Oh we can’t wait! 😀

And neither could people from around the world, including those who really don’t like Chinese people and curse us as “drones” 😀

A small air force dealing with insurgency and distributing aid would need a transportation arm more than anything else both to insert troops (on a short runway) and to deliver supplies (both military and civilian.)

A half dozen Y-12s (or DHC6 Twin Otters) for liason and platoon size/special forces insertions and two An-12, Y-8 or C-130 for company-sized forces and for supplies.

A half-dozen Tucanos or Pucaras for COIN.

If there’s money for jets then a half -dozen J-7/MiG-21s and associated trainer/attack craft (K-8/L-39)

Helos aren’t cheap (not even Russian ones) and actually gives far less bang for the buck than fixed wings but there is nothing like one for insertion into areas where even a short runway is not available. The Chinese copy of the Dauphin, the Z-9 is an affordable buy.

So two of those if you could afford jets and then have some left over. If you have even more money left over then you could go for a real helo lifter like a Mi-17. Helo gunships are not worth it for the price.

The above mentioned numbers are actually bought by small African air forces in real life.

In picts – Mauritania Y-12, Zambian K-8, Mali Z-9, Tanzanian Y-8F200 and Zimbabwe JJ-7

I hate to change subjects, but what is the deal with the latest Q-5 variants such as the J model? Is it in service? How many?

The two seat Q-5J prototype only flew last year. It’s future is not very certain. People say it is just one of many proposals from China’s many obsolete assembly lines to keep them running. Overcapacity is a serious problem.

Most likely, there would be a few dozen made as trainers or perhaps a few PGM deliverers taking advantage of the second pilot. But the range and load of the design are way too limited.

What about the Q-5D and E? How many of those have been made?

There is also the F. There are probably 200 or less of these late models with the majority of them being the D variant. Series production has supposedly ended for all Q-5s.

Maybe it wasn’t exported because nobody could justify the cost of such a specialised platform.

Soc, come on, you should know that the Foxhound’s main mission was the B-1 not cruise missiles, although as an improvement over the MiG-25 Foxbat it was supposedly able to track cruise missiles as well but was a secondary requirement.

The main problem with cruise missile interception is ground clutter as mentioned earlier.

But since cruise missiles in the 1980s were mainly launched from the sea (by US naval vessels/aircraft), the core Soviet doctrines was to push the US Navy as far away from the coast as possible with the its giant, long range AShMs like the Kitchen.

Also, a cruise missile passing through the littoral (sea/land divide) is almost impossible to track anyways because there is absolutely nothing that can distinguish a sea-level target flying through layered land and water environments on the coast.

Forget cruise missiles going through the littoral, the RAF found that it is almost impossible to track a fully laden Buccaneer flying at low altitude and knowing exactly where it is heading.

Only the F-14/AIM-54 combination has been tested successully against cruise missiles and that is with a radar developed-specically for open ocean (AWG-9) and a giant missile that had its own powerful radar housed in its nose cone.