GoldenDragonThe problem is not lack of an available aircraft to shoot the Kiln down, it’s the early warning system.
GoldenDragonPL-11 is the Aspide clone, correct?
Aspide clone at least once removed. It was actually adopted from the HQ-61 SAM and mated with the Aspide seeker from the PL-10 project which was a follow-on to the PL-4 which in turn was also based on the Sparrow as the Aspide was.
GoldenDragonTell that to the ghosts of my relatives George (fought in the Afghan war of 1841-2) & Thomas (Bharatpore 1825-6) Washington.
I have no idea what the ghosts of your relatives would actually say. (I have read enough literature from the time frame to know how colonials viewed the colonized. Read Kipling and his use of the N-word for Indians.) The fact of the matter was the Brits took over India with a very small number of men and very little losses.
Mention of India’s extreme poverty was made only after Flex said Pakistan’s economy would not be able survive a two or three year war. My reply is neither would India. Nothing more, nothing less than that.
At any rate, let’s not continually bring up India in a JF-17 thread unless you are willing to accept a honest without feeling insulted.
GoldenDragonThose are impressive numbers, I must say. How long is it planned to take ? On average how many aircraft would be delivered each year ?
There will be at least two lines: one in Chengdu and the second in Kamra. If we take a conservative guess of 12 per year from each line then we’ll get 24 aircraft every year. A less conservative number of say 18 aircraft from each line, we’ll get 36. At the high end, we might get two aircraft per month per line (which is a supposed industry standard for 3rd/4th gen aircraft) and you’ll get 50.
At 50, you’ll fill the original 150 plane order in three years. Though that is not a realistic scenario for a new aircraft and a new plant in Pakistan.
But the overall situation is that there is potential for very quick deliveries, especially if Chengdu puts in a second line. Though that would come in conflict with resources for the J-10 lines at the same company.
We know there are around 100 copies of the J-10 (which is a far more complicated aircraft) to make since its induction in 2003. In four years, after subtracking 20 odd prototypes and limited production models that were built before induction and we have a reasonable guess at 20 aircraft per year.
So, basically almost every PAF aircraft, except the F-16s, right ?
The new US F-16s will soldier on for years. Everything else, except for the F-7PGs, are waiting for replacements.
Other question: what PAF aircrafts are/would be supposed to carry a nuclear bomb (if any) ? Are they the A-5s strike aircrafts or the Mirages ?
Delivering a nuke depends not just on the warplane but more importantly on the miniaturization of the nuclear weapon. I don’t have the specs on the Pakistani bomb.
A Chinese A-5 variant was designed to carry a nuke. Unless modified, the PAF’s A-5s and Mirage Rose II machines are not naturally nuke capable unless the Pakistani nuclear weapon is reduced to the size of a 1000lb free-fall bomb.
GoldenDragonThen, let’s try to save the day: I heard that Pakistan intends to by about 150 JF-17, but what aircraft are they supposed to replace ? I assume those are the various mirages III and 5 currently in service within the PAF, am I right ?
The 150 figure was the original stipulation in the joint agreement in 1999 to get the project rolling. That figure is reported up to 250 in recent publications.
The fact is the JF-17 is now the foundation of the Pakistani aviation industry. It’s theirs. They can build as many as they want or afford. (China keeps the FC-1 designation for export purposes.)
In the short term, the aircraft mentioned that need replacing are Mirages, the A-5s and the F-7Ps.
GoldenDragonActually, till GD started with his usual PRC uber alles- I daresay it was going well. Why not start a PAF-IAF thread and endeavour to steer it? You could take the initiative and lets see how it goes.
No, you took as an “insult” a perfectly reasonable reply that the Indian economy, which has the world largest population living in absolute poverty, would not last a two or three year war any better than Pakistan.
Now why it is okay for Pakistan to be described as poor but not India?
