and JL2s and also make them better to dogging NMD interceptors, but to be frank, these missiles are too valuable to waste on mere warships.
Of course, there is also the before mentioned risks of such a weapon system triggering an arms race China could not win to present, and the launch of such weapons against ships being mistaken for a nuclear first strike.
The system may one day be expanded and upgraded into a global strike weapon, but THAT, is a really long time away. Much the same as a Chinese GPS, even though a local version is already up and running.
What you seem to be unable or unwilling to understand is that the Chinese have very different strategic interests and needs compared to the traditional great powers. At least for quite some time to come.
This kind of system should never be fielded that way, if it were to exist, anyhow!. There is little point engaging a US CVSG when it has already been allowed theatre entry and is poised to exploit various technologies and tactics to break in to positions where their striking power can be brought to bear. The value in such a system, as the one you are granting the PRC, is engagement of the carrier group prior to theatre-entry – anything else is ridiculous.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. When I was referring to ‘strike range’, I was talking about the strike range of the missile, not the US carriers. That is the significance of the DF21 being the missile used! It has too much range for Taiwan and too little for just about any other land based target worthy of such accuracy (not that there are many to start with anyways).
To be honest, apart from Taiwan, the US and maybe Japan, there is no other country that the PLA would need high accuracy missiles against. Russia is too vast, too power and too friendly with China to warrant such missiles. India can be countered effectively enough with conventional forces and current strategic weapons. There is no one else.
Such a missile would be wasted for Taiwan when DF15s could do, and don’t have the range for much of Japan let alone the US. Even just for testing, DF15 or other shorter ranged missiles could have been more suitable.
As clique as the saying goes, but a picture really does speak a thousand words. You just have to be willing and able to see them.
As stated wolf you aren’t talking about popping off Scuds here matey. You are firing full up strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. You’d better get used to the idea that doing that IS going to increase the risks of an unthinkable response if the PRC stays the course. That is just a simple inescapable fact.
True, but people tend to get more uptight when the missile being fired has the range to deliver a nuke on his head and his family’s heads. People tend to be able to keep their cool better when the missile they detected cannot hit their homeland, and presidents tend to want to wait and see what the warhead is before deciding the response in such cases.
Also, the remaining sentiment smacks of pettiness. B2s and B52s are also nuclear delivery assets, with the B2 far more threatening to everyone else every time they fly as no one can track them, know where they are going or what they are carrying until, potentially, a US nukes goes off somewhere. Does the US of the B2 increase the chances of an ‘unthinkable event’?
The carrier is a distinctive vessel on SAR at, perhaps, 3m resolution. As stated earlier, and for the umpteenth time, at that high a resolution the covered swath from a SAR satellite is not a deep one. Remember a CVBG can dig through the waves at 30knts…if your SAR strip is only 10km deep (@3m res) and your orbital interval is 90 minutes the carrier will be long gone on the second pass…sooooo….no tracking today thankyou!!!. That is IF you’ve been able to ident the carrier on the initial pass in the first place!!!
Its been a while since I used google earth, but IIRC, I was able to pick out things a lot smaller then a carrier at 3m.
Also, what you seem to refuse to acknowledge is he fact that the 90min OVs are only for sats doing global sweeps on standard orbits. In times of crisis, orbits can and will be changed to speed up update rates and on station times for areas of interest. Of course, you are also still working on the assumption that there will only be one sat out looking for this carrier. Add in a few more SAR sats and some EO sats in a interlocking search pattern and the odds suddenly get a hell of a lot shorter.
Unfortunately not…I am telling you where your wonderfully crafted fantasy comes apart. Where we are unable to determine the existence of a weapons system, for the usual OPSEC reasons, it is normal intel procedure to look for the kinds of supporting systems that would be necessary enablers for the successful employment of such a system. I’m sure Sean will back me up on that.
But you seem to have a pretty damn idealistic view of what kind of support system is needed to get such a system up and running, even if at a limited capacity. That, it seems from your post, is because you are dead set that any AShBM project is going to be some global strike superweapon designed to render all the world’s navies obsolete overnight and scare the living crap out of everyone and make China the new overlords of the world. Is that why you are also so adamant that such a weapon can’t exists? Because the consequences would be too grave to fathom if did?
Here we have your postulated AShBM but no sighting system to be able to leverage the weapons attributes. The Soviets at least had a fist at developing the means to target their long-range weapons with Legenda, it may not have worked particularly well, but they at least recognised that they needed all the components of the weapons system. That the PRC have decided against that model is unlikely….therefore there has to be a question over whether your analysis is realistic.
This is assuming that we have perfect data on all of the PRC’s activities, which we don’t. Just as the excuse, ‘well we don’t know that the PLA don’t have XXX because we have imperfect information so they might have if’ doesn’t count for much, the line ‘we don’t know the PLA has this so they definitely don’t have it’ can’t be entirely relied upon either. Especially when there is so much circumstantial evidence to the contrary.
We know that the PLA’s new gen AShMs are super long ranged cruise missiles. These have been fielded and are about as official as you can get without an actual sales pitch from the maker. There is ‘no evidence’ that the PLA has anything that can allow them to target that far out. Hell, using only assets we know the PLA has at present, we can’t even be sure that they have the ability to fire their current standard AShM (C803) at full range. Yet there they are, making AShMs with even greater range. How silly of them to only make longer ranged missiles when they have no means to take advantage of that range.
You’ve said its within their capabilities but not how – without resorting to SAR imagery which wont work. If you like check out the yanks SBR project for an idea on whats required for radar targetting from space. Spot the difference between that and what the PRC have lofted.
