New J-10B photos out

Just this weekend, we got some new photos of J-10B in the PLAAF paint job coming out. It looks like it has finished some of the required testing and will be going over to CFTE at Yanliang to test very soon. Also, the prototype # is also kind of interesting:
The original J-10 prototype was 1001
The original J-10S prototype was 1021
Now, the first J-10B prototype is 1031
Here are the photos, I think the photo of the intake is great. Now, if we can only get a more close-up look at it. From far-out, it looks like the workmanship on J-10B is better than that of J-10A.

Military cooperations with China & Russia

There was a huge lull in military trades between China and Russia around 2007 to 2008, because of their disagreements over IL-76s contract. Russia wanted more money after the contract was already signed and China did not want to pay up. It is pretty much like the recent spats between Russia and India over pretty much every system (after all, which contracts haven't the Russians tried to rework after signing up?), except that China actually attempted to outlast the Russians. Eventually, when they realized that they messed up in their attempt to get the design straight out of Kazakhstan, they gave in to the renegotiations. During this time, numerous Chinese military projects were disrupted. New J-10s could not be produced, because WS-10A engine still wasn't mature enough to mass equip a single engined aircraft and also they ran out of AL-31FNs. H-6Ks could not be produced, because the D-30KP2 contract was basically suspended. Any of the projects involving the IL-76 platform like the transport itself, KJ-2000 and ABL could not continue as usual. There were a lot of talks over Su-33, but nothing concrete came out of it.

In the most recent Kanwa article, it talked a lot about the contract negotiations between the two sides late last year. First, they signed a contract for 125 AL-31FNs for J-10. I think the cost for the engines went up from previous contracts ($3 million to $4 million), but the engine specs didn't actually improve. So, they are still getting the baseline FN engines rather than FM-1 or FM-2 variant. We went through about a year or 2 where almost no J-10s were produced because of engine issues, so J-10 production should start again pretty fast. In the mean time, I think they've upgraded some of the earlier J-10s to the same standard as the recent ones. Secondly, they also revived the contract for 240 D-30KP2. The terms for the contract will be the same as it was signed for, but it looks like Russia might be taking a loss on this contract. The first batch of 30 to 40 D-30 engines will be delivered by the end of this year. At which point, XAC will finally be able to start the production of the long awaited H-6K. Apparently, which China first purchased the D-30 engines, the Russians weren't even informed they were for H-6Ks, but thought it was spares for IL-76/78s. Either way, this time China has apparently informed the Russians that this engine will also be used for strategic reconnaissance/surveillance aircrafts. That would indicate that China is planning to build surveillance aircraft on the H-6 platform which would seem to interfere with the existing Y-8 programs. Or maybe, China will be using some of these engines for its own large transport platform in the future. Even if 1/3 of the 240 D-30s are used as spares for IL-76/78s, they would still have 160 engines left. If we use the standard ratio of 1 spare per 2 engines, they would still be able to produce over 100 H-6s. Based on what we've seen in the past, it's unlikely they will build that many. So, I do think that some D-30s will be used at least in the beginning stage of China's transport program.

The IL-76/IL-78 discussions are still undergoing right now with the Russians. I think they will get something done soon, because the domestic transport project still has years to go. The Il-476 production has yet to start in Russia, but I would imagine that China would want to get the first batch off the production line. They are also still having discussions over Su-33s. Russia has now raised the minimum of Su-33 orders from 24 to 40. So, China would have to purchase at least 40 Su-33s from Russia or Russia won't make the deal. Russians are also discussing the possibility of upgrading Su-33s to use MK2 avionics. But really, why would China want to do that, when MK2 avionics is still horribly outdated. Outside of anti-shipping missions and the ability to fire R-77, an MK2 upgrade really would not provide that much help. And they are also trying to discuss with China about another MK2 purchase. I don't even know what to say about that other than the factor that I'm not surprised China wasn't interested in the talks.

