great article dude! has anyone read michael dimercurio’s books about future submarine warfare? among other innovations he wrote about rocket-powered superfast underwater missiles that had supplanted torpedoes. i’d thought it was BS, but now this!

i remember reading something about using a rapid-firing gun, perhaps a modified Phalanx CIWS, firing “supercavitating” rounds that could penetrate water to quite a significant depth while keepting enough velocity to kill a torpedo. nothing concrete that i can recall though…

the next gen of US air defense systems will be laser-based. destruction at the speed of light. shoots down eveything down to missiles and arty shells… can an S-400 do that? that’s where all their R&D cash is going… it’s the russians who are gonna get hopelessly left behind.

i say give the Y-10 some CFMs and winglets and FBW and a glass cockpit and it would be quite a decent plane! they’ll be new-build, so no airframe life problems like with the KC-135E/Rs. that said, they’ll still be better off with A330 MRTTs, unless there is a high priority on indigenous design/construction or something.

the chinese aero industry has a ton of potential, they definitely have access to world-class engineers and the money for R&D to keep them profitably occupied. ARJ21 and J-10 are good starts, i hope to see more and better stuff from them at nice prices!

i got bored in a biology lecture, so….

how about a Brimstone vs JCM comparison?

JCM seems to have a much longer range and three times the seeker options.

i was wondering though if JCM’s MMW seeker is capable of independent operation and lockon-after-launch like Brimstone’s, or must be cued by APG-78 MMW radar(or equivalent) like longbow hellfire??

i’m thinking that since the japs aren’t gonna buy anything that isn’t domestic or american…

perhaps an upgrade for their F-15Js would be practical, let’s say to F-15K standard. F100-PW-229s/F110-GE-132s, CFT capability, an AESA (APG-63v3 or an improved F-2 radar), FADEC, improved DFCS, sniperXR and J-series munitions etc etc. once they get AAM-4 up it’d be pretty dangerous.

complementing the F-2s in a kind of hi-lo fighter mix.

it’d offer a significant capability improvement and be relatively cheap… fills in the gap till the F-35 comes.

back in the 1970s a Tu-95 actually penetrated US airspace after flying low under US radar. don’t think that counts as a visit though.