RoovialkFor Blitzo. Regarding Japanese AirForce KC-767s basing at Naha I present this tidbit of information. There are others.
28th February visitor,
97-3603 KC-767(B767-2FKER) JASDF,404 Hikotai JF601 from PGUA
This was 28 February 2012. There are many instances of KC-767s flying in and out of Naha. Japan would be foolish to not forward base KC-767s either tankers or AWACS out of this base that is so close to the scene of the action to support air patrols
RoovialkYes people who sit behind desks and play war but have never been on a battle field watching their brothers die or go home horribly crippled.
The R. Strange McNamara type warriors that get people killed out of arrogance and ignorance.
Simulations attempt to clear the fog of ignorance. Ever hear the saying: Forewarned is forearmed? Ever hear of RedFlag?
RoovialkI meant confusing as in “the PLA doesn’t even operate the H-5 anymore”.
The addition of civilian aircraft shouldn’t complicate matters very much. Virtually all civilian airliners are following the rules of both sides ADIZ, filing flight plans, with transponders etc. The Japanese have operated their ADIZ for ages and I’ve read Chinese airliners actually haven’t followed their ADIZ rules either. But either way, there’s no reason to believe civilian aircraft will complicate the ADIZ handling of either the JSDF or PLA. Most “unidentified” contacts can easily be IDed by AEWC as civilian airliners based on their heading, speed, altitude etc, so it’s not like PLAAF will be sending a J-11 to check out every single JAL airliner.
Hmm, are KC-767s routinely based there to support F-15Js? It’s not that I don’t believe you, I’d just like confirmation.
I will obtain confirmation and get back to you. And you are aware aren’t you that some airlines, the Japanese owned ones at least are refusing to cooperate with the Chinese ADIZ. Also do recall that the Korean flight 007 WAS giving proper civilian transponder codes but was shot down anyway because the Russians thought that the codes were coming from a RC-135 seen lurking in the area. Giving proper transponder codes is no guarantee of protection from shoot down
Also, like my previous post illustrated, H-6Us also support J-10s for extended endurance patrols. Of course, an H-6U only has a third of the fuel offload capacity of a KC-767, but then again, the PLA has about five times as many H-6Us as the JASDF has KC-767s, and fortunately the theater in which the aircraft need to refuel isn’t very far from PLA bases so they won’t end up expending most of their fuel simply getting over there and back.
While I agree that air refuelling may be a significant factor, flankers have formidable range and endurance, and J-10s with air refuelling aren’t small fish either, despite the fact that each H-6U can only refuel four J-10s or something.
Do you have any examples of Chinese H-6Us participating in the patrolling of the Chinese ADIZ?
Yes, but I wasn’t talking about distance, I was talking about the number of airbases within range of the airzone.
For instance, in my link it shows, there is one PLA airbase 380km from the disputed islands (using that as a bench mark), and another which is 580km away, compared to Naha, which is 420km away. However, if we look at how wide the overlapping ADIZ is rather than distances from airbases to the disputed islands, then the other two more distant airbases also come into play, however the JASDF (from my curosry google search of their airbases) will still only be able to rely on Naha. Feel free to correct me if there are other JASDF bases in Japan’s southwest which I’m unaware of.
http://slide.mil.news.sina.com.cn/slide_8_35313_19310.html#p=7
Air refuelling won’t play as big a part as I think you expect, simply because both sides only have a limited number of air refuelling assets in the first place. With maintenance, the small number on both sides will have low availability.
Also, is it standard for countries that maintain ADIZs to have constant standing patrols 24/7, or do they only scramble fighters with detection of a potentially unfriendly contact? I’m not talking about territorial standing air patrols, but rather having a constant fighter presence some 100-200km from one’s borders.
I think the duration of the standing PLAAF patrols will depend on how China decides to configure this ADIZ.
I see.
Are the weapons and sensor specifications fixed or adjustable? I’m sure you’ll understand there is much potential debate on the specs of various PLA equipment.