Outside of this, the Russians also handed China a little of systems it believes that China copied. As I mentioned in previous posts, I agree with some of them and disagree with other ones. I don't think they have signed Russia's intellectual property agreement, but they really have no need to. As I have mentioned above, China really does not have that many more requirements after IL-76 and engines, so future military cooperation meetings might not end that fruitful for the Russians either.

Latest pictures from PLAN

A bunch of good shots of PLAN ships + aviation units were posted on one of the magazines recently. Interesting ones are the South Sea Fleet picture with 885 (PLAN's largest replenishment), 998 (Type 076 LPD), 170 (052C) and 568 (054A) and an exercise revolving around a 051C ship with Z-8JH, which is China's latest variation of SA-321 for rescue and humanitarian missions. There are also some photos of the new hospital ship (866) at work. I also got some pictures of 054A in HD and HP shipyard recently, but nothing have really happened, so I just left them out.

China's aerospace industry

This past week was a huge week for the Chinese aerospace industry. In the past, I've always criticized the slow development, low production and inefficiency of the aviation firms in China, especially when compared to shipbuilding (and even automaking industry), but I also would like to celebrate when there are this many milestones.

In the military front, I'm sure all of you have heard about the start of JF-17 production in Pakistan by now. For PLAAF itself, it is really not a big deal, because it doesn't improve PLAAF directly. However, this story is really a huge boost to the Chinese aerospace industry. Back in 1998, Shenyang AC imported the Su-27 production line from Russia and started local production of China's first class of 4th generation fighter. In the beginning, we heard many stories about China struggling to assemble J-11s and required a lot of help from the Russians. I would also read claims on the Chinese side that they really got a very low quality assembly line, which contributed to the initial struggles. Whatever the case maybe, it was clear that the Chinese aerospace industry was nowhere near mature enough to handle mass production of a 4th generation plane. It had no problem churning out J-6s and some problem developing and producing J-7s. And sadly, it could not even produce J-8IIs in large number. Even now, the production rate at Shenyang AC for J-11 and J-8IIs (in previous years) are quite poor. But at the same, we all saw how much the development of J-10s has helped China's entire aerospace industry. The development of JH-7A and mass production of WS-9 is really another stepping stone for the Chinese aerospace industry. K-8 became the first Chinese designed plane to be license produced in another country (Eqypt). Now, JF-17 becomes the first Chinese fighter jet to be license produced in another country. So, this is not only a big day for Pakistani aerospace industry, but also for China. In only 11 years, China has transformed itself from a country that imports assembly line of 4th generation fighters to a country that exports assembly line of 4th generation fighters. Of course, JF-17 is not the fighter jet that Su-27 is, but the avionics/missiles accompanying JF-17's export is in some cases 1 generation ahead of what China imported for Su-27.

If that's not all, there is also rambling on Chinese forums that JF-17 has also been exported to Egypt with license production. If that's the case, then there would be two different countries (both already operating 4th generation jets) importing assembly lines of Chinese fighter jet. So, I think over the past 20 years, China has experienced several major stages with post 2nd-generation fighter jets:

1. Before 1992, China had designs like J-9, J-12 and J-13 that had some prototypes but could not achieve all the performance goals due to weakness in different areas like engines, missiles and avionics. These projects were abandoned due to technological and financial difficulties. At this time, even a relatively successful project like JH-7 had many problems and could not be mass produced until much later.
   


2. In the 90s, China realized that it could not yet produce a design as good as Su-27, so it got the license production for the plane. At the same time, it also started working on its own 4th generation design J-10 with Russian/Isreali assistance. It had also started development in the 4th generation turbofan engine, missiles, radars and avionics. In this period, China was buying/license producing foreign designs while starting to develop its own designs. China was in a much better position financially and technologically, so it did not have to abandon the major domestic projects.
   


