ONI report: PLAN status

November 22, 2009 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment

The FAS strategic blog points out to a recent ONI report that is chock full of interesting material. FAS focused on the information that the new classes of Chinese SSNs & SSBNs are much noisier than previously estimated, but the report encompasses the totality of Chinese naval developments and future prospects. Aspects such as the modernisation of shore-based naval aviation, the status of the aircraft carrier program, the emergence of the ASBM threat and the new classes of surface warship and amphibious and replenishment forces are covered.

The full report is available here, a recommended read for interested observers.

Bonus info: The ONI cosniders the Oscar-II class subs to be substantially quieter than the Akula I, though inferior to Akula II. DB authors take note!

Tags: <China, navy>

Chinese LPAR update

November 20, 2009 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment

SOC has an important update on the phased-array radar installation in western China:

There is still no information regarding this facility, although its positioning and orientation suggests a BMEW function. An alternative, given the relative proximity to the Xinjiang possible HEL site, could be a space tracking role providing early warning data to the ASAT network.

Tags: <BMEWS, China, LPAR>

APA: Modern PLA armored vehicles

September 22, 2009 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-PLA-AFV.html

Thanks to ELP.

Tags: <armor, China>

The modern Great Leaps Forward for China

August 15, 2009 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment

Feng has a very interesting list of military systems that recently joined the Chinese navy or air force, and constitute significant improvements in the capabilities of the Chinese military:

I’ve ranked these systems based on their importance to China’s national security, their quantitative and qualitative value and their significance to China’s overall military aviation and naval industry. […] I’ve also omitted high profile projects like J-10B, Z-15, H-6K, the large transport, CAC UAV (the one that looks like global hawk), because they are only in early stage of development, although they have a couple of prototypes in certain cases. I have also omitted high profile space missions from my list like Project 921 (the manned space mission), Tian-Lian (data link satellite), YaoGan series (the EO satellites) and the moon mission, because it’s hard to determine how much military value they really have.

The list features the usual high-profile suspects (ASBMs, DF-31, Type 094 SSBN, KJ-200/2000 AWACS) but there are also items that don’t often get mentioned when one discusses new Chinese capabilities: The Chinese GPS-equivalent, Type 022 FACs, the immensely important EW variants of the Y-8, the Z-10 attack helo etc. Definitely a worthy read.

Tags: <China>