It is certainly with China’s ability to build and launch RORSATs or even make a carbon copy of whatever targeting gear they used for the ASAT test and then blast it all up into space and put all the pieces together up there. But I suspect they want to be a little more discreet then that.
Anyways, SAR could work. Also, most modern fighter radars have SAR modes, even many not so new models. And a RORSAT is basically just a search radar in space. I’m not familiar with the technical specifics, but surely it can’t be that hard to build a RORSAT mode into an SAR sat.
We know there are no Chinese RORSATs in orbit. All orbital launches are registered, even mil ones, and many optical systems the world over follow new satellites into orbit. There are rumblings that PRC has shown interest in aquiring Russian satellite ocean-recon technology but no-one knows if that is the technology from the current US-PM passive birds or the original US-A RORSATs. Given they are still in the technology aquisition phase of their satellite ocean recon program I think it safe to say you are underestimating the difficulty of the problem quite badly. They are years away from this!
There have been all sorts of rumours in the past about PLA interest in this Russian weapon and that that have all turned out to be nothing more then wishful thinking on the part of the makers of the systems in question. Given the recent advances in Chinese electronics and space technologies, i really doubt they would have much interest in Russian cold war relics expect for maybe a leasing deal to dissuade the Americans from thinking about using their own ASAT weapons on them.
Also, there is a set order in which a test programme has to run. Or do you wanna come up with a rational explanation for test firing a manoeuvring RV before you have any way to guide the thing? That would be akin to ‘testing’ a SARH AAM with no radar!
Onboard guidance???. So you are going to just fire the missile in the general direction of Taiwan and let the terminal seeker find the carrier group for you eh???. NOT very feasible wolf.
I was referring to terminal guidance. Fire the missiles at a set of GPS or BeiDou coordinates, and once within range, an onboard seeker would take over the terminal guidance. A bit like how a modern Pershing II might work.
Do you not understand that the solutions are completely different for the two types of weapon though wolf?. The technologies do not crossover. The solution for high energy controllability for an ASAT EKV is as far removed from a guided RV as it could be. Why would the ASAT EKV need to deal with atmospheric heating…it’s not going to undergo re-entry to catch a satellite is it?. Also the speed issue is a fallacy…yes the ASAT is travelling fast but so is its target so the relative speeds are not that high when the intercept paths are correlated.
An ASAT weapon still has to leave the atmosphere, which tend to generate a bit of heat so I’m told. And for targeting things in LEO, the weapon would not get much of a chance to cool down, thus an onboard seeker is going to have to be able to deal with a major heating problem. The nature of the test also meant that the ASAT weapon would have to be able to have the capability to make high precision course corrections during flight in order to hit such a small target so far away, as the alternative, that the PLA was able to make the perfect missile to perform the perfect shot is far less likely. Such mid-flight course correction abilities is exactly the kind of technology that can allow a missile to hit a moving target…
Also, maybe you need to check up on the details of the Chinese ASAT test. It was not a merge test but a full blown head-on intercept. The speeds involved are anything but negligible. The Chinese designed the test to be hard and succeeded, that was what shock so many people. Had the PLA just gently coasted a missile into a sat, no one would have batted an eyelash except maybe to roll their eyes at such a pointless endeavour.
Irrespective of what the target is there will still be a C3 backend to transit. Will PLA Artillery just blast away one of their precious DF-21’s on a rough sighting from a PLANAF search asset. As an analogy the RAF were livid, with the RN in 1982, for not mounting an immediate full SHAR surface attack when one of their Nimrods ‘identified’ the Argentine carrier for us to the North West of the islands. Couldnt understand why we didn’t just go tearing off after it. Later we dispatched a singleton SHAR and POSID’d the vessel as a merchantman merrily pootling along ignorant of how close to destrction it might have been. This is what I mean by ‘C3 backend’ and ‘detect-to-shoot cycle’. Its not as easy as seeing a blip on the scope and pushing a button ‘wolf….not in the real world!
That was back in 82, and the task force’s primary concern was to take the islands, not sink carriers. This is the 21st century. There have been pictures and videos that showed individual PLA soldiers with cameras giving a live feed to headquarters about targets. Also, the PLAN’s primary task would be the destruction of USN carriers if it came to that. What more, the people who are most likely to spot the carrier are intel specialists working at headquarters in front of a computer screen as opposed to some Y8 pilot who somehow managed to penetrate several layers of the defences of a USN battle group by accident. Apples and oranges mate.
Look at YF’s post about decoys and jammers and recall my comments on what the USN actually DID to the Soviets a couple of decades ago…then ask yourself if there really isnt a hell of a lot the carrier can do!.
Maybe a few decades ago, but USN equipment, training and tactics have not moved on much in regards to anti-space warfare since then. If the PLA did develop an AShBM system, then you can rest assured that they would have studied all USN countermeasures in obsessive detail and designed their system to specifically counter the USN’s known defences in that regard.
plawolfSo is Kanwa now actively embracing its slide away from anything resembling a reputable publication? Rarely have I seen an article from a specialist publication with so many mistakes and so much bias.
plawolfWould be interesting to know the thoughts of a pilot who has killed friendlies and “collatoral damage” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There was a cockpit vid from an US NG A10 pilot who also killed friendlies (also British) in Iraq knocking about on the net a few months back. It was quite moving as you can really tell that the guy was hurting bad after he realised what he had just done.
I got the vid off of the Sun newspaper’s website (british Sun), not sure if they still have it. Really brought home just how bloodly awful such incidents are for all concerned.
Thoughts are with all service personnel out there and their families and friends.
plawolfHang on Wolf you are shifting the goalposts here. We are talking about the feasibility of a PRC AShBM based on YOUR observations of a particular weapons launch. You are now trying to shift this to suggest that the whole system, as it stands, has been solely designed to kill the 7th Fleet and, as such, needs only local-targetting assets???. You are getting very specific detail just from a single photo here!.