Yes there is. And the simulation programmers are working overtime to streamline COMMAND to make it reflect reality. This is why this new Chinese ADIZ and the air and sensor activity associated with it represents an intelligence bonanza for the outside world. China is being forced to reveal aspects and capabilities of its military that were heretofore hidden
Roovialk? So… you are assuming the PLA haven’t flown AEWC or fighters outside of internal airspace before?
I never made any claim about tankers btw.
The only known example of China flying its fighters outside of internal airspace is the Turkish exercise I mentioned. If you have something to add to this then please do so by all means. And on that example no tanker or AWACS was deployed to support the PLAAF side.
I think I need to ask you to clarify as to what you believe the PLAAF/NAF are capable of doing, because from what I’m hearing you make it sound like the PLA has never even flown or trained outside of internal airspace.
Other than the Turkish example one is hard pressed to find an example of PLAAF doing anything beyond their own borders. This lack of exposure to the outside world is what makes it difficult to obtain objective assessment on Chinese capabilities. Don’t you agree?
The problem is we know next to nothing about PLAAF doctrine and operational standards.
True. Everything is guesstimation. And that is what makes designing a game like COMMAND such a challenge
Like I said, I never made a claim about tankers — however PLAAF J-10s deploy with H-6U tankers over the south china sea on a fairly regular basis.
I can’t find the original pla website report, unfortunately, but the pictures are nice. A few years old I think, but nice.http://chinesemil.blogspot.co.nz/2009/08/photos-of-chinas-j-10-fighter-jet.html
My understanding is that the PLAAF would like to adopt the boom type method practiced by the American airforce.
RoovialkI’m not sure how you come to the conclusion that “the Chinese player has purposely held back their AWACS over Chinese mainland airspace in order to protect their valuable asset.”? If your input is subjective, no wonder any simulation outcome is subjective.
The fact is on 28 Nov, 2013, PLAAF speaker has declared several Su30MK & J11 Fighters, led by a KJ-2000 AWACS, patrolled the airspace within Chinese ADIZ, and KJ-2000 is considered a higher value asset than KJ-200.
The other Chinese geographic advantage is: the disputed airspace overlaying between Chinese & Japanese ADIZs, is much closer to Chinese mainland, where, the HQ-9/S-300 PMU1,2 can extend the air defense far beyond the coast, allowing Chinese AWACSs comfortably operates within the Air defense shield, while still providing sufficient situational awareness coverage over Daoyu islands airspace, why would them venture out to show “experience or braveness”, in order to please you? On the other hands, Japanese AWACSs have to venture out far from its mainland airbases or SAM defenses. it’s obviously a significant nature disadvantage to Japanese yet you arrived the conclusion that” such deployment reflects doctrine and the experiences of Japanese?”. Any blind braveness is suicidal. venturing out so far, facing the biggest 4th G fleet outside US, based in East China, reinforced by hundreds strong H-6s JH-7s, which can strike those outer island military bases or sea targets, let along land based cruise missile sites , SRBMs or MRBMs.
Therefore, such “simulation” is useless due to it’s just a pre-determined ,reflective results of the mindset who operating the computing.
The hold back of the PLAAF AWACS happened during a scenario or scenarios where the Chinese side took a conservative stance to protect assets. You should understand that this Chinese ADIZ is breaking new ground in the deployment of Chinese assets. There are no previous examples of PLAAF use of their tankers or AWACS any distance from the Chinese mainland. So the deployment patterns in COMMAND are based upon the best known evidence of PLAAF doctrine and operational standards.
If you know of a better example of PLAAF operations then please refer me to this information. The longest distance the PLAAF has deployed was that joint exercise with the Turkish airforce in 2010. No tanker support was used to support the PLAAF in that example.
“In mid-September, a fleet of Chinese Su-27 and Mig-29 fighter aircraft flew through Pakistan, refueled in Iran and reached Turkish airspace for joint military exercises with the Turkish Air Force.”
