savage-rabbitIt can be only a mistake.
The USAF did some in Iraq, why not the Ivory AF.
Hmmm… Iraq?? The mighty USAF makes these mistakes in more places than just Iraq 😮 Thankfully nobody was hurt this time. 🙂
I would be surprised if the Ivory coast wanted to deliberately pick a fight with France of all countries, a pesky neighbor perhaps but not France they’d have to be insane. This has to be a Blue on Blue type incident, either that or the Su-25 pilot has some serious problems.
savage-rabbit“To influence” the GPS service will not done without warning first. An artificial error of ~ +/- 100 m will not harm civil traffic for a limited period. When it becomes for most militiary applications unriable. The question was about different frequencies for civil and military users, when the optimal value is limited for one side only.
If I recall correctly the threat levelled by the US negotiators was ‘irreversible action’ which does not sound like introducing artificial signal distortion. The discussion has therefore revolved around practical ways for ‘taking out’ ie. destroying a GPS type network. That would have siginficant consequences since if it has been converted to space debri a GPS satilite is equally useless to civillian or military.
The USA will force Europe by “kill-threat” , to accept an unconditional vote in time of crisis.
I deeply doubt the US would ever shoot down Galileo satilites (Asuming they have the capability) or even issue seriously intended high level threats (as in Whitehouse or Pentagon) to that effect simply because cross-atlantic relations would never degrade to that point. The dude who made that ‘irreversible action’ threat was not a very high ranking official. If the USA ever rediscovers the lost art of American Diplomacy and asks rather than orders them to degrade the Galileo signal in times of chrisis I should think the Europeans would not hesitate to do the USA that favor.
savage-rabbitDestroying GPS satellites in MEO will be costly – agree!
Destroying GPS satellites in MEO will be technologically challenging – agree!
Personally I’d try to hack the ground command link they use to reconfigure the satelites,update the system software,…. etc. to crash the satilites by deliberately damaging vital onboard hardware before I ever tried shooting them down.
Destroying GPS satellites in MEO will be “riskey” – in what sense?
Well just to cite one example think of all the oiltankers, cargoships, pasengerliners, airliners, cargoaircraft … (list goes on) that also rely on this service. You can not just shoot down 8-10 Galileo satilites to deny, say, North Korea use of them and expect (to name just one little example) airtraffic in Thailand, China, Vietnam or Japan that perhaps would also be relying upon Galileo for navigation to remain unaffected. Just the effecst on commerce in the region would be immense.
savage-rabbitAs for Dis’ disagreement 😀 with the EuroGPS: i’m sorry, but monopolising certain certain technical items like GPS is nonsense. The US has been bitching for years that Europe lacks a decent defense C4I infrastructure, yet now Europe should be denied a key part of a decent defense C4I infrastructure?
I think that when US Diplomats and Politicians made those statements the idea was not so much that the European allies develop their own independent capability. Washington’s vision was that they would buy off the shelf US made options. It is much the same with conventional arms. The USA is constantly (and correctly) criticizing nations in Europe for not being sufficiently armed yet she is not at all pleased when they do decide to arm up and buy (Just for example) Gripens rather than F-16’s (and yes I know it contains 20% US parts, that is still better than 100% for the F-16). The reason is of course that controlling the source of thechnology/arms equals political control. You will not go off invading your neighbor until you have made damn bloody sure your supply of F-16 parts, Paveway bombs and AIM-120’s is secure and that the GPS system in your region will not develop annoying accuracy issues alluvasudden. With self sufficiency in the supply aircraft/BVR/WVR/LGB/Tanks/Subs etc… and now its own Global Navigation system Europe becomes more of a wildcard.
savage-rabbitAn alert AWACs will have its own fighters intercept you before you can have a chance to fire KS-172s.
That is not a given. During various exercises (Maple Flag etc.) the Americans have ‘lost’ their AWACS aircraft to opposing fighters packing only heatseakers and and medium range BVR missiles. These realistic “multi-bogey” exercise enviroments are about the closest thing you are going to get to actual armed combat. AWACS aircraft are far from invulnerable, even when escorted and their loss can be rated as catastrophic given their expense and the extent to which modern air forces rely upon them
savage-rabbitCheck out Advanced Technologies Group Skycat design, military uses range from cargo carriers to arsenal ships.
A key feature of this design is the twin air cushion landing gear which can be reversed to “suck” the airship to the ground, greatly improving ground handling, the biggest weakness to airship operation.
IIRC, when they covered this thing on the Discovery Channel, they claimed the Pentagon had sunk some money into the project.
savage-rabbitThere are proyects of military use of zeppelines????, i read about an russian cargo “thermoplane” an american proyects, its practical??? there posibilities of modern use????