I am genuinely confused mate. How exactly am I shifting the goal posts? Also, I would like to know how and when you got the impression that we were ever talking about anything other then a local weapons system.
The PLA has always had Taiwan as its No1 priority, the PLA lack true power projection capbilities and has a track record of developing and fielding a regional effective system ASAP, that might be later upgraded into something with a global impact (BeiDou being the prime example here).
What more, the picture is of DF21, which is a short range weapon, and I nor anyone else have ever even suggested that a PLA AShBM would be used at anything other then countering a USN fleet that tries to interfer with a war in the straits. I have always thought it was plainly obvious that we were only talking about a regional weapon.
I mean, not only does the PLA not need anything with longer range, it will be far more expensive to implement (both sensor and missile), have a very high probability of prompting the US into a ‘retalitory’ arms race, not to meantion the very real risk of a AShBM launch being mistaken for a nuclear strike etc. It simply makes little sense for the PLA to try for a globally effective AShBM, never mind attempt it before they even have a regional system up and running first.
Absolute garbage…of all the vessels in the circa 100,000k ton range in the waters between Malacca and San Diego maybe 1% would be US CVN’s but I, seriously, doubt it would be that high.
There you go, casting the net as wide as possible again to inflate the numbers.
Besides, the whole point for me to bring up software and processing speeds is to remind you just how easy it would be to design a basic image recongnition programme to filter those thousands of ships and background material to a give very small number of hits. A carrier has a very distinctive look that even a computer can easily distinguish. In this day and age, surely such a concept is not too hard to grasp?
US CVBG’s dont necessarily travel in tight, predictable, recognisable formations either and all you need do is talk to any merchie sailor, who’s familiar with those waters, to get the picture that a lot of vessels there sail in relatively close proximity to one another in and around the sealanes anyway….might be a bit difficult to distinguish a deliberate formation from a more circumstantial one….especially to a piece of image interpretation software!
That was just an example OTTOH, there are many dozens of fields one could easily come up with, and running multiple searchs using different combinations of critera could easily reduce the workload to something a small group or even an individual could manage within a reasonable time frame. And its not like China is lacking in manpower. Even if they took the bonehead approach and had several thousand people visually check every single ship carrier sized, the task could still be easily and quickly accomplished.
You are just making a big deal out of a small issue.
To put this in context SOSUS needed multiple networked Cray supercomputers to analyse the returns from seabed accoustic sensors and they provided a much less complex datastream for processing. Do you honestly think a high-end desktop could undertake a tougher challenge like image interpretation, and tracking, over many tens of thousands of square miles of surface area?
Accoustics is a different beast to image processing, especially when you are hunting for subs designed to be ultra quiet and to mimic natural background noise. If we were talking about trying to find next gen stealthying warships, then that would be more in the accoustics ball park. Using advanced software, it would be possible to automatically filter out huge chunks of data with fairly basic scans and allow the processor to focus on the ‘interesting bits’. Although I admit I was going too far with that desktop suggestion, but that is beside the point since the PRC would easily have the hardware needed for such a task.
Based on what?. The orbital interval of a RORSAT was about 90 minutes…its orbital pathway gave it total surface coverage every 111 revolutions i.e it would return to its present position after 111 passes around the earth. Do the maths will you. Its radar covered a swath of surface about 250nm deep at a resolution sufficient to pick out a CVN in moderate environmental conditions. If the computer couldnt definitely identify the target as a CVN, sufficient to justify moving the satellite’s orbit, the RORSAT would be a long while coming back to check it again. By which time the carrier group is long gone!. This was a game the US Navy played in the late 70’s and early 80’s and won a LOT of the time and that is not theory or extrapolation….it is cast-iron fact!
Yeah, but thats we 70s and 80s tech, and also playing to the USN’s advanatge by being a global game. In a regional environment in the 21st century, its not quite that simple.
Modern SAR work in all weather, and could potential have a far wider scan coverage, although there is no data availble on the scan area of the new Chinese SAR sats. What more, the orbits of sats could be adjusted so that it does not spend equal amounts of time covering everywhere, thus allowing it more time on station in a desired area.
Again what has Taiwan got to do with this. Are you suggesting that the PRC is going to the lengths of developing this AShBM just for the Taiwan issue???
Primarily, yes. Although the technology is unlikely to have been developed exclusively for AShBM from the start, and is likely a spin-off and collection and sharing of technologies and systems from a number of other projects.
You don’t seem to realise just how important Taiwan is to the PRC and PLA, and also seem to overestimate the desire of the PLA to challenge the US at present or in the near future. The PLA is only gearing up to take on the US because of Taiwan, and even then only ever in a regional context.
No I am talking about the development of an antiship ballistic missile and what it would take to achieve it. You seem to be intent on talking about Taiwan. So if I get this straight in your mind this weapon is being developed to target anything with about 500nm’s radius of Taiwan and thats it right?. Nothing to make the US nervous enough about to trigger an arms-race….yet its sole use would be to….hit….US CVN’s. OK. Think I understand where you are going with this!?.
Is that irony or sarcasum? And yes, it is what I am saying, although the weapon system will also have many other applications like just hitting hardened ground targets etc.
As I have explained before, the PLA is gearing up to fight the USN because and only because of the possibility that the US would be unable to resist sticking its nose in if things ever get out of hand acorss the straits.