RoovialkI expect KJ-200 to have similar peformance to E-767s in terms of range and detection, but being a erieye style balance beam array, it will lack some nose and aft coverage.
Bringing in an H-5 recon plane is confusing and makes me wonder about the credibility of this particular article’s simulation, because the PLA hasn’t operated H-5s in years.
Furthermore, I wonder if the simulator also considers the airbases both sides have in range of the ADIZ. I believe Japan only has Naha airbase that can deploy F-15Js to the ADIZ ECS region without refuelling, while I think the PLAAF/NAF combined have about 4 airbases fielding flankers and J-10s.
If you want to see confusion, wait until civilian aircraft are introduced into the scenario editor and then lets talk confusion. And regarding Naha airbase tanker support is routinely based there to support F-15 patrols. Can you provide examples of PLAAF tankers supporting patrols of J-11s or J-10s? Its seems that a lack of organic tanker support is the Achilles heel of the PLAAF mounting standing patrols over water. Notice I said standing patrols.
A simple check of Google maps shows that Naha airbase where these F-15s are based is roughly the same distance from these disputed islands as they are from the Chinese mainland. Neither side has a distance advantage over the other.
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Before someone even goes about simulating an ADIZ confrontation, we need to consider how many planes each side can deploy, if they can’t even get that balance right, then the rest is effectively redundant.
If they can agree on an “average” deployment force for both sides, then they can start talking other assumptions such as AEWC range, weapons range or reliability, and ultimately, how aggressive each side will seek to command their own aircraft. If the assumption is that the PLA will naturally be more timid in this scenario, then we are effectively assuming they will come out worse on every occasion.
The simulation allows much flexibility in how forces are presented and deployed
If we’re giving both sides the benefit of the doubt in the human factor (from equal commanding virtuoso and equal piloting skill), then it will be a far more unbiased measurement of simply seeing how the differences in machine quantity and quality play out.
Can Command process battles autonomously and give each side a similar “skill”/aggressiveness level, and simply give the user a battle outcome? If so, then we could try simply repeat the scenario, say, a hundred times and see which side wins more, and end up conducting a test to see if their win count is statistically higher than a win count if we expect both sides to be equal (i.e.: each side wins half of the battles).
It doesn’t say much if we conduct a one off simulation and end up giving one side a handicap of being automatically less willing to deploy assets in advantageous positions, and ignore the real world force balance which local airbase differences will provide.
The answer to that question is a resounding yes. Certain factors can be taken into account as to training, pilot skill etc and adjusted accordingly. The player can play the same scenario over and switch sides to see the outcome
Addendum: this entire scenario is basically BS because the article assumes both sides will immediately seek to fire on the other side’s breach of their respective ADIZs. That won’t happen, neither is going to start a shooting war, there will be some aggressive maneuvering and mock dogfights at most, but probably just fighters on both sides staring each other down before they need to return home.
The most realistic chance of conflict is an accidental shootdown or collision between fighters that leads both sides to start shooting at one another, probably within visual range, before the survivors withdraw and regroup, and emergency diplomacy starts talking to mitigate an escalation and expansion of the incident.
Not necessarily. There is too much bad blood expressed to easily solve these problems. I mean suppose a civilian aircraft is shot down by accident. The outcome of something like that would make the Korean Air 747 shoot down look like a picnic.
RoovialkThe word that comes to mind in the RQ-180 working with manned systems is Synergy
As in the interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of their individual effects. The term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia συνέργια from synergos, συνεργός, meaning “working together”.
RoovialkI don’t, hence why I said “shouldn’t”. Information on the KJ-200 is pretty scarce, but digging around I’ve found figures from 300-450 km. On the upper end that’s similar to figures I’ve dug up for the E-3 Sentry.
It’s precisely why I’m wondering what they estimated the KJ-200’s range to be. The entire scenario that was posted plays out under the assumption that the Chinese side is limited by the KJ-200’s detection range. If we’re going to figure out how accurate a simulation is, we’ll need to test its assumptions.