3. In the early 2000s, China finished development of major indigenous projects like J-10 and JH-7A, while J-11 project started to incorporate more indigenous subsystems. It had also started an indigenous development of a 4th generation fighter for export purposes. In this period, China becomes capable of license producing advanced 4th generation fighters and also finishing development of 4th generation fighters with outside help.
   


4. In the second half of the decade, China finished the development of major subsystems like turbofan engine, modern AAMs and avionics. It also achieved the complete indigenization of J-11 and finished developing JF-17. At the end, it has even exported assembly lines for a 4th generation fighter. It is also beginning to develop 5th generation fighters, 5th generation subsystems and improved variants of J-10 and J-11 testing out the new subsystems. In this period, China established itself as a nation capable of developing and producing 4th generation planes and all the associate subsystems.
   


5. In the next decade, China will be expected to complete the development of 5th generation fighter jets and 5th generation subsystems like engine, missiles and avionics. I would also expect it to achieve more export success with 4th generation planes and possibly assist other countries in late 4th generation or 5th generation development. It will still be behind USA in areas like stealth, radar and engine technology, but will be on par with Russia and Europe.
   


6. In the final stage, I think China will catch up to USA in military aviation. I guess that will happen somewhere down the road when UAVs would be prominent. It would also export to countries that have traditionally purchased fighter jets from USA or Russia.
   

So in my view, China is currently on the 4th stage and it has 2 more stages to go before it truly becomes world class. Although, it really is hard to say how long it would take for China to catch up USA in stealth and engine technology, because it's so far behind in these areas.

Civilian aviation also had a couple of really good news coming out this week. First of all, ARJ-21's 2nd prototype made its maiden flight. Secondly, the first Airbus 320 plane assembled in China was delivered to Sichuan Airlines. A while back, I read a really great story here about the importance of the ARJ-21 project and the Airbus 320 plant. I think this article really articulated that these two projects are just part of China's goal to develop a modern airliner. China is just learning with ARJ-21 how to get a global list of suppliers needed to support the production of an airliner. China is also learning all the after sales support and maintenance needed to support for an airliner. It certainly helps that most of the original customers are Chinese airlines and that it suppliers already have existing after sales support networks. We will know in the next few years how well COMAC deals with the part after the sale. We will also know in the next few years if China assembled A320s would be just as good as the ones assembled in Europe. The success of these two projects will be crucial if China wants to have major export customers for its "big plane" project.

I read from certain sources that COMAC's C919 is expected to make its first flight in 2014. I tend to think it will be a little later than that, but China does have a lot of things going for it. For all the talks about ARJ-21 and C919, AVIC1's recent involvements with Airbus and Boeing airliners will probably be the most important part of C919. We are seeing that recently with the construction of the new Airbus plant in Harbin. China will have ability to make advanced composite parts needed for a modern airliner. China will also be building the entire wings for the Chinese assembled A320 in the next stage. We can see that China is steadily moving up the value chain in terms of suppliers, but it still has a way to go before developing world class turbofan engines and avionics. I really don't know how long it will take China to reach that stage, but the past week has certainly been a nice milestone toward that point.

Project 17A of Indian Navy

I read this piece of news a few days ago and found it shocking. Here is the article:

India has cleared its largest ever indigenous defence contract worth Rs 45,000 crore to manufacture seven advanced stealth frigates for the Navy at shipyards in Kolkata and Mumbai.

The P17A warship project, which will be India’s most advanced and stealthy frigates, has been cleared by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) on Friday.

Sources said that brushing aside a request by the Navy that two of the indigenously designed frigates may be manufactured abroad, the DAC has decided that all seven warships will be manufactured in India by the Mazagon Dock Limited, Mumbai (MDL) and the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata.

The Defence Ministry has allocated a budget of Rs 45,000 crore for the project and the work will be divided between the two shipyards. The P17A frigates will be even more advanced than the P17 Shivalik class warships that are currently being inducted by the Navy.