The primary goal is try and convince the Americans that they do not want a piece of the trouble brewing across the starits. Without direct US military intervention, it would be merely a question of how much it would cost the PLA to take Taiwan, the ultimate result would be beyound doubt. What more, if it becomes clear that the Americans would be unwilling to fight and die for Taiwan’s independence, those pushing for independence would loose favour and the emphysis would shift to how to reunite with the mainland under the most favourable terms for Taiwan. If you haven’t joined the dots yet, the above is just an extention of ‘winning without having to fight’ from The Art of War, and the PLA are big on The Art of War.
The fact that the weapons, technology and human resources developed in preperation for war against the US over Taiwan would have far reaching and long term benefits for the PLA is just a very welcome bonus. But it would only be a bonus. The PRC and PLA tend to take a far longer term view of things then those in the west. Might have something to do with the far longer terms Chinese leaders enjoy, but I digress.
Anyways, the PRC is in no hurry to challenge the US, and if it wasn’t for Taiwan, the speed and pace of the PLA’s modernisation would be far slower, with a far greater emphysis on experimenting, testing, rearch, developmentetc and a lot less of actual purchases of new military equipment. For example, the PLA would never have ordered Russian arms in such huge quantities. It would simply have bought the smallest batch it could get away with and the RE the stuff later. The pace of replacement of obsolete equipment and everything else the PLA has done in the last decade or more to try and make itself into a capable modern military force would be far behind where it is now.
OK you cannot target off a SAR imaging satellite ok…trust me on this. At anywhere near a decent resolution a SAR bird has a strip depth of about 25 miles!. For a resolution of 3m or so – to get a halfway fair shot at an identification – it’d be a LOT less than 25nm too but I’ll let that go for ease of calculation!. The nuclear-powered Soviet US-A series RORSAT could manage 250nm’s depth with the resolution, perhaps, of picking out a 10k ton escort if the conditions were good enough. Rough sea state and forget getting a hit on a CVN – CIA’s estimate not mine!. Say your SAR bird has an equivalent orbital interval of 90 minutes then covering the equivalent path of a single RORSAT path is going to take 900 minutes (15hrs!). At 20knts a US CVBG is 300nm away from its initial datum point in 15hrs!
Thats all fair and good, if we were playing a global game with only one SAR searching for the carrier that was circling the globe in a standard orbit. I have already listed a few examples of how things would be different in a regional scenario above. But you do make a good point about targeting.
It would depend on how the missile is targeted, with either on-board sensors, off-board or a mix. The ASAT weapon was likely to have been guided with off-board gear. If the PLA used the same set up for an ASBM, then they would need to get a targeting system up in orbit. But as I have already pointed out before, such a feat is well within the capabilities of the PRC.
We do not know if such a system is already up in orbit, but it seems likely since the PLA has at the very least already started tests on a terminally guided ASBM. But even if they do not already have such a system in place, it would not take long for them to get one up there if they so wished. Certainly not the kind of timeframe you were suggesting.
If the missile uses onboard guidence, then it would be an even easier and quicker transition.
Also, keep in mind the fact that volume search would only be necessary when you are first looking for a carrier (provided you don’t already know where it will set off from, in which case, the task get even easier). Once you have found it once, it will be a much easier task to keep track of it by repositioning your sats to keep an eye on it for as long as possible.
If you want to theatre target you want a RORSAT!
Want and need are two different things. Everyone wants the best, but most can usualy made do with something cheaper and less fancy.
Yes but what is the point you are making?. The two technologies are only tenuously related at best. An ASAT test has no bearing, technologically speaking, on an antiship ballistic RV whatsoever!
I disagree. Both would have to deal with the heating problems from atmospheric transition, both need very good agility and controlability, especially an ASAT weapon, to hit their targets, and both need to effectively deal with the extreme speeds the weapons would be traveling at, just to list a few things OTTOMH. Those are the key bottlenecks to a viable, guided high accuracy ASBM. Such a weapon with a good enough CEP could easily be capable of an anti-shipping mission.
Just to further clarify, I am not saying the the PLA will be using an ASAT warhead to try and hit something on the earth, however, the technologies that the PRC would needed to have mastered to develop an ASAT weapon such as the one they successfully tested are also very similar to what one needs to design a high accuracy, terminally guided ASBM. The photo of the DF21 mod is evidence that such a fact have not escaped the notice of the PLA.
Again what are you basing that statement on?. The only thing they have in common is that both sit on top of a booster stage!.
See above.
No. Based on a less than adequate knowledge of space-based sensors you have had a guess at a method of tracking and targetting a carrier sized ship. Your ballistic missile strike may only take a few minutes in the launch to impact cycle, but, that is not the key time value here. The important factor is the detect-to-shoot cycle time. That is the time taken from the initial detect and identification of the target for it to get back to the shooting authority controlling the notional AShBM. As I understand it that would be a PLANAF/PLAAF search asset getting data back through to a PLA Heavy Artillery command net. Very much not as simple as ‘see a blip – push a button’. The detect-to-shoot cycle time or the time taken by the system ‘backend’ is crucial as, once detected, the target ship will be doing everything possible to get out of the crosshairs.
No, what you are doing is again setting the bar deliberately higher then reasonable. We are talking about carriers here! Not your average battlefield tank. Such targets get special attention. What you are suggesting is akin to arguing that the USA military would take the same length of time to react to the discovery of Bin Ladden’s hiding hole as it would to spotting an IED factory.
If the PLA finds a USN carrier within strike range during a shooting war over Taiwan, it will not be business as usual, it would be, ‘everyone who we need drop whatever you are doing and devote 110% of your attention to this target right this second!’. Everything else can wait until that carrier has been delt with.
What more, that carrier is unlikely to know it has been targeted, and even if it did know, there isn’t a hell of a lot it can do anyways.
