Neither are de-facto weapons for the USN. The USN has no POR for the JSM, and the LRASM purchase is interim and in quite small quantities (and that too split with the USAF) for very specific mission sets and threat scenarios largely in one AOR.

The USN barely has any F-35s as well. Its a figure of speech. As I said, two posts back – the LRASM & JSM will over the long term replace the Harpoon in the air-to-surface role.

Secondary or not, until next generation missiles enter service. SM-6 is de facto top end USN anti surface weapon. Very doubtful they can sync with Harpoons in wartime conditions, and given its shorter range, highly inadvisable. More likely the enemy would be hit first by SM-6, then if necessary the Burke would close in to finish it off with Harpoons.

I meant Harpoons syncing with other Harpoons, not with SM-6s. The SM-6 in an anti-ship role is purely a fall-back option (with the USN dispensing with silo-based Harpoons).

USN doctrine calls for dealing with surface (and aerial) threats at ranges well exceeding that of ship-launched missiles. That’s what the super-carrier and its fighter complement exist for. The de facto top-end USN anti-surface weapons consist of LRASMs & JSMs launched from SHs & F-35Cs.

China doesn’t need CM-400AKG because it already has long range land based AShBMs, and heavy fighters to carry ramjet missiles.

And yet the default anti-shipping missile for the JH-7 & J-15 is the YJ-83K, and that for the Su-30MK2 is the Kh-59MK.

While it may be able to fly a boosted, ballistic trajectory with a terminal glide stage, there’s no reason to assume this is the only way it will be employed. Given it’s stated range, it’s most likely to still be powered in the terminal stage allowing it to perform evasive manoeuvres, which is one of it’s key capabilities, along with around Mach 5 terminal speed. The glided ballistic trajectory would only be used to extend its range beyond that of its rocket powered stage.

That is the way it’ll be employed because that is the way all missiles of the type work. It’ll fire off into a climb to gain altitude before the motor burns out and then coast to the target. Some SAMs & AAMs feature a dual pulse rocket for greater terminal energy but its not something a diving ballistic missile needs.

Nothing to do with the stated range of the system – the Phoenix & R-37 achieved similar ranges with a mono-pulse rocket motor.

In any case, although it may not be used by the PLAF, they do seem to be using traditional ballistic missiles as part of their “carrier killer” capability, with bona fide ballistic flight paths and gliding terminal warheads, but which they claim are capable of performing evasive manoeuvres, so there is some validity to this approach.

Furthermore, how many ship based anti-air systems have actually been demonstrated to be effective against a ballistic threat, aside from say the US SM series?

The real world efficacy of the DF-21D aside, fact remains, it adopts an exo-atmospheric flight path – given its 1,500 km range, I’m guessing its apogee would be in excess of 300 km (the typical fighter jet cruises at an altitude of 10-15 km) – unlike the CM-400AKG which coasts well within the envelope of mid-ranged ship-borne SAM systems.

Are there any pictures of the J-10 or J-11/16 equipped with the CM-400AKG (or a Chinese-variant)?

When I speak about “marvel”, I don’t specifically aim at the safety record, but rather at the mantra that, in pretty much every aspect, its fans describe it as the “fabulously magnificent example of perfection leaving everything else in stone age..” more or less

I don’t recall “magnificent”, “perfection”, etc. being mentioned on this thread. The current discussion has been more on the lines of you talking about the likelihood of dead pilots and mostly everybody else stating that the aircraft was safe to fly.

From memory, losses of the Rafale:

There was a 5th loss in 2012 –

https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=146597

TooCool just reminds the fact that the Canadians themselves have said more than once, and the fact that a twin engine is safer than a single one if anything, because it can afford to loose one engine

Yeah and three engines are safer than two engines, and four are safer than three. Didn’t stop the Mirage 2000s & F-16s & Gripens and a dozen others from doing just fine with the one.

And, once more, this whole discussion about twin vs single engine aircraft started because someone asked how Canada could prevent the F-35 to compete.. and I gave an answer that is obvious: all they have to do is ask for a twin engine aircraft.

Successfully excluding the F-35… while leaving Boeing’s Super Hornet still in the race.

And for the record, Canada can exclude any aircraft from the running without jumping through hoops, military aircraft are not subject to WTO regulation. The have no obligation to entertain Su-35, for example.

You can argue about how marvelously safe the F-135 is (it was already grounded a couple of times, but hey, let’s imagine it is safe), the fact remains, if they want to eliminate the F-35, they can easily, and perfectly legally do so .. end of story

With 125,000 flight hours clocked, the F-35 has a better safety record than the Rafale, EF, SH, Gripen etc. By the end of 2018, it’ll overtake the Rafale’s total flight hours. Unless there’s a spate of crashes within the next 12 months, its pretty reasonable to conclude that its a perfectly safe aircraft.

Pretty much every time we lost one I guess.

How many is that?

er, from the examples you give, Sweden and Norway are a lot smaller (long but narrow), meaning they are always in relative vicinity to an airbase, they are literally dwarfed by the size of canadian territory up north. Japan is much smaller as well (same thing) and also much further from the arctic circle definitely not having the same conditions and, what’s more, they do operate twin engine fighters as well (F-15), which allows them to modulate depending on their priorities… and, what’s more, their next gen fighter they want to develop is also a twin engine one, if I’m not mistaken. For the USA, a comparable territory would be Alaska where operational missions are performed by F-15s and F-22s… twins. Other countries close to the arctic circle are Finland (operates F-18s – twin engines) and Russia (all fighters developed for long range over Siberia for a number of decades by now are twin engine fighters with no exception).

Just a few corrections –

– That Norwegian F-16s & F-35s will fly exclusively over land, is assumed in your argument. In reality, the RNAF routinely fly over the Norwegian Sea and trains for anti-shipping roles.
– The Danes are have run F-16s trials from Greenland to prepare for future operations with the same applying to the F-35.
– The NATO Icelandic Air Policing mission has included F-16s, Mirage 2000s as well as Gripens.
– The USAF’s Aggressor F-16s based at Alaska fly everywhere their sister squadrons do. And an F-35s squadron will be joining them by 2020.
– Japanese F-2s routinely operate over the Sea of Japan & Sea of Okhotsk. As will the JASDF’s F-35s.
– Not only the USN, but the RN & USMC (which rejected SHs altogether) will be operating a single-engined fighter over the open sea.

And most pilots would rather eject over the Canadian wilderness, however remote, rather than into cold ocean waters (you may remember the fate of the passengers of a certain ship called the Titanic).

Now, about the start of this (once more repeated discussion): the question was “how would Canada fight the commercial war”, and some have suggested that they should ask for some details that they believe the USA would refuse.. I merely suggested a more “reliable” solution to exclude the F-35 which is to ask for a twin engine fighter.. by design, it would exclude the F-35 without the risk of the vendor eventually saying “ok, we accept these conditions”..

Still leaves the SH in the fray.

Also, you’d need the RCAF to sign off on that. And while they may have acquiesced to an interim SH order knowing that they’d get their preferred aircraft in due course, they’re likely to be a lot less accommodating if the govt forces the Rafale (or EF) on them.