For those keeping scores at home, it's around $10 billion for 7 ships or around $1.4 billion per ship. This is an increase over the original announcement in 2006 that put the price tag of each ship at around $900 million. I think India has had some experiences recently with cost escalations in naval projects. They want to make sure to allocate all the necessary funding, so that it does not have cost overrun this time.

To put this into perspective:
A 054A costs around $200-250 million depending on the conversion rate.
I think Singapore paid $1 billion for 6 Formidable class ships back in early 2000s, although that only includes the ToT, weapon systems and the first unit.
The first batch of Talwar cost $1 billion for 3
The second batch of Talwar cost $1.6 billion for 3 (although a lot of that is due to USD depreciation)
The Project 17 Shivalik class apparently costs $650 million each
The most recent order of 4 FREMM class by Italy cost 1.4 billion EUR -> 350 million EUR per or about 500 million USD depending on the conversion we use.
The entire horizon class program cost around $4 billion for 4 ships
KDX-3 is around $900 million
The 6 Type-45 destroyers cost UK 6.46 billion pound, which is anywhere from 8 to 10 billion USD depending on the conversion rate.

It looks like the going rate for a modern stealthy frigate with medium range air defense and good ASW capabilities is around $500 million. The going rate for a larger AAW ship with area defense is around $1 to 1.5 billion.

With the price that India is willing to pay for these 7 ships, it should turn out to be a very capable ship. If you look at the specifications of Shivalik class, its weapon and sensor fit is similar to your average modern frigate like the La Fayette derivatives, Talwar and 054A. $650 million looks to be more than what the other countries paid for comparable frigates, but I think part of the cost goes toward improving Indian shipyard to be able to handle such projects in the future. With more than double the cost, Project 17A looks like it will be a whole different beast. Just looking at the price tag alone, it looks to be an AAW ship with long range SAM and Aegis like combat system. On the other hand, I kept reading Indian sources that said this ship will only be around 5600 ton in displacement. That would make sense because larger Project 17A class would intrude in the territories of Project 15A, which is in the 7000 ton range. Even now, it seems that Project 15A is really not that relevant when the smaller Project 17A might turn out to do the same job much better. So, I think it would be interesting to see what Project 17A turn out to be. If it turns out to be like Horizon class or AAW version of FREMM, it would be well worth the money after we factor in higher than projected inflation, cost of upgrading the shipyards, transfer of technology and such. However, if it turns out to just be a more powerful version of Project 17, I think they are really paying far too much for these ships.

Regarding the recent story about Russia helping Taiwan

In the past week, a really interesting article as shown below popped up and caused some heated discussions on different military forums.

Taipei - Taiwan plans to build its third-generation warplane with Russian technology as the United States has refused to sell Taiwan F-16C/Ds, a newspaper reported Friday.

The Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC), which sent personnel to Russia for instruction from Russian experts, has finished designing the third-generation warplane, the China Times quoted an unnamed military official as saying.

The as-yet-unnamed third-generation warplane will have twin engines and be able to take off and land with a short airstrip, the official said.

During the design process, Taiwan and Russian experts studied the design of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the United States' most advanced fighter jet, but Taiwan's aircraft is shorter than the JSF, the military official said.

The paper said that Taiwan ordered 150 F-16A/Bs in 1992 to form its second-generation fleet, which also included 60 French Mirage 2000-5s and 130 self-made Indigenous Defence Fighters (IDF).

To deter any possible attack from China, Taiwan has been seeking to buy the more advanced F-16C/Ds, or JSF, but Washington has turned down the request, agreeing only to upgrade Taiwan's F-16A/Bs. This prompted Taiwan to decide to build its own third-generation warplanes for self-defence, despite improved Taipei-Beijing ties.

Taiwan and China have been split since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

China sees Taiwan as its breakaway province and has vowed to recover Taiwan by force if Taipei declares independence or indefinitely delays holding unification talks with Beijing.