A-ha so we really should be worried about the phaser guns and photon torpedoes that the PRC have’nt been admitting to having either eh wolf!!!
I must say I expected better form you. I have always conciously avoided using the PLA’s secrecy as the primary thrust of an argument, just as I detest the lazy arguments some dish out that something isn’t confirmed till the PLA offically states it is.
If you really can’t tell the difference between an attempt to draw a conclusion from what little infomation there is available to someone spinning tales and using the PLA’s secercy as an excuse, then so be it.
plawolf…and I have pointed out as many times that an imaging satellite, be it radar or optical, is NOT a search/track asset.
What you are suggesting wolf is that PRC’s imaging satellites scan every square foot of open blue water from, what, Camh Ranh Bay to San Diego continually, without break, so that image interpretation software can, possibly, identify something that is aircraft carrier sized, amidst all the other aircraft carrier sized vessels out there, and follow it as it goes on its merry way.
It is you who are imposing such requirements.
Firstly, there is absolutely no need for the PRC to try and keep track of every USN carrier in the entire pacific. Realistically, all they need to do is to monitor the area from which a carrier might be able to launch offensive operations or a little further out. That is a much smaller area. If we are working from the premise that the US is forced to respond to a PRC suprise attack, then the primary tracking target would be the Kitty Hawk and its successor, since it would be the only US asset that can respond within a few weeks or even months.
Also, there are very few (relatively) super carrier sized ships out there, and even fewer that travel in tight formations with many other destroyer sized ships outside of standard shipping lanes. With a few fairly simple programmes, even a decent desktop could probably handle the calculations needed to narrow the number of hits to a manageble level.
What more, as soon as a carrier has been spotted, the search area shrinks exponentially, and it would not be that hard to keep a general idea of where it is. Then, assets could be focused on to it if and when it comes within strike range to provide the kind of real-time targeting info that would be needed.
That is just a very basic concept that can easily be implemented with the assets the PRC has and commerically available hardware. It might not be very efficient, or all that reliable, but it can work. That is the big distinction between defensive and offensive ops. For defence, you need to be able to stop every attack, whereas for offensive, you only need to crack the enemy’s defences once.
Do you realise what you are suggesting there?. Do you realise just how many satellites would be required to provide seamless cover over that amount of sea-space at a resolution necessary to provide identification?. Do you realise how much processing power would be required to go through that amount of imagery, on a continual basis, to try and keep a fix on every vessel that could possibly be an aircraft carrier in realtime?
The PRCs immediate goal is not to take control of the pacific from the USN, just have a credible capacity to take out USN carriers that might come to the aid of Taiwan.
You are setting the bar far too high. With the kind of setup you are suggesting, the PLA would be able to strike at any USN carrier in he entire pacific and have a decent kill ratio to boot. That is a capacity that is going to cost a pile of money and also give the USN the kick up the butt it needs to charge headlong into a new cold war-esq arms race, and that is something China desperately want to avoid.
Like I said the search and track function is that assigned to a RORSAT – essentially a spaced based surface search radar. You use the SAR bird for spot/strip coverage to identify what your RORSAT detects. As I said, again, right now, today, no-one has a recognised RORSAT orbitted and usually people can spot them because the big radar bolted on the side is a dead giveaway!
RORSATs are nice, but not a necessity, especially for what the PLA needs right now.
Hang on you are bringing an ASAT test into a debate about hitting a moving target with an RV and I am the one fudging the issue?. Why are you even discussing RV’s in terms of ASAT tests???. RV stands for Re-entry Vehicle. Hitting a satellite target in orbit hardly demands the use of a re-entry vehicle!!!
Come on mate, use your imagination a little. Is it easier or harder to maneuver in space or atomasphere? In space, there is no air and you are relying entirely on thrusters, whereas an RV can also make use of fins, which would give you far more control.
Also, the ASAT test demonstrates an astonishingly high degree of accuracy on the part of the deliverly missile to start with, since thrusters will only move you so far in the time given.
The technology needed to develop an ASAT warhead is not that different from what you need to make MRVs.
Oh does it?. How exactly is an exo-atmospheric kill vehicle of the type employed in an ASAT weapon in any way analagous to a manoevering re-entry vehicle???. Hopefully not just because it sits atop a booster stage and can manoever in its terminal phase?!!!. By that token the yanks must have a veritable panoply of antiship ballistic weapons after Brilliant Pebbles, EKV etc!!!.
Had the yanks been interested, I have no doubt they would have feilded an antiship ballistic missile decades ago. The Pershing II already had far more accuarcy then it was needed to kill ships with a small nuclear warhead, and had it been improved upon in the decades since, it would undoubtably be able to hit and kill ships far smaller then carriers with only conventional warheads.
The US never went down that road because it was not worth their while. The soviets never had anything worthy of such a weapon until the very end of the cold war, and even then the US already had multiple other very reliable means to kill any soviet surface ship it wanted.
The Americans had all the building blocks they needed to make an AShBM, just like they could have easily made supersonic AShMs. The fact that they had different priorities does not mean it is undoable or that the yanks should have done it long ago.
In space yes. Bit easier to search large sections of sky for a target moving on a known, predicatable, orbital path than it is to search the ocean, from space, when you dont have a wide-area search system up there!. Again just because an ASAT EKV is able to hit a satellite target has no relevence of any kind on whether or not a MARV can hit a ship target close aboard enough to not require a nuke payload.
So what are you trying to say here? That it is hard to find a ship on earth or are you disputing whether a weapon will have the accuracy to hit a ship?
As I have already pointed out above, it is perfectly possible to find, track and target a carrier sized ship with current assets and technology. It will not be easy or comprehensive, but it would be enough to co-ordinate strikes with. Especially ballistic missile strikes that will only take a matter of minutes form launch to hit.