I will ask the designers of the simulation how they arrived at the range figures on the KJ-200 AWACS and report back here. If they are wrong on their estimates I will suggest that they revise the figures one way or another. New data is being obtained all the time and is being used to create a more accurate picture of the respective pieces of hardware and orders of battle. Many revisions have been made already as people begin to interact with the simulation and add suggestions
You should also understand that the deployment of the Chinese AWACS ( KJ_200 ) is a factor in the detection range. In several scenarios the Chinese player has purposely held back their AWACS over Chinese mainland airspace in order to protect their valuable asset. Japan on the other hand deploys their KC-767 AWACS and their E-2D in a much more aggressive manner. These deployments reflect doctrine and the experiences of the respective countries.
And that’s the value of a simulation such as COMMAND. You can safely explore different tactical setups to see how things play out. Even now materials are being provided that will allow COMMAND to simulate civilian traffic intermixed with military traffic in the Chinese ADIZ. This will complicate the enforcement by the PLAA of the ADIZ.
And it will increase the possibility of mistakes in decision making.
RoovialkOf all the things to nitpick, you pick the range of China’s AEW&C? This simulation is worthless. It seems to be me like a 4v4 video game type simulation. In reality, China is outnumbered and outgunned in the ADZ they set up. China knows this. This is a purely political move.
Since you have never played COMMAND, nor understand the level of detail and time invested in this tool your statement about the simulation being “worthless” carries little weight. I will add that several military and civilian think tanks are evaluating COMMAND as a planning aid for modeling future conflicts. It is that good.
Perhaps you should do a deeper investigation before you make snap judgments.
RoovialkThe integration between manned and unmanned is the exciting part. Employed properly drones can handle many mundane and dangerous tasks and let the manned systems do the heavy lifting
RoovialkThe game is there to use to better understand the issues of the Chinese ADIZ. Nothing more or nothing less
RoovialkScenario set-up in God’s Eye viewing mode. Yellow reference points show ADIZs.
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RoovialkI don’t think you are understanding how COMMAND it is being used to game out various scenarios regarding the Chinese ADIZ. Here is a new one just out of Japan. Simulations of hot clashes in the Chinese ADIZ are the talk of the web as people customize COMMAND for use as a powerful analytic tool.
“….The speculation about the new ADIZ declared by China continues. After Tim Robinson at the RAS, Kyle Mizokami at War Is Boring has also played out a hypothetical hot episode based on this new issue, using Command. But he added a twist: USAF F-22As covertly joining the rumble.
China plans to ambush one of Japan’s air patrols—a P-3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft and an accompanying pair of F-15J Eagle fighters—as it makes its daily flight through the Ryukyu and Senkaku islands, hundreds of miles south of mainland Japan. […]
If the attack on the Orion is successful and the opportunity presents itself, the Chinese could also shoot down an E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft orbiting southwest of Okinawa. The destruction of four planes and the deaths of as many as 21 aircrew would be a great loss for Japan.
The Chinese air force plans to send up three groups of planes. The first, with four J-11B fighters, will try to take out Japan’s F-15 escorts, leaving the Orion patrol plane defenseless.
The second Chinese group, composed of four J-10 multi-role fighters, will then dart in and shoot down the Orion—and potentially also the Hawkeye.
Providing radar coverage and command and control will be the third group, with a KJ-2000 airborne early warning aircraft flanked by fighter escorts. The early warning group will stay out of the battle zone, instead holding off the coast of China.”
RoovialkFor those who live in Japan these pilots preserve our freedoms and lives.
Those Japanese fighter pilots in the videos look very professional. If push comes to shove they will give good account of themselves
RoovialkThat needs a lot of ELINT.
The Chinese are providing SIGINT in the form of an up to date electronic order of battle. Watch for the day-to-day operation of the Chinese ADIZ to become a model replicated during a Red Flag exercise with Aggressors playing the role of the Chinese air force.
Signals intelligence (often contracted to SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether between people (“communications intelligence”—COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (“electronic intelligence”—ELINT), or a combination of the two
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