More developments

I guess there is not as much developments this week. We saw the export version of a Y-8 special missions plane.


Also from the recent times, someone made some nice photo comparisons of the radar + guns used on F-22P vs LD-2000. I'm guessing Type 730 at current time is not available for export, so the exported ships will be using a combination of gun + sensor systems like we've seen.



compares the search radar used on F-22P between the placement on the model and on the ship. Looks like the SR-64 on those export brochures.



Also, there has been a lot of rumbling out of Chinese bbs recently that they are developing a successor to Type 730. Looks like China is going with the gun route for close-in weapon system rather than missile like RAM. I guess one of the problem is that they just haven't been able to come up with a compact and accurate short range SAM like RAM. It's kind of interesting that USN is going with the 57 mm gun as their primary CIWS now. Even though the successor to Type 730 is probably going to look more like 730 than 57 mm, I would think they eventually have to go with something like 57mm to replace the need of having both 76 mm and 30 mm on the same ship.

There are also some news coming out of the aerospace side. According to AVIC1, JF-17 production will be moved from CAC to GAIC. What is unknown at the present time is whether or not CAC will still do any production of JF-17. As we've seen, CAC didn't seem to set up any kind of mass production line for JF-17, so it took a long time to even get the first batch of 8 JF-17s delivered to PAF. It looks like CAC must have really been concentrating on J-10. The interesting part is that GAIC is already producing JJ/FT-7 and JL-9, so I wonder what kind of production rate they can get to with JF-17.

Also according to AVIC1, it seems like the mini-turbofan engines for cruise missiles and UAV are proceeding well in development. Although it is unclear from reading the article where exactly these engines are in development.

And finally, we heard that the Russians want to sue China for J-11B. It's interesting that they are doing this now, because we've known about J-11B for quite a while already. The next post will look at Pinkov's article on this and critique it.

Urgent: New Developments

Alright, so I've finally got the necessary time to post these pictures that I've seen recently. Basically, two sets of new photos came out in the past two days which are kind of exciting.

First, we've seen a new series of Y-8 Surveillance planes (High New 7?). This is kind of amazing, because it has some unique looking radar. I guess I'm just waiting for expert analysis on what the plane is for. Anyhow, here are the photos:





Second, I'm posting a link to the 3rd Yuan that is currently under sea test. Note, this one is not the new 039 variant, but just another hull of the 039A variant. Edited: now I'm going to post the pictures for the new Yuan below.





Also, pictures of Songs operating together from Modern Ship magazine.



Also, some photos of 810 in service. Nice shot of Type 76F

054A and F-22P

As some of you may know, this blog was referenced by Ronald O'Rourke on a congressional research service report on PLAN modernization. While I'm flattered that this blog is referenced, I still would like to look through some parts of the report that I believe is slightly outdated. Since a part of it is reliant on SIPRI report from 2005. As I have said many times, 2-3 years is a long time in PLAN land. But this would come at a later entry.

So, we've finally seen some new photos out of HD shipyard in the past week. Quite extraordinary actually. We saw photos of the second 054A going to SSF, the discovery of the third 054A and the launching of the first F-22P.

So, this is the picture of the 2nd 054A before it leaves for SSF. It's interesting that unlike the HP ships, this one doesn't get the number painted before it goes there. This maybe a difference in practice between HP and HD.



Probably the bigger news is this photo. Now, the guy posting this claimed it to be the 3rd 054A. I have to say that he has never been wrong before (that I know of) and it does look a 054A. So, I guess we can finally officially say that HD is building its third one.

And finally, DDG-82 meets 568. On their port call to Shanghai, the American sailors got a nice look at China's new ship. I bet it's a fascinating thing for both sides.

And the F-22P has been launched. Well, the first one still needs a lot of fitting, but it's in the waters on schedule. And, the keel for the second one was laid down. As we can see with this next two photos, much of the sensors/weapons on the outside have not been installed yet. They probably launched it in a rush to meet the schedule of Pakistanis coming in.