If you are disputing the accuracy of a MRE, well that is fair enough, but we already know that the Pershing II was able to be accurate within 25m, and that was a missile that enter service how many decades ago?
Even if the PLA was unable to surpass that accuracy, it will still give them far more then what is needed for a proximity fused weapon that will seriously degrade the offensive and defensive capacity of a carrier battle group, and would greatly increase the effectiveness of conventional antiship weapons.
Which is a very eloquent way of saying you dont really know anything…something I wholeheartedly concur with you on. Despite this fact that you dont know anything definitive and cannot explain the absence of a wide-area search system to enable the use of the weapon system you advocate you still are quite willing to believe in its existence. Remarkable.
The thing with the PLA is that you never really know much to be 100% accuracte until the PLA decides to tell you, which is usually months, years or even decades after they have feilded the thing, if ever.
If you want to set unreasonable burdens of proof, then you can rule out 90% of the PLA’s newest stuff, and live in the happy wonderland the PLA has gone to such lengths to try and create for you.
What is remarkable is that even people like you still demand a level of proof that would be hard to come by even with western militarys when dealing with the PLA, and then act as if they have made some kind of point when people are unable or unwilling to meet those requirements. It is really suprising.:(
I am truly happy you feel like that. Personally I’ll stick with my own analysis happy in the knowledge its the same conclusion Norman Friedman came up with. That a guided antiship RV would take advantage of a gap in current naval area-SAM systems…but that no such weapon exists or, at present, could be practically employed. Also that such threats are now visible to most advanced navies and that technology to counter the threat is under development and, in certain cases, nearly fielded!.
If you like lots of unpleasant suprises all the time, then that is certainly the way to go. Just look at the past history of western PLA watchers. For everything they get right, there are two they get wrong or just plainly don’t see coming until pictures of an operational example suddenly pops up on the Chinese net.
One really would have hoped that people who are intellegent like you would have learned that the PLA is a completely different beast compared to all other militaries, thus one needs to apply a different set of rules when dealing with them. Sure, you are likely yo make more mistakes when trying to predict the current and future developments of the PLA. But if you play it safe, you are gaurenteed to be many years behind the curve. Your choice.
plawolfIs this still going on?. Unbelieveable.
The pertinent facts here have been well covered it seems though. People are claiming that the PLA has some form of AShBM capability in utter ignorance of the fact that no wide-area blue-water targetting system exists anywhere on or over the planet – in anyones inventory.
Sean mentioned RORSATs as targetting platforms for AShBMs…that would be fine but, as of right now, there are precisely no RORSATs in orbit. The Russians have a maritime-recce tasked EOSAT which has, I believe, a fairly low powered search set bolted to it, but, this is a far different proposition from a full-powered RORSAT. Several nations have radar-imaging birds lofted and more have EO imaging birds up – neither of these are wide-area search/track assets though.
That is only one aspect of the backend system that would need to be in place to coordinate the engagement cycle of an AShBM though and, to be honest, I agree with Norman Friedman here. The PLA are a long way away from having the C3I to take this kind of shot. ASAT tests are utterly irrelevent here as its a lot, lot easier to spot a target satellite as it comes over the horizon so lets not have that back in fudging the issue either.
It is undeniable that, right now, a descending RV would be a hard target to engage for today’s AEGIS/APAR/PAAMs ships and such a weapon, if it existed as part of a full-up integrated anti-ship system, would be remarkably valuable in the short-term. The problem is that its science-fiction now as, quite simply, no-one yet has managed to hit a moving target with a strategic size RV from a ballistic launcher. Then, by the time it is realised and the wide-aspect targetting issues have been addressed, anti-TBM capability will be baseline on any competent AAW ship. So once again, as with the salutory lessons Moskit taught everyone, people will be making the ludicrous error of developing weapons system along the lines of already-defeated technology. Remarkable really how some like to steadfastly cling to such things.
I have already provided you with a link on Chinese SAR sats that have been confirmed to be operational in orbit. These things are far more capable and sophisticated then previous RORSATs, and with today’s computer and software, it will be a relatively easy task to have an automated system that can flag items of interest for human analysts to confirm.
You are also fudging the issue by first dismissing the ASAT test as irrelevant and then bring in the issue of being able to hit a moving target with a RV, which basically boils down to the issue of weapon accuracy.
The ASAT tests gives a tangible and measurable indication of the kind of accuracy Chinese strategic weapons now have. Obviously it might not be directly transferable onto land based targeting for various reasons, but it gives a good ‘in the ball park’ idea of the likely accuracy of such a weapon used on surface targets.
Thus, you have the issues of volume search and missile accuracy resolved. The only question mark remaining is targeting, and that depends on the methods used for targeting during the ASAT test, which is information we are unlikely to get. But it is quite possible that it was off-board because of the speed of the missile and the size of the sensor (and hence range) you could fit into the nosecone. But on-board guidance is still a perfectly viable option as we have the past precedent of the Pershing II.
Thus, the main obstacle remaining to a functional AShBM weapon might be a space based targeting system. Such a system would not be out of China’s ability to construct, since they have already mastered orbital docking, so even if they cannot minimize the equipment enough to fit on one Long March rocket, they can send it up in pieces and assemble it in space.
If the weapon is self guiding, then it will be an even easier transition.
We also have the hard evidence of a PLA SRBM with what looks like a MRV being fired. Which is a good indication of how far the project has progressed. And may also be circumstantial evidence that the PLA has resolved the targeting issue. But with all things PLA related, no one can be absolutely sure.
