As the end of 2015 draw near, I’d like to take a look at all the important PLA stories of 2015. There are both numerous air force and naval stories. Compared to previous years, there were more news coming out of air force than navy this year as J-20, J-10, flankers and C-919 project all had significant progress.
The major focus of this past few months have been the progress of J-20 project. After 4 new prototypes came out last year with significant changes from the J-20 demonstrators, there was not much happening this year until September of this year when prototypes No. 2016 came out followed by prototype No. 2017 in November. The latest prototype showed slightly reshaped canopy and a new ejection seat, but is generally the same as the earlier prototypes. With these 2 prototypes, there are rumours of 2 more prototypes No. 2018 and 2019 coming out to speed up the testing phase. That has yet to happen, but we have seen what appears to be the first Low Rate Initial Production J-20 showing up most recently with the appearance of No. 2101. Unlike the prototype ones, it is painted entirely in yellow primers. The prototypes are typically sent to CFTE for flight-testing. If No. 2101 is the first LRIP model, then it will probably get sent with the rest of its batch to FTTC for expanding the flight envelope, testing out usage of new systems, developing combat tactics and training manual for J-20 pilots. The first J-10 squad was also established in FTTC before the 44th regiment received J-10. At the current pace, it’s definitely possible for J-20 to achieve IOC or some level of combat capability by 2017. Compared to PAK-FA, I think J-20 is now actually quite a bit ahead. The only major concern for this program is that WS-15 engine is still several years from entering service, so will be quite underpowered for the first few years. At the current time, J-20 is probably testing with AL-31FN Cep 3 engine (that are used for J-10C). Some of the missiles being developed for weapon bay may not be ready yet, but other programs like PL-10, miniature PGMs should be. Not much seemed to have happened with FC-31 project this year, but it has appeared in numerous air shows. For 2016, I will be watching out to see how many LRIP J-20s come out and the expanded test program for the J-20 prototypes. It will also be interested to see if a second FC-31 prototype comes out next year.
At the same time that J-20 has been moving forward, the production of J-10 series have started to pick up again. J-10B development has in my opinion been delays due to CAC focusing on J-20 project, but production level has been pretty good since 2014. There were about 53 J-10Bs produced in block 1 and they have all joined service. Block 2 production has since started and reached at least in the mid 20s. They are supposedly built to the J-10C standard with AESA radar (instead of PESA like J-10B) and numerous other electronic improvements. We are still unsure of all the regiments that have received J-10B/C, because photos normally have their numbers blurred out. Huitong’s blog currently has listed FTTC, 2nd division, 19th division and 21st division as having J-10B/C regiments. From what I have seen, FTTC received J-10Bs first and the old J-10A 2nd division regiment has been receiving J-10Bs. Also, it’s interesting that we have been seeing numerous J-10Bs (without the J-10C improvements) flying with Taihang engine. So I think it is possible that we will see both J-10B with Taihang and J-10C with AL-31FN Series 3 engine produced next year. Based on the recent production numbers, China probably needs to place another AL-31FN order soon.
China also had some more movements with its larger aircraft programs. It received the second refurbished IL-78s from Ukraine (out of 3 on order) and more of the refurbished IL-76s. We also continue to hear more on development of Y-20 and its engines (WS-18 and WS-20). The development of Y-20 will probably complete by 2017 based on its current progress. As I wrote about many times before, PLAAF has large requirement of Y-20 for transport, tankers and special missions platform. I’m sure the LRIP for Y-20 will begin next year, but it’s hard to say when they would be able to ramp up its production to the point where it no longer needs to import IL-76/78s. At the same time, China unveiled the first C919 airliner this year and also finally completed flight certification of ARJ-21. At this point, it seems like C919 is already a great improvement in almost every aspect over ARJ-21. However, it’s going into the market against an extremely capable A320NEO series and B737 MAX series. It does not seem to have any real advantage over those 2 series and will not enter service earlier. In most of China’s domestic routes, it should be competitive with those 2, so I would expect it to capture a good number of orders once it completes flight certification. The big challenges ahead will be to obtain FAA/EASA certification, achieve export orders, ramping up production and completing all of this with minimal delays. This is a tremendous undertaking, but COMAC would be getting a lot of valuable experiences if it can achieve all of that.