And of course, there are also a bunch of saying how close the two sides are and how great the relationship has become. I think it's kind of interesting that the hull and some of the sensors/guns seem to be more advanced than most of us expected them to be. It definitely seems like they are upgrades over what Jiangwei II has. If you took a look at the gun, it looks more like the Type 730 than the AK-630s (that I originally expected) or the guns on Jiangwei II. I guess a lot more will be revealed in the coming days. What's even more fascinating will be PN's next frigate RFP. I'm quite confident China will win this with 054A. Clearly, it's a generation better than F-22P and would be an upgrade in every way. But, it would be interesting to see what the Europeans offer. Then, we can see what China offers to counter that. Of course now, I wouldn't expect China to be building 054As for PN until after the last F-22P is finished, but the contract should be signed much earlier than that. If F-22P is any indication, what China offers to PN will be different from 054A and unique to their requirements. At the same time, it would be hard to gage on what will appear on the ship at this point, because we simply don't even know what the 2nd batch of 054As look like. Most likely, a future variant of 054 (not sure when) will be switching to CODOG propulsion. If Richard Fisher's article is any indication, it will be 6 more 054As using the current CODAD propulsion before the switch to the CODOG. I'm guessing the newer variant will be larger and more oriented to ASW duties (rather than being the AAW ship it is right now). By that time, QC-185 should also be ready for warships. My guess is that PN would also be opting for a latter variant of the 054 series.

Effects of European embargo lifting

So, I've received some requests recently on what would happen if the European arms embargo gets lifted. Now, this is a really complicated question, because I certainly can't factor in what each country is willing to export to China. I can only say what China would be interested in that is also being exported by European countries. And I also have to apologize in advance for not knowing enough about the technologies in each country and not knowing anything about army related systems. So, I would have to concentrate on the naval/air force related systems in this piece.

First, let's go back and examine what they are currently importing or need to import:
They got a bunch of AAMs and gas turbines from the Ukrainians. And they are certainly looking to Ukraine for help on different transport related projects. They also import a bunch of small subsystems from both the Ukraine and Belarus. And in the future, the most important help they get from the non-Russia former Soviet Republics are the gas turbines and large transport help.

As I stated previously, I think the main systems that China is still trying to get from the Russians include IL-76/78, S-400, turbofan engines of different sizes, transport helicopters like Mi-17/26/38, Ka-28/31, Be-200, subsystems for naval fighter/carrier and more missiles for existing platforms bought from Russia. The turbofan part is referring to AL-31FN series, RD-93 series and AI-222-25F. Although I think the major part of the first two engine series will be for replacement rather than for new fighter jets. In general, a lot of the stuff that China buys from Russians in the future will be to maintain and support existing Russian systems. After the next big order of Be-200 and Helix (which was supposedly signed in 2006), the only thing left will really be the completion of IL-76/78, S-400 and the Mi series transport helicopters.

We also know that China has sort of been getting around the embargo for years and they are still likely to get some systems from the Europeans even if the embargo is not lifted. The biggest project that they have going is probably the Z-15 project. This will certainly provide China with probably the most advanced helicopter of this class. And it will provide the basis for a future naval and possibly utility version in PLA. EC-120 will continuously join PLA in a training role. Z-10 will probably eventually be all indigenous, but it will have to import parts that are developed by Agusta and Eurocopter until then. I'm also under the impression that more classes from Western helicopter makers may appear in PLA in the near future due to the dual use nature of helicopters. For example, the recent unmanned helicopter is clearly derived from Sikorsky's S-300. The other notable exports from Europe to China are the diesel engines used in 054 series, 071 series and 039 series. In fact, all of the advanced diesel engines used in PLAN are pretty much local assemblies of MTU or SEMT Pielstick. I guess diesel engines also have enough dual use applications to pass through the embargo. The other major ones are probably the sonar/combat system on 039s. According to Gary, these are French based.

So, what will China be interested in once the embargo is finished? Well, let's start with the big systems. A400M and KC-30 would definitely be on top of the list, because they badly need the medium sized transport and the tanker. They are certainly generations ahead of IL-76 in range, fuel efficiency, reliability and such. An MPA based on A319 would also be welcomed, because it should have far better performance than the Y-7 MPA that China is working on. EH-101 would be a great addition as a transport helo, although China might still prefer Russian helicopters here. NH-90 is something that I've always advocated for. I think it would be perfect in the ASW/SAR role. I can't really see them interested in fighter jets or ships. Although they would certainly be interested in subsystems used for carrier operation.

