good debate.

its good to have a discussion without abuse- something crobato can learn from, with all his usual “bull” this, that.

now coming to your points, what i would point out is that your points miss certain things.

when i asked niip – the answer was clear, state cabinet of security decides what is exported. someone like that or somesuch thing. they even helped me try and understand what they were saying, but my note taking couldnt manage.

Upgrading a baseline Flanker toa Bars one is not as easy as it sounds……….as the Indians found out.;)
now lets come to procurement. you missed my point- china is sold certain items- no doubt downgraded in select parameters, but its not transferred production licenses for them, unless there is something better already with russia or in advanced development. the chinese flanker transfer was not accompanied by a deep license of engine technology or even maintenance. irsts are still imported from russia…who knows what else.

the kh-31 is already being replaced by a newer variant in devpt with russia. its no longer the best they have or even planned for.

selling stuff is different from entering into joint ventures sharing technology and state secrets or transferring detailed production.

if china was coproducing items such as the s-400 series, or a joint partner in many critical state of the art russian items, i would agree with you. just think for example, if china license produced the backfire or a modernised variant of the same.

claims that china has its own “other programs” such as the hq-9 or that it received help from russia miss the point. its about the depth of relationship in the defence arena, moving beyond purchase and just technology assistance.

but its not, its mostly outright purchase by china and hard negotiations for the next series of items, which china mitigates risk against by developing its own systems. max russia has done has provide tot for lower end munitions- krasnopol, refleks, and similar stuff, and tech assistance on select chinese programs. thats not the same.

Upgrading a baseline Flanker to a Bars one is not as easy as it sounds……….as the Indians found out.;)

Chinese Flanker procurement began in the early 1990’s when all the fancy goodies were not available. Su-30’s were part of the post 1996 reflex. Russian defense cooperation with China is well reported (if very mirky making definate facts an impossibility) but what is certain is that Russia has provided significant help. Likely ranging from engine help through to radar seekers for missiles.

The other factor that people seem to forget is the very long term nature of Chinese military modernisation. It was always intended to be the last of the modernisations and China’s own defense whit papers list 2050 as the completion date. Procurements now are largely related to the development of an industrial base. Even procurement prior to 1996 looks more like efforts at producing stop-gap solutions rather than fleet wide replacements, note the small quantitys of Flankers and Kilo’s ordered in that time frame.

If the TSR2 had been purchased by the government in the 60s is there any chance, as with the later Tornado, we would have seen a TSR2, adv?

I’m sure with a bit of initiative you could squeeze a quad of long range missiles on it belly and a pair of pylons on her wings.

The wings had pilons anway, rated to 1900lbs IIRC. The fuselage bomb bay could take 6 1000lb bombs.

Now that the Russian government has decided on a first use of nukes policy the western navies are irrelevant. The cold war purpose of the Soviet navy was to protect SSBNs until the launch order was given so they could complete their mission and launch their weapons. An added mission of keeping US carrier groups out of strike range is implied within this. This is all basically meaningless now because US strike aircraft could be based in the baltic republics so the Russian navy is not going to be of much use in that role anymore… short range tactical nuclear missiles would be used of course. Regarding the protection of SSBNs with only a couple at sea at any one time and most at port then port defences like sonar arrays on the sea bed etc make rather more sense than having 3-4 carrier groups at the moment. The currently in service vessels were adequate for the height of the cold war, and they are more than adequate now. Without sophisticated GPS navigation they can still navigate the way ships have navigated the last 1,000 plus years… charts and a compass and the stars if necessary.

BTW

Doesn’t sound the same as:

The diference is that the western nations didn’t have funding for their navy suddenly dry up and their economies didn’t have a mini collapse. Where have you been the last decade?

It is very amusing… in the one breath b!tching and moaning because they are building new SSBNs and new SSNs and new ICBMs and resuming patrols in international airspace and then in the next breath complaining that they haven’t upgraded their navy the same way the west has… :rolleyes:

Such confidence. When the USS Vincennes decided to fire a Standard missile at what it thought was an incoming F-14 there was a malfunction and it took one and a half minutes before the fault was found and corrected and a missile was launched… waiting 1 and a half minutes while an SS-N-12 is bearing down on you would be an interesting experience.