Another area of aviation that China has done well on this year is in the field of UAVs. The CH-3/4 UCAVs have been exported to numerous countries (at least Nigeria, Iraq, Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia). It has already been used in conflicts against ISIS and Yemen rebels. China had been displaying numerous miniature (50 kg) PGMs and ground attack missiles in weapon shows along with CH-4 UAVs and these have now been tested in real war action. So from these action, it’s likely that CH-4 will get more export orders in the coming years. The WingLoong series has also achieved export orders with UAE and with PLA. Along with these MQ-1 like UCAV program, China is also developing numerous larger UAVs and UCAVs. Those programs are likely developed just for domestic usage and not marketed for exports. It’s unclear how many of these programs will actually see production.
For the Chinese navy, the major ticket item is its aircraft carrier program. Throughout this year, more and more photos came out from Dalian rumoured to be modules of the first domestic aircraft carriers. At this point, I think most Chinese navy watchers would agree that this is the first domestic carrier (aka Project 001A). Over 2016, one of the main areas to follow would be the progress of this first carrier. Over the past year, the intensity of CV-16 exercises seemed to be picking up. Over this past year, Shenyang AC has been producing more production versions of J-15s. There are at least 15 of them now from 100 to 114 and all of them probably have flown off CV-16. In the most recent exercise, at least 6 of them were shown on deck at the same time and as many as 10 were probably on CV-16 in this exercise. That’s a definite step forward in carrier operations from earlier this year and previous years. On top of having more J-15s on board, having more types of combat aircraft and helicopter on board operating at different weather conditions and at nighttime are the next steps in improving carrier operation. Chinese naval aviation has a long way to go in developing its combat capability, so will be sure to continue to see its progress next year. I think it’s also interesting that we have yet to see photos of CV-16 leading a large flotilla with numerous escorts like 052C/D and 054A, so that’s also something to look to see in 2016. The Chinese navy has to do all of this with very little help from other carrier operating navies around the world, so it has been deliberately ramping up operation for the past 3 years. It may take several more years to see the things I’ve listed here.
The rest of the surface fleet programs have also been progressing well like previous years. The 4 new 052C ships have now all joined service as No. 150 to 153. Two more 052Ds (No. 173 and No. 174) have also joined service. The main gun PJ-38 has also recently did a comprehensive round of firing tests. The 052Ds are equipped with the latest VLS, multi functional radar, variable depth sonar and PJ-38s, so they represent quite a major improvement in capabilities over 052C despite sharing the same hull. There are probably at least 5 more 052Ds from JN shipyard and 2 more from Dalian shipyard that are under construction. We will probably also start seeing progress of 055 in one of these shipyards next year. Amongst the 054As, a couple of more joined service this year and more modules have also appeared. They are also installed with the new VDS. The production of 054As has already exceeded what was expected originally, allowing the older Jianghu ships and the 4 Jiangwei ships to be decommissioned. It will be interesting to see how many more 054As ships are built when many have expected PLAN to move production to a newer 054 variant. Similarly, Type 056 corvettes have also continued to be produced in large numbers this year and they are expected to replace the roles of Type 037s in patrol, sub chasers and ASuW. And finally, the 4th Type 071 recently joined service as No. 988.
Aside from the surface combatants, the replenishment fleet has also seen a huge boom this year. Most recently, the 40K+ ton displacement Type 901 AOR was launched. This type of shape is significant, because it’s expected to be the primary AOR for China’s future carrier fleet. It is much larger than China’s existing Type 903 class of AORs. Also, it is powered by gas turbines instead of diesel engines on the Type 903 AORS, allowing for much higher speed to keep up with the rest of carrier fleet. It also has more resupply gantries located in the middle of the ship than Type 903, which allows for underway refueling with more ships. At the same time, both HD and GSI shipyard have continued to build and commissioned Type 903A ships.
There were 3 Type 903A (No. 960, 966 and 963) have joined service this year. There are at least 2 other one launched and another building. The Type 904 large store ships also had a lot of activity this year. There were 2 Type 904B ships (No. 961 and 962) that joined service year. These additional ships are probably there to supply the increasing amount of activity that China has in South China Sea and East China Sea. So overall, this was a really active year for China’s replenishment fleet. A couple of the older replenishment ships will probably retire over the next couple of years, but the increasing number of large ships joining into service will allow for greater power projection capabilities and also supplying near by islands.
