But the thing about the F-22 is that it isn’t exportable. If the price isn’t too high, then the technology is too sensitive. Stick to the F-22, kills the JSF, and the Typhoon, Rafale and the Sukhois is guaranteed to rule the exports. And you simply cannot use the F-22 on a carrier. You need to go back to the drawing board to redraw and restress the airframe. Then what about the close support for your Army and Marines? You expect the F/A-22 to do the mud mover jobs which our present F-16s, F-18s and A-10s do?

You’re back to the same thing, getting one peg to fit them on different holes. It does not matter if the peg is the JSF or the F-22, you need a peg to work from. Once everyone is trying to make that one peg fit on their different hole, you’re going to have requirement after requirement and the whole thing will get more complex, get heavier and ballon in price. If you are thinking about cost savings in volume production, guess again, as the F-16 didn’t go down in prices either. As a matter of fact, the F-16 went from the simple fighter it originally is in its Block 15 configuration, to the complex mini monster in its Block 60 form as requirements and requirements piled on.

The point is, if you don’t have the JSF, the US will inevitably invent one, no matter what. The F-22 will always be a niche plane and the best way to keep the F-22 costs low is to keep it as an air dominance fighter simple without any of the bomber stuff.

If you don’t mind, I’ll archive this in ACIG’s Chinese AAMs thread.

This is probably the best F-22 shot I’ve ever seen.

That organic protection will have to come from the “052C” class ships like the DDG 170, and possibly ships using the RIF Ms they bought.

I know about the 052Bs, but I am looking for confirmation on the new Sovs. The missile on the model looks like the 9M317, but I would like to know for sure.

Quite so. It’s hard to get absolute confirmation at this point. Remember they kicked out the Western journalists during the launching of the system.

Common sense tells you if they sold the Chinese the SA-N-12 for use on the CHN made destroyers, you should expect equal to better treatment on your own platform that you are selling to them.

Keeping the domestic industry ticking along would have to be more important in the long run. So to see Chinese missiles on the their own new destroyers doesn’t surprise me. It is still not confirmed, as far as I know, if the new Type 052C is indeed fitted with those Rif systems or not. Unless of course there has been an official press release I am not aware of.

There are rumours of a larger vessel in the works, but I would VERY surpirsed to see it have SA-N-12 and the Rif as well. And again I would be surprised to see 3M80MVE on them too. These massive missiles do not make for a good blue water vessel, as the Chinese can not reload them at sea. The Soviet philosophy behind the SS-N-22 Sunburn-armed Sovremenny was to deploy fast, fire off the weapons, usually at the biggest NATO ship they could find, and then probably die before getting back to port. They did not expect them to survive once deployed far from home ports engaging NATO ships and subs. The Chinese on the other hand would use them on their own Sovremenny class close to home, and target Taiwanese ships or US CVBGs. They would have home water sanctuary, or be near enough to home to be able to return to port and reload. The Sov+3M80 buy for the Chinese was IMO to be used purely in this fashion. Obviously the more of them they have the better off that capability will be come crunch time, especially if the missiles have twice the range!

If they want to deploy more 3M80 class weapons for use near home waters then they would be better off arming smaller, faster, and cheaper corvettes with them. The new Stealthy FAC(M) that we have seen recently will apprently be armed with either YJ-83 or even Yakhont according to one source.

I believe the Chinese will continue to arm their new vessels with more the more typical kind of AShM (YJ-83 etc.) that can will make them more servicable at sea and able to maintain an effective ocean going capability when it counts.

Yes I can see your point. But I don’t think reloading is a problem for a bigger ship, or for that matter, I don’t think reloading was even part of the plan. Remember, we’re talking of a cruiser here. The ship is not intended to go deep water, but to support operations in the East China sea. I don’t expect it to operate far from port. (The DDG 170 do not appear to be able to reload at sea either).

I don’t think the Chinese would fund the development of such a missile like the 3M80MVE just in order to use it on only two ships. Either they got bigger ships in mind and/or, they also plan to use it on small FACs. Either the Sunburns will be adapted to a domestic stealthy FAC (like ship 2280) or the PLAN might procure Tarantulas.

“Brown water” off the China coasts and into the East China sea are ideal territory for FACs to operate.

Glenn, crobato, some new information from this week’s JDW re: the new Sovremenny 956EM and the upgraded Moskit.

“Ordered through Russia’s state armaments export agency, Rosoboronexport, in January 2002 at a cost of just over $1 billion, the first Project 956EM destroyer was laid down late in 2002 and is due to be handed over to the PLA(N) in late 2005. The second ship was laid down in 2003 and is due for completion in 2006.”

It appears that the different in weapons systems will be thus; “Main differences include the removal of the aft AK-130 twin 130mm gun mounting, replacement of the AK-630M close-in weapon system with the Kashtan inner-layer defence system and an extended flight deck. The Project 965EM ships will also carry an improved version of the 3M80 Moskit supersonic anti-ship missile. “

I’m not sure if this is a typo or not, but Jane’s has the new Moskit variant listed as a 3M80MVE, and since the letter ‘v’ is close to the letter ‘b’, who’s to say Kanwa or JDW is correct?

But, why pay $1 billion for 2 destroyers, when 2-3 052Bs could’ve built instead? Did the Russians have some sort of clause where they said, ‘you cannot buy the Kashtan and 3M80MB/VE unless you purchase the entire ship?’ It doesn’t make sense to me to purchase 2 additional ships whose capabilities may not be better than domestic ones (poor electronics capabilities, C4I on Russian ships I would imagine is worse), and which will take time to integrate into the domestic fleet. Why not just buy the upgraded Moskit and Kashtan separately, if that’s what they’re after?

The contract is probably expensive because it most likely included development of the 3M80MVE (I think V is likely to be more correct; Pinkov was probably taking the designation down by ear). The contract should also include a small inventory of these missiles.

It is puzzling why they would acquire the enhanced Moskit and the Kashtan, but won’t use it on their own ships, using the local AKS730 and the new YJ-12 missiles instead on the new DDG170/171. But then, they appeared to have purchased two SAM RIF-Ms, then went ahead and used a domestic VLS HHQ-9 system instead.

But other systems from the Sovremanny has been used in the Chinese ships—Fregat 3D search radar; Front Dome/SA-N-7/12; Bandstand/Light Bulb. Most specifically the DDG 168/169.

I still have a hunch that the PLA is still planning, or maybe even currently building at least two larger vessels, one which can use the RIF-Ms, the 3M80MVEs, the Kashtans and maybe the VLS SA-N-12, in one package. You can imagine the size of this vessel, which will no doubt be cruiser sized.