The other question would be then what kind of subsystems they will be the interested in that they can't get right now. Well, gas turbines would certainly be one thing that China would need. Although they are developing their own line of QC series gas turbines, I can't imagine they would not be interested in WR-12 or something like that. They are already getting all the engines they need for helicopters under the dual use guise, but aerospace engines is another area that they could get help in. Any of the M88 series or EJ-200/230 series would be an upgrade over RD-93. I'm sure their transport fleet can also find an ideal engine from the Europeans.

Another area that they would be interested in are the missiles. Aster 15 would certainly be an upgrade over HH-7 right now. I think they might be interested in copying something like that. RAM would be an even better upgrade, but I'm not sure if Germany would be able to export something like that. I can see them possibly be interested in SCALP, although they already have their own line of ship launched cruise missile available. The technology for common VLS that can launch different SAMs, CMs and ASROC would certainly be high on their agenda. A light weight torpedo like Mu-90 would be an upgrade over the Yu-7/A244 that they are using right now. In terms of aerial weapons, European missiles like Iris-t, ASRAAM, Meteor, storm shadow, mistral and other MBDA products would all be of interest to China. However, China is developing its own line of these missiles and the results haven't been that bad. I see them possibly asking for cooperations from MBDA or maybe even small quantity some of these missiles for studying, but nothing more than that. They could even be interested in the naval guns by Oto Melara and the munitions used in these guns.

In terms of sensors, I think something like S1850M would be very interesting to China. I'm sure Herakles, Sampson and EMPAR would be interesting items for China to study, but they already have enough MFRs in service/under test to actually buy them. Different types of sonars by Thales would be another area of interest, because we all recognize ASW as the weakest point of PLAN. I'm sure there are also different naval subsystems like combat systems, data fusion technology, E/O sensors, guidance technology, ESM that they would be interested in. However, it's really impossible to guess which ones they would be up for exactly. In terms of aerial sensors, I really can't think of anything that China would be interested in right now. They are certainly not that impressed with the fighter radars or special missions radars. In terms of other avionics, I don't really see any interest in that direction either.

I guess the other areas that China would be interested in are the materials and tooling. They would certainly be keen to access EADS' composite and RAM technology. They would also be interested in the sonar absorption technology used on submarines. But an even more important proposition would be accessing all the latest machineries and tools used by the Europeans in hi-tech manufacturing.

An interesting study by SIPRI recently mentioned that there was a 63% drop in the value of Russian exports to China in the past year. I think all of us expect a similar drop in 2008. The era of import from the Russians is over. A lifting of the embargo would certainly lead to an increase in import, but that would also be a temporary rather than a permanent situation. It would be done in a way to speed up China's own development rather than anything else. I truly believe China when they say that their main opposition to the embargo is the political humiliation of being listed with rogue countries rather than the weapons themselves.

Latest news from PLA

First, we saw some final photos of 054As in HP and HD before joining SSF. It's kind of surprising that they have still yet to officially be commissioned into the force. I guess there's been some typical problems from being the first batch of 4. These are some of the its photos from HP:



And here are some from HD:


Not only is 054A there, but we've also seen pictures of F-22P. Looks like a lot of progress has been made:


What's more, we finally saw HH-16 firing off from VLS cells on test ship. It finally shows us that HH-16 is hot-launched rather than cold-launched like on HH-9.

I seems like the second batch of 054A might finally be building in HP and HD shipyards. I would say that in a couple of months, we would have conclusive pictures on this matter. And it would be interesting to see if there is any visible changes between the first and second batch.

Recently, the HKB (aviation newspaper) wrote an article about the 10th anniversary of J-10's maiden flight. It's hard to believe that it's being this considering J-10 only was unveiled over a year ago. But I think the bigger news came out later this week when a big shrimp mentioned that the improved J-10 is about to go for its maiden flight. According to many of the speculations, there is supposed to be a huge upgrade in the flight control system, avionics and radar of J-10. The change in stealthiness and maneuverability is probably not as dramatic as many of us hoped. There is no question that J-10 has already had many avionics upgrades, but this will supposedly be a generational improvement of the avionics to level of Rafale/Typhoon. This upgrade should be the bridge between the current generation of J-10/J-11B with the 5th generation plane.

Latest news

Hi, I haven't posted anything new for a while. Part of the reason is that I've been pretty busy these days. And the other part is that there just hasn't been anything news-worthy in the past 2 weeks. I recently found this interview with Chinese military strategist Chen Zhou to be quite interesting.