The kind of definitive evidence you seem to seek will be unlikely to surface until decades later at best, or during a real conflict. To dismiss the possibility of a functional Chinese AShBM out of hand as you have is to court disaster, and if the USN wants to do that, then frankly, its fine by me.
plawolf“The Gripen would have been a better choice on account of its short take-off and landing capabilities, and there would still be a lot of spares commonality as it uses the same engine as the F16”
No, it does not!
Gripen: RM12 (license-built GE F404); 12,140 lb.s.t. (18,100 lb.s.t. with afterburner)
F-16: Pratt & Whitney F100-200/220 (A/B/C/D); 14,670 lb.s.t. (23,830 lb.s.t. with afterburner) [later models with more powerful engines, either Pratt & Whitney F100-229 or General Electric F110]
F-16/79: export model proposed in the 1980s (to kill off the F-20) General Electric J79-119; 12,050 lb.s.t. (18,725 lb.s.t. with afterburner at sea level [Full AB at Mach 2.0/35,000ft = 20,840 with “Combat Plus” engaged])
J79 is a turbojet designed in the late 1950s, F100 is a turbofan designed in the late 1960s, F404 is a turbofan designed in the late 1970s.
You are right! My bad.
Always knew the Gripen used an American engine and somehow got the impression it was the F100 or F110. This should mean that there is much scope for improvement of the Gripen design. What engine is the Gripen N using do you know by any chance?
plawolfThe new F-16s are for replacing the trouble prone F-5s now and possibly the Mirage 2000-5 in the near future. Its a logical choice given the fact that F-35 won’t be operational any time soon.
Interesting fact is Taiwan was looking into getting some Harriers so SVTOL maybe high on the list but delayed due to the lack of a suitable candidate.
A better buy for Taiwan as opposed to the Aegis would be more La fayettes en mass to reduce the per unit price. They are already familliar with the ship plus Taiwan have the choice of fitting domestic AShM as opposed to expensive imports.
The Gripen would have been a better choice on account of its short take-off and landing capabilities, and there would still be a lot of spares commonality as it uses the same engine as the F16, but that would never have been a realistic choice on account of politics.
Its the same with the La Fayettes. The French are not going to sell more arms to Taiwan anytime soon. Besides, the La Fayette would be next to useless in any war anyways. I mean what are they going to do? Sit in the middle of the straits and try to force the PLAN to come to battle?
In my view, the entire current ROCN is a waste of space. The strait is far too narrow to have any chance of the navy being about to form an additional defensive line. If any ships tries to, it will just get swamped with a $hitload of AShMs and killed in pretty quick order. There is zero scope for the navy to do anything useful unless you get some carriers for them to protect.
If Taiwan get some Aegis DDGs, then they can sit on the east side of Taiwan and help direct the air campaign. The ships radar can fill the role of AWACS to a degree, and its SM2s can help out the SAMs. If the PLA wants to kill the Aegis ships, they are either going to have to fly through Taiwan or go around it, which presents major problems either way. After that, it will have to face and best the Aegis’ defenses, making them pretty hard targets.
plawolfThat does sort of ignore the fact that the shorter range ballistic missiles are easier to intercept with other missiles. In particular, the PAC-3, and probably SM-2s, would be used against such targets. It is not very accurate to say that this is a flaw of the SM-3 – that’s like saying that the AMRAAM is flawed because its not very effective at gun range… Different horses for different courses! :diablo:
Something no one seem to be taking note of is the operational environment that these Aegis DDGs are supposed to be operating in.
For optimal effect, the DDGs would have to be somewhere in the straits in order to get a decent chance to intercept any SRBMs. The problem with that scenario is that PLA AShMs have ranges well in excess of the width of the straits, and its not like these DDGs are likely to be hard to spot and target at those ranges.
You place the DDGs in the straits and they are as good as dead, and they will be unlikely to have played any meaningful role before they got vaporised. You put them on the other side of the island and their missile defense capacities would be greatly reduced since they would not be able to intercept the incoming missiles at the flight stage the missiles were designed for.
If Taiwan gets the Aegis, it will not be for its SM3 capacity, but rather its radar and C&C gear, to allow them to have a powerful and surviverable sensor and command platform that could help to direct the war effort in the very likely scenario that all fixed land based sensor and command instillations would have been destroyed or badly degraded in the opening stages of a war with China.
Having a carrier, even a small one with STOVL F35s would also greatly enhance Taiwan’s defensive capabilities as it would allow them to retain an air force for longer, and could potentially force the PLA to have to come out and hunt down the carrier or risk heavy losses to the invasion force, which = delay.
Taiwan’s Achilles’ heal is its total lack of strategic depth, meaning nowhere is safe from attack. A carrier or two would give them that much needed breathing room and also make the odds of a successful PLA surprise attack longer since the PLA can’t be sure of being able to kill the carriers in the opening stages of a war.
If I was in charge of Taiwan’s defenses, a carrier or two would be high on my wish list, even higher then F16s or any other non-STOVL land based plane because those planes are worse then useless without runways to operate from.
Anyways, to recap, I think that Taiwan’s military is starting to accept the changing balance of power and are realizing that it is futile to try and match the PLA like for like. Especially in things like missile defense, as it is almost certainly going to be more expansive to defend against missiles then it is to attack with them = a hopeless situation for Taiwan.
If they are seriously considering Aegis, then it should be about long term game plan as opposed to an all-or-nothing gamble at the start of a war. The idea should be to maintain a functional defense for as long as possible and hope the US decide to get involve and can do so in time as opposed to trying to stop every single one of the PLA’s hundreds if not thousands of SRBMs that are going to be fired at Taiwan in the event of war.
plawolfAh, the ‘old maps’ defence.
