Crobato,
You’re full of cr*p.

You’re only guessing. At least admit that it is speculation.

Pibu said that as of LATE last year there were 105 kits delivered which is absolutely consistent with what the Sukhoi official said. I’m sure you would rather rely on the Chinese forums over some who have consitent information and access to the inside. Stop spinning and stick to the facts. I’ve had enough of that during the US President race.

FACTS? FACTS?

You call the Russian press, FACTS, Rick?

This is quite hypocritical, considering how much you rely on the Chinese forums to find out PLAAF orbats, how we all rely on the Chinese forums to get our latest pictures of Chinese destroyers and tanks, J-10s, your beloved J-7s, your unit numbers on PLAAF planes and so on. While the Chinese forums are not 100% accurate but nothing is. But the Chinese forums have a remarkable record of saying things that pop up months later, as well as confirming and de-confirming things said by a rather ignorant Western, including Russian press.

Do you want me to give you a list HOW the Russian press and how Russian sources are reliable?

1. Said that China will buy 100 kits of Zhuk-8II radar for the J-8II.

Confirmation: Nada.

2. Said to JED and Flight International that China will fit Zhuk-MS after the 20th Su-30MKK.

MAJOR NADA.

3. in 1999, said that China’s first procurement of MKKs were 45 planes. In fact, Russian defector Dr. Nemets on the Newsmax still insisted on this number.

NADA. (It was KANWA who confirmed the 38 number.)

4. Moscow News reported that the Su-30MK2 order was 28.

WRONG. (KANWA was the only one who got it correct—24).

5. Russian news agencies were reporting the Su-30MK2 deal being signed around July, and then August of 2002, then said it will have Zhuk-MSE for radar. All wrong. They corrected it themselves—contract was signed in January of 2003, and no Zhuk-MSE radar.

6. Then you have the Technocomplex thingie reported to Janes about the 100 or more so avionics upgrades delivered since 2001.

7. Russians were saying the J-10 would get the Phazotron Zhemchug radar, like they reveal it to KANWA, JED, Jane’s and all the big aviation articles. Guess how that turned out.

8. Said that China bought two sets of RIF-M, a story that was consistently repeated. More and more I think that is highly unlikely, and so is the mythical ‘051C’ ship said to carry them. Chalk it up with the mysterious 100 sets of Zhuk buy for the J-8IIs.

9. Russian press thought and reported that China would buy A-50s from the Russians, while we crucified some Chinese forum pics of an alleged IL-76 that have a dome on it as PS. Woot, woot, woot, woot, guess who eventually turned out right all along. Those pics are not likely to be PS now, but rather, the IL-76 doing flight testing with a dummy radome—still indicating early signs of a serious Chinese indigenous AWACS effort.

10. One Russian article—currently posted in PAKDEF now—claims that it is the General Staff who refused the Su-27SM to China. Nice to see how the Russians are now trying to sell it hard in China.

11. Claimed that Chinese BVRAAMs were getting Russian help in design. Boy, that was a major egg in the face. First Luoyang Institute went out to deny it explicitely, and then AGAT finally placed the nail in the coffin on this one.

And yet at the same time, Russian press failed to report sales of both Mineral-ME radar and SA-N-12 missiles to China. We have to wait until they were already being installed on the 052B destroyers to know about it.

So don’t give me that cr*shi*t, Rick, especially when you rely so much on Chinese forum information for your orbats and so on. Then go around claiming the sanctity of the Russian press when they got so many black eyes to their credit over the past years.

And just remember, it was mosnews who first said it was 95 kits (a figure taken from Jane’s by the way).

I don’t know. It could be the sentence structure. Look at it again.

Did you know about the second contract needing to be signed before the second set of J-11s could be finished? I didn’t. I had assumed that but of information came from Sukhoi.

At any rate, the article is saying that the second set of 95 are suspended as of now because the second contract isn’t signed. Like a lease, the second contract is an option that allows flexibility for circumstanstial changes which is the only reason to sign another contract.