Not true. They claim the hole will be 20m across and 12 metres deep.
Can’t remember which weapon it was but they had one large supersonic sea skimming anti ship missile (I think it was GRANIT) that actually hit the water a few metres short of the target and actually blew a hole under the waterline…

The new information you are lacking is that the Russians cannot afford to have a navy capable of taking on all of NATO, the USN included, anymore. To have forces suficient to deter attack is enough at the moment. It is very likely that the next generation Russian vessels will all have stealth aspects to them as will the next generation weapons and sensors. As such upgrading old vessels for a role they can’t deliver on is a waste of money. It makes more sense to just keep the current vessels operational and invest in the new vessels and systems… rather like the situation with the Russian airforce. They had the Su-27M or original Su-35 design flying test flights in 1988. The bog standard Su-27P remained in service all this time however because the threat had changed… dramatically diminished and the change in tactics meant that any threat to Russias borders might be initially met with Flankers but the job of defeating the enemy would be handled by the ICBMs.

You seem very confused Garry. I have no problem with Russia spending its money on defence so that whole theme of your rather large post is somewhat irrelevant. Other than that I was simply providing a commentary on the current capabilities of the Russian fleet. Whether you regard that fleet as important or not is not of consequence to me, that is your opinion.

A single technical faliure on one occasion is not something for an opponent to rely on. Clauswitz calls it friction, it happens, but to both sides, and can not be accurately factored into analysis thus we have to work from paper specifications. The fact is that the Russian Navy is vastly inferior to the USN and that is unlikely to change in the medium term.

just to give an example of “russian reactivation ” capacity,

The destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov

back in 2000:

and in May 2007, at Severnaya Shipyards, Saint-Petersburg:

Example is meaningless without specific comparisons between how bad that ship was and what state the Ukraina is in.

The hull doesn’t look badly damaged from what we can see, and it’s cheaper than building a whole new cruiser.

I guess it’ll depend on how much of that growing budget the Navy will get?

Can you provide a reliable link that actually says that it has been bought by Russia?

Something you don’t like about my story? I think it is exactly as credible and proven as your fairytale about Saddam and USA.

Typical nonsense inspired by your dislike of the US.

The west always mentions that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union for living space, yet ignores the connotations that for the Ukraine and Belarus and Russia up to the Urals to be living space you’d have to get rid of all the people already living there. The fact that German soldiers were told that no action would be taken against them regarding atrocities in the east suggests that it was a continuation of the extermination policy. Entire villages wiped from the map, not in war but to supply blood for the German troops…

Who was responsible for their deaths is irrelevant. The guilt card relies on the West largely doing nothing at the time regarding what was happening and the fact that the Germans were now part of the west… it wasn’t just east germans that helped kill jews. If it is OK for the west to be buddies with Stalin when convenient or Mao for that matter then they have blood on their hands too… or so the propaganda machine says.

Well your original at least.:rolleyes:

The west is responsible for Stalin and Hitler engaging in genocidal lunacy………keep trying and we will keep laughing.:p

I agree that it is no more than an expensive publicity stunt, but I do consider that there is a need to ‘counter’ any Russian conventional rearmament. There are two very important aspects of deterrent. One is the obvious, the aspect of mutual assured bad day. The second, as important, is to have sufficient conventional forces that the other side does not consider it possible to mount any form of conventional attack without massive losses. This dictates that any proper strike to be nuclear, which is then deterred by the first deterrent. If Russia does manage to rebuild a fleet, and we lack the ability to monitor them all, the next stunt may very well involve surfacing a Russian sub in the Thames (not necessarily literally)!

Which is why cooperation with Europe is the best way forward. Even a vaguely coherent Europe could easily counter anything Russia might play around with conventionally whilst not breaking a sweat and Britain and France should be more than capable of providing the required nuclear deterrent.