you can’t just diss the A400 like that. it’ll be a good plane, nowhere as popular as the Herk and nowhere as capable as the C-17, and somewhat overweight and overpriced, but still a decent plane that has a role to fill. it isn’t a direct competitor with US transports, but can be said to fill a niche market – something between the C-130 and the expensive C-17.

it’s basic economics. Europeans see a market/demand for an airlifter more capable then the Herk but less so than the C-17, so they decide to supply. you can’t have an airlifter that’s all things to all men, and there will be people who want more than a C-130 but can’t afford a C-17. so the A400 comes in. and politics ain’t the whole story either.

the only thing abt the JAS-39 is its relatively underpowered by 4th gen fighter standards… at only 18000lbs thrust even the Rafale has double the thrust and is only abt 50% heavier. the F-35 will have 40000+lbs, TWR will be much better

old fashioned idea, but here goes…

perhaps a first wave of RN SSNs, maybe even a Vanguard or two, could covertly lay mines in the approaches to China’s major ports – there can’t be that many of them, perhaps all those capable of handling VLCCs and up – while a small group of torpedo-loaded SSNs stands by to ride shotgun and also take care of the initial PLAN response when incoming merchantmen start exploding; targeting especially minesweepers, which i don’t think the PLAN has in significant numbers.

the minelaying SSNs, having laid all their mines, meanwhile make best speed to wherever they can UNREP (sub tender in mid-pacific, Pearl, Faslane, whatever) and load up with torps and relieve their escorts ASAP. then Jonesy’s deploy/relieve cycle can take place, and the blockade scheme implemented as well. all TW/SK/JPN/Russia-bound shipping could be restricted into strict lanes east of taiwan all the way to Kaohsiung/Pusan/Incheon/Yokohama/Vladivostok, and anyone straying too far east on a course for the chinese coast regarded as a blockade intruder and thus hostile.

the idea here isn’t as much to sink merchantmen as it is to intimidate them from entering major chinese ports; no sane merchant marine captain would risk his ship driving into a known minefield. it would also draw PLAN assets away from SSN-hunting to minesweeper escort, allowing the RN SSNs freer rein to enforce the blockade and look out for merchantmen quietly unloading via lighters at less-developed, unmined ports. of course, the SSNs ought to go after the minesweepers as far as possible as well, so the minefield lasts longer hehe.

an SSN-threatened merchant captain would feel jittery enough even in a PLAN-escorted convoy, but knowing that a minefield awaits him at the other end as well and the fact that the enemy is doing as much as he can to thwart PLAN mineclearing efforts might just make him lose his nerve altogether.

the weeks it took to certify Umm Qasr’s port mine-free last year, despite the fact that mineclearing efforts were totally unopposed, mean that mining alone would cripple maritime trade for quite a while i suppose. add to that an active “defense” of the minefields, and… well. you get it.

whoa man! great debate going on here.

my twopence’s worth, though, is that an RN-vs-PLAN ONLY duel would be really far-fetched; british-chinese engagements like these typically only occur in james bond movies. in all likelihood the USN would have to get involved before the RN wades in. now this brings in CVNs plus 688s, Seawolfs and Virginias… and there isn’t much left to argue over, i admit.

the rolling deployments Jonesy envisages for RN SSNs between china and “home waters”, possible as they are despite the enormous distance and hassle, won’t be necessary; Pearl Harbour is much nearer to china than Portsmouth or Faslane.

that said, the ability of the RN to put a big dent in china’s maritime merchant trade without US involvement goes to show the massive, and often underestimated, power-projection capability of the modern SSN. even in WWII, while people celebrate big aircraft-carrier battles like Midway and Coral Sea, everyone forgets that subs sank the most ships, and crippled the japs by cutting off their raw materials from southeast asia and thus made winning so much easier. and ancient, clunky, dilapidated SSKs at that; imagine what a T-class or Seawolf could do!

Contrails are essentially iced water molecules in the a/c’s exhaust. IIRC, they spray a special chemical on the exhaust to control icing.

from greg goebel’s aviation site: http://www.vectorsite.net/avb2.html

“The exhaust is mixed with airflow obtained through the boundary layer splitter slot to reduce the infrared signature. The aircraft was also designed to eliminate its contrail, with a tank outboard of the main landing gear to store a chemical that would be mixed with the exhaust flow to suppressed the formation of a contrail. This scheme wasn’t actually used in practice, and so a “lidar” (laser light radar) system was eventually developed to detect the formation of a contrail and alert the pilot to descend to lower altitude.”

maybe the chemical in question pi$$ed off the treehuggers…

right now there is quite an uproar in indonesia, and to a lesser extent in malaysia and china over the purchase. these are countries that historically have had a less-than-totally-friendly relationship with australia, and they are suspicious and threatened about an aussie cruise missile capability. they were somewhat ****ed when the aussies were talking about joining the US-led ABM shield intiative and were considering SM-2/3s, but were appeased when they realized that was a purely defensive thing; cruise missiles otoh are offensive and pre-emptive in nature, and they feel they are the targets. (who else anyway?)

indonesia has never totally forgiven australia for 1963 when the requirements for the F-111C specifically called that it be able to “reach jakarta and back with a nuclear bomb”. malaysia naturally took indonesia’s side and ex-malaysian PM Mahathir once implied that aussie was a US lackey and had ambitions to become a “regional sheriff”, which malaysia took offence at.

australia could do with being more sensitive to its neighbours. but it seems the Howard government isn’t learning from the lessons of 1963…

from a purely military standpoint i’d go for the JASSM – we all know its advantages – but if aussie wanted to avoid inflaming its neighbours, it could have been much more low-key about things. perhaps buy the SLAM-ERs instead, and tell the press “it is a long-range ground-attack missile based on the harpoon antishipping missile we already have…” and religiously avoid the term “cruise missiles” that conjures up images of tomahawks razing baghdad and is really anathema to muslim minds. right now titles to the effect of “Australia plans cruise missile purchase” are all over regional papers (i’m from singapore) and the malaysians and indonesians will think of what cruise missiles did to their muslim brothers in baghdad and will pressure their govts to do something.

there is talk of singapore acquiring cruise missiles too, possibly VL Storm Shadow/Scalp for use with our new Delta frigates. we’ll have to be much more sensitive about it that aussie has been, though!

…. in a real-war situation it’s much better to shoot off another missile at the inbound ballistic missile than risk having a nuke/bio/chem warhead landing on your head.