If you want to debate just debate. Don’t define areas that the other side can’t touch (like poverty) just because you’re sensitive to being seen as poor. :rolleyes:
GoldenDragonHmm perhaps you need a lesson in reading comprehension.
Nope, you said a poor population would assist in war-making. I said it doesn’t matter if we judge by the battles that the British fought. Especially those fought in India.
Plassey pretty much set a precedence where a small number of British can knock out a huge army of natives by causing a small number of casualties and making the rest of them break and run.
Indeed, they won the war even. Chairman Mao could do no wrong.
China won all the ground of North Korea against the United States. No more no less.
Chairman Mao did a lot wrong including destroying China’s economy but the communist Chinese and north Vietnamese were among the few organizations which could get poor peasants to shed blood and fight on.
This was very different from the what happened elsewhere where a few shots from a Western rifle and the natives run off. This happened in India and pre-communist China.
Yep, those damned Americans and their propoganda about MiG alley. Why dont they admit that the Chinese slaughtered them at will w/o aircover?
Why change my words? I said the Americans bombed at will up and down the peninsula with impunity. They had complete and absolute control of the air. But the US still lost all of North Korea even with this overwhelming air power.
The point is air power is not a determining factor. And India can never gain the same kind of control over Pakistan that the USAF/USN had over Korea.
Anything else, master?
:rolleyes:
GoldenDragonGermany runs a large trade surplus with the USA (BTW, Germany has the biggest trade surplus in the world, bigger than Chinas, though US congressmen don’t seem to know that).
US Congressmen don’t really care. There is a special perception of East Asians in the US both of the perceived threats (PRC, North Korea) and the allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan.)
It doesn’t matter if Germany has a bigger trade surplus or the UK or the Netherlands owns more American real estate than any country from East Asia.
American sensitivity to East Asian advantages (foes or allies) is heightened. This is the reason that the F-2 turned into a F-16 derivative when what the Japanese wanted was a delta-canard. It is also the reason South Korea went with the F-15 from pretty much the very start.
Saudi Arabia has a huge trade surplus with the USA & is buying Typhoons. Russia has a massive trade surplus with the USA. Even the UK has a significant trade surplus with the USA. Sorry, but that’s only relevant when considered alongside political factors other than trade, & that shows what actually matters: political attitudes.
Absolutely, that is the political attitude in the US. It’s doesn’t matter what Saudi Arabia, Russia, Germany or the UK does. It matters how US Congressmen perceive the Far East.
It’s a highly charged love/hate relationship that extends to Far Eastern allies and foes alike. If China buys an European system, it’s a threat. If Japan or South Korea buys the Typhoon, it’s betrayal.
GoldenDragonActually even if one were to take your statements as “true”- it supports Flexs point. On a callous note, poverty in any country means that there is that much more manpower available. Thats the same way the Brits used Indian manpower to further their empire aims- including the then China and the same way Mao sent thousands to their death in Korea.
Poverty stricken manpower did not make India an empire and in fact made it part of someone else’s empire.
Colonial battles of the British usually involved both sides sustaining very light casualties because the poverty-stricken natives simply broke and ran after a few were shot by rifles or blown up by a small naval cannon dragged ashore from a Royal Navy warship.
The battles of the British conquest of India were prime examples of this. Fifty thousand Indians basically melted away from the battlefield at Plassey before several hundred Europeans. There were no mass slaughter just a lot of people running away from conflict.
As for China in Korea, indoctrinated communist armies like the Chinese and the North Vietnamese were among the few that can effectively use a poverty stricken population.
This is a very simplistic outlook- the Indo/Pak matchup shows the impact of airpower on ground battles several times over.
To be perfectly honest, the impact of air power is practically nil. Pakistan have pretty much won the air war in each but had very limited effect on the ground. No amount of air power could change the logistical nightmare of having the eastern half on your country separated by enemy territory while fighting a full scale civil war.
Again, thats a very simplistic outlook- nobody is talking of winning a war by airpower alone– the point is airpower in totality, can contribute to a war winning effort.