The same ones that China tried to use to say that all of the Spratley’s / Paracels were Chinese territorial waters, up to 12 nautical miles from the coasts of several other soverign nations.
And since when was proximity ever a recognized way to decide sovereignty? Or do you think the Falklands are closer to England the Argentina? :rolleyes:
That one was so laughable that the Chinese never tried to push that into international jurisprudence, knowing they would lose.
You have any sources to back up these claims you are pulling out of nowhere? Seems anything and everything you disagree with are laughable, so excuse me if I don’t take you ‘unbiased’ opinion at face value.
That’s like saying that as ancient Spanish maps said that anything ‘beyond the line’ belonged to Spain, the US, Canada, Mexico and the nations of Central and South America are vassels of Spain.
Sorry mate, you need to do better than that.
Unicorn
Thats just a sad and transparent attempt to distort facts. The Chinese maps are nothing like those Spanish maps you speak of. They are different in some many ways anyone with a working brain would be able to easily tell that, and I feel it would merely be a waste of time to list them since you clearly do not care about facts that do not fit with your skewed view of the world and reality.
plawolfChina did not rule Tibet, any more than it ruled Korea – which it also considered a tributary state – before the Japanese conquest. China also claimed Japan & Ryukyu as tributary states, without anything except an occasional embassy from them to give substance to the claim, & got quite testy about Vietnams refusal to act like a proper subordinate.
You’re using inappropriate language, for concepts which you don’t appear to understand. There have long been many intermediate stages between independence & being part of a country. Recently, a somewhat artificial notion of absolute sovereignty has become generally accepted, though even now it is clearly false in many cases, but back then older arrangements were still commonplace, e.g. the idea of a state being a separate state, but having externally imposed limits on its sovereignty. It could be fully involuntary, fully voluntary, or somewhere in between. In the case of Tibet, I think it was largely involuntary, but the Tibetans saw some advantages in it, e.g. the ability to use China as a buffer against foreign states they wanted nothing to do with.
In Bolivia, I saw maps showing some very interesting borders, I’ve seen Pakistani maps showing all of Kashmir as part of Pakistan, Afghan maps showing the North West Frontier Province & much of Baluchistan as part of Afghanistan – I could go on and on. Never heard of propaganda? Maps as propaganda have a long & ignoble history.
No, it is you who do not seem to understand. Ancient Chinese maps were not created for propaganda but reference. Maps are one of the very few things that do not lie, especially old ones.
There is concrete documented evidence that Tibet was under Chinese rule as early as the Yuan Dynasty. There was then a great deal of shifts in the boarders as was common with ancient times, and Chinese rule of Tibet did slip in the Ming Dynasty, but was restored in the Qing Dynasty.
And we are not talking about a mere tributary state, since the likes of Vietnam, Laos, Thailand etc were all No, it is you who do not seem to understand. Ancient Chinese maps were not created for propaganda but reference. Maps are one of the very few things that do not lie, especially only ones.
There is concrete documented evidence that Tibet was under Chinese rule as early as the Yuan Dynasty. There was then a great deal of shifts in the boarders as was common with ancient times, and Chinese rule of Tibet did slip in the Ming Dynasty, but was restored in the Qing Dynasty.
And we are not talking about a mere tributary state, since the likes of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand etc were all tributary states but were never included on maps of China unless they had been conquered at the time, and also disappeared off of maps when they broke free.
I have also yet to see any evidence of this rosy view you seem to have that suggested that Tibetans cared about who ruled them. To the vast majority of people, they really couldn’t care less unless you want to tax them more.
You use the language of imperialism & authoritarianism. “Owned”. “Robbed”. How can you “own” a whole country? Never heard of self-determination? What about democracy? Not that Tibet was at all democratic, but I doubt you would have been able to find a significant number of Tibetans who thought it part of China or wanted to be ruled from China.
And that is just nit picking. Governments own land and everything attached to it. People might hold deeds, but those deeds have limits and are nothing more then permanent usage rights as opposed to rule ownership like sovereign states enjoy. They also ‘own’ the people to some degree, its called taxes and nationality. That is obviously different from how someone might own property, but I fail to see what the big deal is.
Self-determination is also a relatively new concept to the world stage, much like your absolute sovereignty. Self-determination also becomes a hopelessly flawed concept if you allow people the right to choose to declare independence, especially with land they hold deeds to (although in a way, people could already break away by themselves if they wish, its call immigration, but its the breaking away with land part that is stupid).
If people had the legal right to declare independence at will, a murderer would do so to avoid paying for his crimes, and the lucky farmer who discovers oil under his land could choose to break away and avoid the pesky taxes. The drug dealer could make his back garden into a poppy plantation and his kitchen a drugs lab…Civilization would grind to a halt and nations would dissolve and devolve. Civilization as we know it is based on scale economies, and all nations have a vest interest to maintain that scale.
Self-determination has is an artificial creation, and is more an individual human right within the context of national and international laws and designed to counter slavery as opposed to some god given right to decide you want to be the king of your own little empire.
Democracy also works within national limits, where all citizens must be consulted instead of the mere minority who wants something. Thats why the rich don’t get to vote to opt out of national health programmes unless the nation as a whole agrees, and why other countries that are facing a similar split along ethnic and demographic lines also demand full national participation, like in Quebec and Kashmir.
What you are suggestion is not only not in keeping with international laws, but is also plain impractical. Any nation that go as far as what you suggest would more then likely crumble along any and all ethnical/religious/whatever fault lines before long unless it was a tiny, homogeneous nation to begin with.
I must say I expected better from you. You have merely allowed your emotions to cloud your better judgment and taken individual liberties to the limits of practicability and beyond.
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