No military applications that I know of, at least not for the Zeppelins (By that I mean the :Dreal ones:D from Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH afaik. they are still in business). I used to see the Zeppelin NT rigid buzzing around over Munich while I still lived there a couple of years back. At the time they were concentrating on building small ships for pleasure tours, scenic flights, use as Television/Movie camera platforms etc. An airship with a crew can stay airborne for days, even weeks and if the airship is a UAV it could stay airborne for years. The military applications that spring to mind would be patrol/surveillance/elint. The Americans have been tinkering around with teathered balloons for use in similar roles including AEW. The Egyptians also used barrage balloons (not exactly airships but it is a military application) to protect their airbases in 1973, apparenty with some effect. If you make them big enough airships could also be useful for the military to haul bulky cargo to remote, hard to get to locations like Cargolifter was planning to do before they went bankrupt and their airship hall was turned into a cheesy ‘Tropical paradise’. An airship would have to stay away from combat zones which would limit its usefulness although shooting down a Helium filled Zeppelin rigid should pose some very interesting problems, even for an F-22 pilot with all his spaceage electronics 😀
savage-rabbitHere are some vital stats for the aircraft we have been debating. The list is not complete and I am no F-16 expert so feel free to point out things I doubltess left out or got wrong. Perhaps we can use this as a starting point for comparisons? I don’t want to seem to be going off topic here but it seems to me we can use the F-16 as a benchmark to try and estimate the caliber of the J-10 and FC-1 based on the currently limited information available about the latter two.
F-16 Block 25 these aircraft currently equip the US Air national Guard and several Nato air forces. The following is according to f-16.net:
Radar modes, Air-to-air:
Track while scan 10 targets simlutaneously and engage 4 (or is it 6?) simultaneously, range-while-search, uplook, velocity search, single target track and raid cluster resolution.
Radar modes, Air-to-ground:
Maritime, fixed and moving target, ground mapping, Doppler beam sharpening, ranging, beacon, and target freeze. Maritime modes include beam mapping, sea search, fixed target track, ground moving target indication and track. Fixed ground target modes include a real beam ground mapping mode, FTT mode, expanded display mode, and Doppler beam sharpening mode. Moving ground target modes include beam ground mapping, GMTI or TMTT, expanded display, and freeze.
The arsenal includes:
The ablity to launch AMRAAM, Aim-7, Aim-9 and Maveric missiles and drop Laser guided bombs. The aircraft can also carry laser designator pods or just cooperate in buddy lazing with a simple a spot tracker. There is also a variety of ECM pods available as well as anti radiation missiles and other specialised systems and munitions.
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Chengdu J-10 I know less about this aircraft which is not surprising given it’s status. Even so let’s try to assemble what a quick google search revealed:
Radar:
Little is know about this subject the unit fitted may be the JL-10A or possibly the Russian Zhuk-10. According to AFM, what ever the identity of the radar may be, it is capable of “… processing four simultaneous engagements” and presumably it can track-while-scan more targets than that.
The Arsenal Incudes:
SD-10 BVR missile, which is reportedly based on the R-77 so it should be at least close to the latters performance putting it roughly in the same ballpark as the AMRAAM.
PL-9 WVR missile. Developed from the PL-8 which is supposed to be descended from the Python 3 which is not bad ancestry. Once again little is known but the missile is HMS compatable and is probalby also a better performer than the PL-8. It should be a fairly respectable weapon.
Laser guided bombs:
I have not heard of any such weapons being tested on the J-10 yet but it is fairly safe to assume that Chinese LGB’s are at least Paveway II equivalent.
Other guided air to ground munitions:
Anbody care to fill this in?
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FC-1 As per PAF “Tranche 1” assuming a subset of the J-10 electronics suite.
Radar:
Lower track while scan ability and fewer radar modes it is also not unreasonable to assume that the number of possible simultaneous engagements will been bumped down to two from the J-10’s four. Range will probably also be reduced due to space restrictions.
Arsenal:
Basically the same as the J-10 but including some western export items.
———————-
Conclusion:
In my opinion, and this has been echoed on acig.org, there is every indication that the J-10 will to be more or less as capable as an early F-16C/D Block 25 and will certainly overtake the F-16 Block 25 in the next few years. An FC-1 would probably work out to be closer to an F-16A/B but the comparisons is still quite a bitlopsided since the FC-1 is a smaller aircaft and thus not 100% comparable to the F-16.
savage-rabbitI have no disagreements with what you said.
I’m not saying that FC-1 with Chinese avionics and Radar is a bad fighter. In enough numbers, it will be a capable asset.
All I’m pointing out was that there were many people here who made tall claims on FC-1s potential radar and avionics and how there will be no other fighter on this planet that will have its capabilities and yet be under $20 million per unit etc. and how they will sell this plane to Country X and Y. These same people trashed Russian radar capabilities repeatedly.