In the first place if you have a second contract for additional kits, that means the provisions inside the contract wasn’t in the original contract signed in 1996. That means similar provisions in the original 1996 contract are nothing by an agreement in principle, not legally or monetarily binding. That means China was never obliged to buy 200 kits in the first place, that the 200 kits is just an agreed intent in principle.

That also means that after a second contract, there are negotiable options for other contracts beyond that 200 number, if the procurement of other kits are desired.

And that the kits are not -obligatory- for purchase in the first place to build the planes, rather as an option.

In other words, it ain’t black and white.

Interesting. Knyshev is saying that the second stage contract is not signed yet. So while not a “cancelling,” Knyshev does admit that delivery has been “paused” or suspended (which doesn’t conflict with the original Tass report.)

The earlier report also said that the Su-27SKM is in China to convince the Chinese of continuing.

So right now, the second contract, which sounds like an contractual “option,” hasn’t been signed. With an option, the buyer could resign, change the terms or simply allowed the option to expire.

No that is not what Knyshev is saying. As far as I know, Sukhoi operates a gag order on the contract and would never say or admit anything in public. And it has been like this ever since 1996. Been following all the articles and not once in all these years, I never saw Sukhoi made an official comment about the contracts.

Pretty much from the third paragraph, when it begins to say “As is known…” is purely speculation and opinion.

Maybe they want it as a flagship – it is a cruiser after all. Cruiser implies power and prestige though not as much as aircraft carrier (e.g. Thailand and Spain). Destroyer and frigate do not.

(I don’t have a clue about naval capabilties).

It could also scare the Japanese and the Koreans into an arms race, and help destabilize the region. That is why China strives to avoid “conspiciously threatening” weapons systems like aircraft carriers.

I’m not sure if Chinese subs are that noisy anymore. The newest ones like the Songs have slow turning skewed propellers and aneolic tiling. Remember Toshiba and the big controversy in the Eighties whey they sold the Russians some machine tool that could enable the Russians to machine a new type of silent propeller for the Akula? China has machine tools much more advanced than that, and these machines are being imported routinely without any objection.

And why would they need to saturate with V-1 copies when they can saturate with Tomahawk like copies.

Sure they have commissioned it. Whether it is ready? Doesn’t have SSMs yet. We’ve seen two tubes mounted once, but that’s all.
Is there a chance that Slava has somewhat similar engines as Type 52B and C? The latter types are both equiped with Ukraine (-ian?) Gas Turbines. Slava too I think. And even if this is not the case, they can buy spares from Ukraine or manufactur their own parts. Our Navy operates ships with engines that have no spares anymore. Not in the entire world. They just produce their own parts onboard the ship if small and ashore if large. Warship engines are quite small compared to merchant ships hence the parts aren’t that large too. I’d agree if it were a 4m tall cilinder you have to make… But that’s not the case on warships.

Yes, the Chinese operate DN80 gas turbines. But the quality of the turbine blades are so wanting that the Chinese replaced them with their own. According to Kanwa, the Ukrainian engineers had some very positive things to say about the technology progress of Chinese blades.

You must be referring to the R-129 project. I don’t think the original R-77 uses a loft trajectory or a double burn mode motor. The addition of such was supposed to be on the next version of the R-77 (R-77M?). Range won’t change much, but with a lofted trajectory, you would probably have better terminal performance, as well as a better RCS image of the target.

The Aspide the Chinese acquired from the Italians have both lofted trajectories and double burn mode motors (the latter also passed by the Israelis to the Chinese via the Python 3/PL-8 development). The Aspide became the PL-11.

It is possible that the Chinese have two duplicate ARH projects, one based on the R-77 with Russian help, and the other being a completely indigenous development (SD-10) intended for export. By running two projects, they would have zero failure since one back ups the other in case of failure. Also, a Sino-Russian partnership can create a missile that is both compatible with Russian and Chinese planes, so you are not forced to create duplicate inventories to support both your Russian planes (MKK) and Chinese planes (e.g. J-10). So there is a logistical reason.