Word, not phrase.

The Japanese say their next aircraft must have significant ground attack capability. Their favoured option is the F-22. It’s no use with dumb bombs, but is an excellent (probably the best around) platform for F-117 style pinpoint strikes using PGMs. Japan is building suitable PGMs, dependent neither on optical targeting nor laser designation.

You attribute a false opinion to me. The ASM-2 is not “secretly a long range land attack missile”. It is an anti-ship missile with a secondary land attack capability which was, uniquely at the time, designed in & trained to be used. This is in line with Japanese policy on apparently offensive weapons.

You are, yet again, ignoring the political impossibility for Japan of buying overtly or apparently offensive weapons, & thus their deliberate policy of deploying “offensive” (really, counter-offensive) capabilities as secondary capabilities of weapons, where other countries deploy specialised systems. This has been explained to you more than once, yet you still choose to ignore it.

ARMs are not significant. Japan does not plan to be overflying foreign air defences, & SEAD can now be done by GPS guided munitions with targeting information supplied by sensors on a variety of platforms. This meets Japans political requirement, not to be seen to buy overtly offensive weapons – and the French think it perfectly adequate for their needs.

All of this has been stated previously in this discussion. Either you are incapable of understanding plain English, or you’re trolling.

ARM’s are very signicant, how is Japan to drop its free-fall bombs over North Korea if it is not going to overfly North Korea? You first say that Japan is going to use PGM’s against North Korean targets, then say that they are not going to overfly enemy airspace?

How would the F-22 find its targets, presumably mobile scud launchers, without any form of optical targeting system? You ignore the fact that the F-117 had FLIR systems and a laser designator, thus making it capable of hunting for such targets- the F-22 completely lacks this.

You have already said yourself that most AShM’s now have a secondary land attack capability so how can the ASM-2 be unique?

China develops Stirling AIP technology for submarines

China is believed to have fitted an air independent propulsion (AIP) system using Stirling engine technology to the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s latest Project 039A Yuan-class submarine.

A recent edition of the official Science and Technology Daily claims that engineering development and trials conducted by the No.711 Research Institute culminated in the installation of a Stirling AIP system aboard the lead Yuan-class boat in 2004.

Jane’s Navy International

***

Do we have any further news on this AIP story?

Unicorn

When the photos of Yuan first appeared it was reported that it had AIP. If I remember correctly, the chinese have experimented with the technology before but I can not remember the specifics. Something tells me that there was an accident at some point that resulted in a fire on a PLAN submarine that eas linked to an AIP test- however this might just be my memory playing tricks on me.:o

Are we suggesting that whatever the MOD says at a PR offensive is gospel ?

All’s fair in love and war, especially at press conferences. And yes I have been to few in my time.:rolleyes:

With all due respect this was not the MoD but the personell themselves. Considering the somewhat distressed looks on some of the sailors faces (paticuarly Faye Turney) when they were paraded on Iranian TV I am inclined to believe them.

Where did you explain the time period? I can’t see it.

You’re still not explaining why Japan went for IIR (not just IR – important difference) years before anyone else, & without any attempt to conceal the fact that they fully intended to use the land-attack capability that it gave. Nor that their previous anti-ship missile was also designed with a limited land attack capability, which, AFAIK, they trained to use. I, on the other hand, have explained that. You haven’t made any attempt to address my explanation. Would you care to do so?

Yep, and so can any missile, if one does the work. The TV would give it a land attack capability, though an old-fashioned, fair-weather only, command guidance one. But again, a specific capability of a specific missile, not an inherent capability of the class of missiles.

1) Your sole source specifically states that it was a local modification of a couple of missiles, which didn’t even hit when used in action. Do you really think that demonstrates an “inherent capability”? It could have been a TV & remote control system, for all we know. Nothing to do with the anti-ship sensors or guidance system of the missile. I’ve already been over that. A capability of the airframe, if fitted with different guidance, is not an inherent capability of the class of missile. Do you disagree?

2) So what? If I switch off the guidance systems of my shipboard SAMs & fire them straight at shore using eyeball Mk 1 guidance, does this mean that SAMs have an inherent land-attack capability? No, it means that any rocket with a warhead on it has a line-of-sight attack capability. But I don’t think Congreve rockets are really appropriate to bring into this discussion. 😀 We’re talking about guidance systems. And what they actually have, & how their operators are trained to use them, not what can, in theory, be fitted to them, nor using them as very expensive fireworks.

In effect all of the above hits on the same issue that I have tried to point out time and again on this forum. The offensive or defensive nature of any weapon system is defined by its usage. However paticular weapons can be describedasa more offensive than others. Such as land attack cruise missiles which knowone here has managed to demonstrate that Japan is actively seeking. let alone that Japan is seeking to develop a long range land attack capability.

With all due respect you appear to answer your own question. Point and fire an AShM at a land target and it becomes a land attack missile- that is an inherent capability. Theoretically, if you could get an AMRAAM to lock onto a land target (a tank for instance) it would become a land attack missile.

We can talk about the ASM-2 for ever more, the fact is it is first and formost an AShM, and it is amongst at least three types that use IR homing.

“Yep, and so can any missile, if one does the work. The TV would give it a land attack capability, though an old-fashioned, fair-weather only, command guidance one. But again, a specific capability of a specific missile, not an inherent capability of the class of missiles.”