First, I thought everyone would simply laugh off this article. However, this article seemed to have gathered many believers. The majority of the believers are Russian fanboys that are incensed by China copying J-11B. They think that Russia should sell weapons to Taiwan, since it no longer gets what it needs from China. Therefore, it's a good idea to replace that export market with Taiwan. So, I think I will address this issue by looking at two different areas: why this story can't be true and how much copying is going on.

So, why can't this be true?
It has everything to do with politics/economics. Countries don't sell weapons to Taiwan, because they are worried about the political and economical ramifications rather than military exports. France, Germany, UK and Israel can't export to China, but they still refuse to deal with Taiwan. Recently, US received hell from China for the military package that Bush approved in 2008. All things considered, the package approved for Taiwan was actually very watered down. Even so, the hard time that China gave the Bush administration probably made the Obama administration think twice about selling F-16s there. After all, supplying 60 F-16s from 2012 to 2015 really isn't going to turn the balance of power in Taiwan straits, but that deal is basically off the table now. The military balance across the straits swung in PRC’s direction permanently earlier this decade. Future military exports to Taiwan will offend China more from a political rather than a military point of view. Simply put, China will look at any military exports to Taiwan as an insult to its sovereignty. The global economic downturn has accelerated China’s position in the world. At this point, it would be hard for countries needing China’s financial help to alienate it over Taiwan. For example, US doesn't want to aggravate the Taiwan situation when it needs China to keep on buying its treasury bonds and keeping interest rate low and inflation down.

Comparatively speaking, Russia is dealing from an even weaker position when dealing with China. The Russian leadership is looking to change the world financial system (like a new world order) with a new reserve currency that is not controlled by the US gov't. It wants to stop having to buy US treasuries and stop doing import/export deals in USD. Russia basically showed in the past week that it is looking for the BRIC countries as a major part of the new world order replacing the US led G-8. Clearly, China has by far the most leverage and economic muscle to support this new world order. Russia knows that none of its goals can be accomplished without China's full support. However, China has far more invested in US than the other BRIC countries (with the $2 trillion in US assets compared to $400 billion for Russia). It wants China to support the initiatives of buying gov't bonds from other BRIC countries, doing currency swaps, trading in local currencies and such. In each case, China's support can make or break the initiative. Finally, China’s financial support to SCO is also important, because it allows the gov’t there to continue their anti-West and pro-Russia/China policies.

On top of that, it has recently signed a huge energy cooperation agreement with China. As shown in the recent month, the energy/commodities market was basically rescued by a lot of demand from China. Since Russia's natural resources are its most important export, it needs continued Chinese demand to sustain spot prices for its exported resources. Think about it this way, oil and gas alone accounted for 64% of Russia's exports in 2007. If the remaining export remained the same and the average energy prices dropped 75% in one year (spot prices for oil dropped from over $150 a barrel to lower than $40 early this year), that would mean the Russian export would be 16% + 36 = 52% of last year's numbers. Now, if Chinese demand can more than double the energy prices (which it has in the past 3 months), then the export would take about a 30% hit instead of almost 50% hit from last year (although in reality, it doesn’t work like this, but you get an idea). So, you can see that the Chinese market not only affects Russia’s trade with China but also with Europe.

Finally, Russia and China have a lot of mutual goals and share a lot of common positions on international issues. I don’t think I need to go over the political cooperation between the two countries over the past couple of years. Clearly, Russia is not going to jeopardize its economic and political partnership with China just for a couple of new military contracts with Taiwan. The head of the states of the two countries met 3 times last week (once for BRIC, once for SCO and once as a state visit). Clearly, the relationship between the two countries is very good despite the recent declines in military sales and other issues like imbalance in the contents of trading. Having looked at all of these factors, it makes me wonder why certain people believe this kind of story so easily.

How much copying is really going on?