It can be a potent tool to wage war and win pyschological points.
Communist China sacrificed men for land in Korea, basically pushing an extremely powerful American military from the Yalu to the 38th. The longest retreat in American history bar none.
The PLA basically did it without any air cover whatsoever. The United States bombed at will along the entire breadth and length of the Korean peninsula — the stories of “MiG Alley” notwithstanding.
It can be an even better propaganda tool for the side with the much smaller air force. Vietnam was a prime example. The NVAF was tiny compared to the USAF/USN.
But they used their aircraft correctly and destroyed a few US fighters in a few air to air engagements that had no impact on the war itself but created a powerful image of the smaller nation standing up to a superpower even in the air.
GoldenDragonAlthough it would be nice to see the Typhoon in East Asia, it’s pretty much a moot point since Japan and South Korea (and the ROC) are locked into the US politically.
Also since each run a large trade surplus with the US, buying American aircraft is one of the few ways they can balance things off and stave off attacks from American Congressmen protecting their states’ industries.
It has little to do with the merits of the Typhoon or Rafale vis a vis the F-15 or F-16.
GoldenDragonThe Chinese FD-60 is marketed specifically at US made aircraft that can use Sparrow.
Nothing is harder to integrate than a semi-active homing BVRAAM. You need complete integration between radar and missile.
Anything else — IR missiles, even ARH — would be simpler.
Chinese missile may be for Pakistan’s F-16s
ROBERT HEWSON
Editor Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons
Bangkok“China is about to bring a second beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air missile (AAM) to the export market. The new weapon, to be known as the FD-60, is already in service with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force as the PL-11.
In China it equips the Shen- yang J-8II ‘Finback’ interceptor but, according to the manufacturer, the export version is intended for the F-16 – a clear signal that Pakistan could be the lead customer.
. . .
As the FD-60 is based largely on the Aspide/Sparrow design, integrating it with US-built aircraft should be relatively straightforward. Such a missile would be of great interest to existing customers of Chinese equipment, such as Pakistan and Iran, that have inventories of US fighters for which they cannot obtain advanced weapons – chiefly BVR missiles.
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) is already working on acquiring a BVR combat capability through the SD-10 and JF-17 Thunder (CATIC FC-1 fighter) combination. However, the opportunity to add a BVR AAM to its inventory much sooner (via the F-16) would surely be seized by the PAF command, which has already identified such weapons as one of its highest acquisition priorities.”
GoldenDragonAs with the Night witches, you may wonder if the Tamils are spending their resources the right way, buying the aircraft and training up flight crews, etc, considering the limited amount of damage they could ever hope to cause!
It’s a propaganda tool. Two things that any guerrilla movement wants is legitimacy and attention. An air force brings both.
GoldenDragonLooking at Iran-Iraq war where the war expenditures took over 40% of Iraq’s GDP (Iran is 2,5-3 times larger than Iraq) I think it is easily predictable that Pakistani economy would not last more than two-three years leading a major war with India (10x larger than Pakistan). These are simple numbers that cannot be tricked out by some nationalistic jingo plus waving green/white flags.
I don’t think the Indian economy can last a two year war either. In spite of its growth (which is dependent on transfer of service jobs from English-speaking countries), it remains one of the poorest nations on earth with a seething underclass several times the size of the entire population of Pakistan. This is no ordinary underclass either, this is an underclass with poverty on par with sub-Saharan Africa.
So if you talk about the economy, you have to look at both sides not just one.
As for the JF-17, it’s a foundation project for the Pakistani aviation industry. Upgrade in types and numbers of aircraft protect the air space, no more, no less. In the third world, especially between nations with land borders, wars are determined on the ground not in the air.
Only one country can potentially win from the air alone and that’s the United States. You need aircraft in the thousands. And even that is no guarantee as events in Iraq shows.
GoldenDragonFrom Reuters in Yahoo News:
GoldenDragonFrom the Gulf News
Sign In