The most interesting part is probably the stuff on military budget.

SPIEGEL: Many experts believe that the official budget figures are vastly understated. Do they include the costs of military research and of the People's Armed Police and the space program?

Chen: They do include the costs of research, but not for the People's Armed Police. Only the military portion of our space program is paid for under the defense budget.

Of course, the only other area quoted by DoD was military purchase from other countries. And in the recent years, that has been non-existent. So, what we can say is that the only thing the Chinese budget doesn't include is PAP and possibly part of the space program that would be considered military by Western countries, but not military by PLA. Even if we count these parts, can these numbers really be equal to the official budget or be twice as much as the official budget? I would say not. It made sense when China was importing a lot of weapons from the Russians to really inflate the official budget to get the real budget. Back in those days, the budget was much smaller and the purchases were actually much larger, so it shouldn't be surprising that the real budget was much larger than the official budget. However, why does DoD still continue to insist on the 2 to 3 times multiplier even now? It seems like they have not bothered to do further research into how the real budget is related to the official budget recently.

Other than that, we've got some new photos of 051C, 054A and LCAC from the recent times.
First, these are pictures of 051C.


More, with 054As


It's kind of interesting, the last 054A in HD and HP seem to be going final fitting before joining SSF. We've seen some pictures that indicate the next batch of 054A has started and is probably going to be slightly better than the first 4.

Only one photo of LCAC from the new Changxin shipyard and no sign of 052D at this point.


This is kind of interesting, they claim this to be a 091 under modification again. from the slopped sail, we can see that it's either a 091 or 092.


And finally, if you can read this, it's a nice description of the research China has made into pumpjet propulsion.

More Updates

So, this past week, the annual DoD report on Chinese military came out. Just some hours later, the military budget for PLA was also announced. It's kind of interesting that they had another 17.6% increase this year. Of course, there were an outcry from numerous countries asking for more transparency on this increase. There was also a general outcry on the DoD report for more transparency. So, why have there been this sustained increase in increases of military expenditure? The obvious reason is that China has had a sustained 9+% economic growth for the past 25 years. And the other reason is that they simply have been able to gain more revenue from tariff on the trade growth, increased taxes from corporations and finally having incoming taxes for the growing middle/upper class. As the tax laws become better enforced in the coming years, they will simply get more money to spend on government programs. This hasn't been a military budget expansion, but a general government expansion. Or as we call in the Western governments, adopting a bigger government. Interesting enough, the military budget as a portion of the overall budget has not really changed in the past few years. And I guess part of the reason is that salaries/inflation around China is going up quite a bit recently and you need to take care of the people that do these jobs. Certainly, as PLA expands, being able to recruit the top people, training them the right way is just as important as acquiring new hardwares and developing new doctrines.

The question of why China needs the military expansion is also prominently in the media. I have often wondered why the DoD never tried to answer this question. It's quite clear that facing the traditional enemies in Japan and Taiwan on the East side will always cause a lot of concerns for China. And with their ever great dependence on energy/natural resource supply and other trades with the countries to the west, it's a little wonder that China would be interested in developing a blue water fleet to relieve those choke points. The land threats from Russia and India have decreased in the recent years, but they would have to be on the mind of any PLA military planner. And the biggest threat is probably have USA list you as their biggest threat of the next 25 years. Any country receiving that kind of title would probably be feeling quite nervous. And finally, what about the all important factor of national pride. As the largest country in the world with soon to be 3rd largest economy, it is absolutely logical for a country of this size to develop the 2nd or 3rd most powerful military in the world. However, the growth of its military has not actually matched the growth in its economic power or soft power. Much of the recent equipment received are simply replacing older models with much more capable newer machineries. Is it really China's fault that most of the Western military powers are finding it too expensive too replace older weapons on a 1 to 1 basis?

Anyhow, We've had some really nice recent photos from North Sea Fleet conducting a big exercise + more photos out with the new Yuan in the Shanghai base. Here they are.

First, some of the kilos that we haven't seen for a while


Now, the new Yuan



Pictures of the 2nd 054A from HP shipyard.




And finally, the pictures from NSF of 115 and 116, 051C was involved in its first ever ASW exercise




And a nice photo of 112's weapons + firing off YJ-83 it looks like