Reading through recent articles on Russian newspaper and Kanwa defense, I often spot articles where Russian defense firms complain about China copying its designs. It’s really hard for a normal person to get grip of how rampant this is unless you had a firm idea of the development process of certain weapon systems. Generally, Chinese military complex has a real innovation problem, so a lot of its recent designs look a lot like existing designs from other countries. Such comments have been made about the recent developments like HALE UAV from CAC (looks like Global hawk), HH-16 VLS (MK-41), KJ-200 radar (Erieye), KJ-2000 radar (Phalcon), FB-6A (Avenger), 093 (LA class), 054 hull (La Fayette), Type 730 (Goalkeeper), 052C FCRs (SPY-1D), Z-10 (Tiger, Rooivalk amongst others), LCAC and many more. China got some help from the respective parties in some cases, but also did not get help on majority of the cases. The Western countries (other than in the case of 022’s catamaran design) did not claim that China copied off them, because there was no way that China had access to those weapon systems. On the other hand, Russians claim that all the suspicious system that they did not work directly with China on must have been copied. In many cases, they say that China got the relevant blueprints from other former Soviet Republics.

The most famous case that it has complained about is J-11B, but that really is a case where the original licensed production/ToT deal hasn’t worked out as well as Sukhoi had hoped. Of the recent Chinese developments, weapon systems like the 76 mm naval gun, AK-630, L-15/CJ-7 trainer and heavy helicopter transport have all received proper ToT or assistance agreement, so Russia has no complaints over those systems. The recent Russian complaints have targeted HQ-9 missile, Yuan Submarine, WS-10A, J-10’s radar, sensors on 054A. I'm not a big follower of China's SAM programs, but it seems like Russia has a good point if it accuses China was copying S-300 (although the FCR of HQ-9 is a whole different animal). As for Yuan submarine, it is possible that China took some concepts from Kilo and applied it on Yuan, but it would be completely ridiculous to call it a copy. It has totally different dimensions, different engines, different sonar, different fire control system, different weaponry, different sail design + diving plane configuration, different limber hole configuration and other many other differences. And it really makes you wonder why China would copy Kilo, when it would rather keep them at dockside than sending them out on patrols like they are doing with the Song submarines. As for WS-10A, I think it's fair to say that China got a lot of assistance from the Russians on its development. However, turbofan engine is such a complex piece of work that without the right tools and machines used in AL-31F assembly lines, there is no way you can just straight out copy it. As for J-10s radar, that is probably one of the most ludicrous claims by the Russians. They think China copied the Zhuk series, because it obtained a few units of the radar in the early 2000s. But by that time, the original J-10's radar was already developed and under test on J-10. KLJ-3 (the first radar on J-10) was from a family of slotted array radar that had already appeared in the 90s (before even Zhuk-8 was offered). I've already explored in another entry the Russian claims on 054A.

There is also a list of upcoming projects like WS-13, WS-18 and large transport that could possibly be accused of copying Russia in the future. In the case of the engines, it's impossible for them to completely copy without the blueprints, materials, tools and machines needed to manufacture RD-93 and D-30KP2. However, there is no question that they will be very similar to their Russian counterpart. I think that the large transport could be the major point of contention between the two sides. If it turns out to look like IL-76 as many have speculated, it could send the Russian complaints to another level.

So in general, China has definitely copied some Russian weapons or at least drew inspiration from many other Russian weapon systems, but I think many of the Russian complaints are directed at the wrong systems. For example, they complain about J-11B and Yuan the most, because China has stopped buying fighter jets and submarines from them. But in reality, there are far more serious cases of violation.

Up close photos of a 054A

I saw these really quality up close photos of 054A on the different sensors and weapons, so I decided to post them.
Type 730 CIWS

Decoy Launchers

The 76 mm main gun, based on AK-176M


The Main Volume Search Radar - Sea Eagle Radar


The satcom - I mighty be wrong on this one


The FCRs used to terminally guide HH-16 - Similar to Orekh


The Sensors on the Aftmast including SR-64 and Light bulb datalink


SR-64 - works well with Type 730 CIWS in tracking/engaging sea-skimming missiles