This is exactly my point, the missile in question is an AShM, however you could use it as a land attack missile. But there are no other features to suggest that it is intended as such. Japan has not developed any specific land attack missile, no cruise missiles and no ballistic missiles. The ASM-2 is still esentially a AShM and the use of IR homing is a perfectly acceptable means of producing such a missile. The very fact that the recent discusion in this thread has focused on just one missile demonstrates the incredibly limited evidence that can be used for your argument. As I have said before, there are to the best of my Knowledge no ARM’s in Japanese service for instance.

The point is there is nothing specific to this, just secondary capabilities. In fact the ability to hit coastal targets is more than reasonable, irf one is attacking landing craft it is perfectly reasonable to assume that those landing craft might actually land, thus become targets on the coast. Paticuarly in Japans case considering the nature of China’s amphibious fleet which even today relies heavily on beaching landing craft.

Why use IIR instead of IR, simple, it is far harder to defeat with counter-measures than IR. It also offers the potential to create a library of images/shapes of warships to allow the missile to more accurately determine the most important vessel in its sight range- ie- it can visualy distinguish a Kirov from a replenishment ship rather than relying upon the largest signature. Even if the ASM-2 does not have the latter the former is plenty enough reason to select IIR over IR.

The F-22’s only real advantage as a strike platform is its stealth features, it lacks its own targeting equipment (no laser designation system and no optical search system) and its A2G weapons load is limited to just 2 JDAM’s. It is thus far from ideal for any A2G role. (The Mig-35 would be quite suitable as would the JSF).

Then could you please stop acting the fool, as you did in your last post. All that talk about invading North Korea! I’d already explained the constitutional limits.

Prove? You are claiming that I am wrong because I have not proved myself right, & you are right because I have not proved you wrong. 😀 That’s silly. And in any case, this is not a matter amenable to proof.

As for the missiles: we’ve been over this. You claim that because IIR homing is now (2007) becoming commonplace in anti-ship missiles, the fact that the Japanese went to the trouble & expense of deploying it in the early 1990s is insignificant. AFAIK, nobody else did so back then: the nearest thing to it was SLAM, a specialised, single-purpose, land-attack version of an anti-ship missile. You must be able to see the difference! You also say that because there are reports that Exocets were used in the 1980s for attacking land targets (care to provide some evidence?), the fact that in the late 1970s Japan developed anti-ship missiles with designed-in, as distinct from jury-rigged or fortuitous, coastal attack capability is also insignificant. Again, you must be able to see the difference.

A missile airframe is inherently capable of many things, depending on the guidance system. To say that all anti-ship missiles with active radar terminal guidance are inherently capable of land attack is false. They can be modified for it, by (e.g.) installing a command guidance system. Or they can be fitted with a radar or IIR sensor with sufficient discrimination, & a computer with the processing power & target image library (or a two way datalink to a controller) , needed to attack land targets. These are not “inherent capabilities” of anti-ship missiles as a class. They are specific capabilities of specific weapons.

I never used the phrase common place, the incredibly slow pace of western AShM development makes the usage of the phrase near impossible. However the ASM-2 and the NSM are the newest designs from the western stable and both use IR guidance, clearly siggesting that it is a guidance method considered at the very least equal to radar homing if not more so for the Anti-shipping role.

Again I would point you to the use of Vanilla exocets by the Iraqis against land targets in the Iran/Iraq war.

The capabilities of the ASM-2 are a very long way from saying that Japan is activly persuing a long range land attack capability. Again I would suggest the lack of an ARM as a case in point.

Like I have said before I do not doubt that in the coming decades Japan will ultimately seek and deploy such a capability but I do not believe ot to be the case with this requirement.

Grow up!

The North Korean ballistic missile threat has developed gradually. The Japanese response has also been gradual. Japan has consistently avoided developing or buying any weapon which cannot be shown to have an unequivocally defensive use, in order to stay within their constitutional limits. This does not preclude them designing weapons which could be used offensively, & there is evidence that they have chosen to give weapons purported to to be for one, purely defensive, use capabilities which other countries have chosen to deploy via purpose-designed weapons. The reasons should be obvious. You don’t have to invoke honne & tatemae to explain it, though knowing the difference helps to understand why some of these weapons are described as they are.

For example, Japan gave its anti-ship missiles a superior coastal attack capability than other weapons of the same vintage, at some expense (consider the land attack capability of an early model Exocet, with its radar which homed on the centre of the biggest target within range, & fixed cruising altitude set before launch 😀 ), while other countries bought specialist missiles for land attack. Dual capability has since become relatively easy & cheap to implement, & is now deployed on a variety of anti-ship missiles. Gottit?

I would ask you to lose the sarcastic tone. Up to this point you have been a very civilised poster in this thread, but you seem to be trying to play upto Jackonickos trolling.

All of the above has been discussed before, the reality is that you have failed to prove anything. You talk about dual use AShM’s the reality is that most AShM’s can be used for land attack if it is required, especially the newer generations that are starting to be deployed with IR homing. It is just a capability inherent to the class.

This appears to be the overring issue. The likes of the F-2 are perfectly usable as long range attack aircraft but there is little evidence so far to support the idea that this is how they are going to be used. (I dont doubt that eventually they might be). The reality is that there are no indications that Japan is looking to create a genuinely credible long range attack capability.