Now they are scurrying to defend what is obviously a second choice radar/avionics combo even as per the FC-1 project head of PAF. I have nothing against Chinese technology, but I find it incredulous to see that just with PAF’s “guidance,” China can magically gets its avionics up to par with FIAR or Thales in a matter of months. That seems to be extremely arrogant coming from someone who cannot design his own avionics. I can go to my local mechanic and tell him to soup up my car engine to have 50% more HP with my “guidance”, but if that dude hadn’t done it until now, my guidance ain’t gonna help him do it now, will it?
In real life, an emphasis on cost usually results in compromises with technology, unless you have your own R&D ability.
Yes, I can see what you mean it seems unlikely that a top of the line westernised FC-1 could be had at the price of a used, un upgraded MiG-29. I would expect the price of an FC-1 thus equipped to be much closer to that of a top of the line new built MiG-29 of the latest variant.
Regarding the PAF’s about-face on Chinese electronics. I remeber reading these statements from PAF personnel about the Chinese electronics they were offered being unsatisfactory (although I´d have to do some digging to quote sources). Perhaps the unsatisfactory electronics the PAF was offered earlyer was a run of the mill export gear and not a more advnaced, simplified, J-10 suite? If the Chinese have now decided to release higher quality PLAAF grade electronics for export to Pakistan (perhaps even with American style defense subsidies) it might explain how Chinese eletronics all of a sudden became acceptable to the PAF (and how Pakistan might be able to afford better systems). Still this all remains to be seen. If we are lucky, and US-Pakistani relations continue to improve, the Americans will send some of their own F-16’s to spar with the Pakistani FC-1s. The resultant reports should also be interesting if they are ever leaked to the Aviation press 😀
savage-rabbitGiven enough money, FIAR or Thales or whoever in the West will make you whatever you need.
But the key factor is money.
There was a serious disconnect between the price quoted for FC-1 and claims of Western avionics and radar.
The last few comments of AVM Lateef clearly hint that for the low $$$, only China can give PAF something that they cannot get elsewhere while noting that it is years behind Western tech.
BTW, with Chinese radar and avionics, one can forget about FC-1s handling Western AAMs and AGMs 😉
I agree with you that the $15 million people have been quoting for an FC-1 eqipped with top of the line FIAR or Thales gear sounds a bit to good to be true. However don’t you think it is a bit premature to write the FC-1 and the J-10 off out of hand? Neither of these aircraft is out of the prototype stage, very little is known about their electonics in particular and obviously they have not even been tested on maneuvers let alone in combat. I for one will reserve judgement until evaluation reports by prospective export customers for these aircraft begin to surface. It will be especially interesting to see the resluts when the PAF has pitted the FC-1 (and any F-10’s it may acquire) against its F-16’s, especially if the MLU upgrade deal with the Bush administration goes through successfully.
savage-rabbitWhen I was visiting the RCAF in March 2000 at Pochentong AB MiG 21bis 7102 and MiG 21UM 7114 were the only two to have returned from Israel. As far as I could found out at that moment they had’nt been flying for various reasons.
Did you by any chance have a camera with you on that visit? 😀
savage-rabbitTheir size? We are talking about 150mil. population! 🙂
Even so I’d say the BAF still qualifies as relatively small, at least compared to say a mammoth force like the USAF. 🙂
savage-rabbithuh wats the fuss about chinese avionics anyway!?
They are very good and I beleive everyone knows that. If it meets the requirements of PAF…be it chinese or french…that does not matter. Infact, we must look like the Chinese avionics have gotten good enough to compete against those of west. If india can come up with respectable avionics for LCA..expect China to be better or equal.
Well…. I’d not equate the electronics of the J-10 with those of the Eurofighter Typhoon but other than that I agree with you. I would not be surprised if the J-10’s electronics suite is capable of competing with the lower to medium end European/Russian export items. Critics of the Chinese should keep in mind that the Chinese are said to have hacked the system software of the Su-27. If that is indeed true we can expect them to have learned something in the process, at the very least it is an indication of the level of technical competence the Chinese have achieved. In any case, it would be a major mistake to think China is still lagging as far behind technologically as it was when it introduced the F-7B back in the 1970s.
savage-rabbitHaven’t seen pictures of RCAF upgraded MiG jets, just wondering whether or not they are still flying.
I heard some of them had been resold because the Cambodians could not pay for all of the upgraded aircraft. I’d take that with a grain of salt though, I have not found any clue as to the identity of the supposed buyer.
savage-rabbitActually Bangladesh will continue to operate the MiG-29’s alongside its F-7M’s until formidable replacements are found. I live right near the air base and I see them fly over loudly over my house often. 🙂
Nice, a BAF fan 😀 Has the BAF upgraded the F-7M or are they still operating the Vanilla 1980’s export model? I have seen a BAF F-7 packing what looked like a PL-7 but the photo was a bit dated.
But to stay on topic, here is my usual question 😮 Has anybody seen photos of the Israeli upgraded (or were they just refurbished?) Cambodian MiG-21’s???
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