Finally, China’s coast guard fleet construction activity has continued this year with some of the largest cutters joining service. There were 12000-ton class, 5000-ton class, 4000-ton class and numerous 3000-ton class cutters getting launched and commissioned. A lot of ships seem to have conflicting roles, but they were originally created for different agencies and for provincial bureaus. I think that most of the programs are nearing conclusion at the moment. Until the next 5-year plan gets developed with similar number of projects, we probably will not see this same level of expansion for a while.
As a whole, an interesting year with news from both the navy and air force. I will be looking to follow up on most of these programs next year.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Saturday, December 5, 2015
ASBM program and Su-35 export
I came across a really well down book by Andrew Erickson on China's ASBM development. The book can be found here. It was written by 2013, but most of the content is still very up to date. It does a good job of talking about ASBM development, motivation, capability and China's satellite system. Since then, I think the only major update is the unveiling of both DF-21D and the previously unknown DF-26 in China's Victory parade in September. That shows a much greater potential usage than just Taiwan scenario or even around disputed islands in South and East China Sea.
At the same time, the other news that came out this past week is the finalization of Su-35 export. The discussion seemed to have started way back in 2008 and really picked up since 2012. I think Su-35 is an interim solution to provide advanced capability to PLAAF beyond their existing flanker fleet while CAC is completing the development of J-20. I see it as any improvement over China's domestic J-11s, but not something that will be a legitimate solution to F-35 and other 5th generation aircraft.
At the same time, the other news that came out this past week is the finalization of Su-35 export. The discussion seemed to have started way back in 2008 and really picked up since 2012. I think Su-35 is an interim solution to provide advanced capability to PLAAF beyond their existing flanker fleet while CAC is completing the development of J-20. I see it as any improvement over China's domestic J-11s, but not something that will be a legitimate solution to F-35 and other 5th generation aircraft.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
China's first oversea base
I will keep this short. We have report that China has signed a ten year deal with Djibouti for its first oversea naval base. Andrew Erickson provided a good analysis of today's development in this article. The location makes a lot of sense since China has been making port calls there as part of its missions in Gulf of Aden. This 2010 Jamestown article did a good job of exploring what had been an expanding support network for PLAN up until that point. Certainly, as Chinese naval influence grows in this region with more port calls, patrols and joint exercises, I think there will be more arrangements where China establishes what looks like oversea base (even if they are not called that).
Saturday, November 7, 2015
My thoughts on COMAC C919
Most recently, COMAC (Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China) rolled out the first C919 off the assembly line to eagerly awaiting media. The question as we go forward is how successful will C919 be or how successful can it be? It has already pushed back it maiden flight from 2014 to 2016 (which is not too uncommon in aerospace industry) and first delivery to 2018.
AVIC1 has had a long history of supplying parts to both Boeing and Airbus airliners. China's large domestic market has even resulted in final assembly lines inside the country for A320 (and also A330 and B737 going forward). Even so, building a successful modern airliner require building up and maintaining a complicated supplier network, production systems, assembly lines, marketing network and after sales service centers. On top of this, the process of getting FAA certification for airliner is a tremendous undertaking. China had very little experience before it started ARJ-21, which resulted in significant delays while trying to get CAAC certification. Now 8 years after the initial planned service entry, the first ARJ-21 is finally about to enter service later this year without FAA certification. China certainly learnt a lot from ARJ-21 project from all I have read and is unlikely to have the sam delays getting CAAC certification in the C919 project. However, the thorny issue of have FAA recognizing CAAC certification still needs to be resolved before both aircraft can be sold to the wider markets. If they cannot be resolved, then C919 simply would not be able to land in large part of the world which requires on FAA or EASA certification. So until then, C919 is restricted to the domestic and surrounding markets. Based on COMAC's ARJ-21 delays, it's reasonable to assume that most airlines would prefer to wait until closer to certification before making decision on purchasing C919.
From all of this, I think it's quite clear the tremendous undertaking to go straight into C919 without even achieving a successful production cycle in the less competitive regional airliner segment which is currently dominated by Bombardier and Embraer. Up to now, C919 has been able to get large amount of orders (about 500) based purely on the size of its domestic market. As seen in the Russian project of MS-21 and Superjet-100, it is far easier to get export deals in the regional jet segment than the A320/B737 segment. Even an experienced aircraft maker like Bombardier has struggled with breaking into this segment and is loosing a lot of money and facing long delays in the CSeries project. Bombardier made the entry into this segment trying to take advantage of the generation gap between A320/B737 and next generation of regional jet by utilizing the next generation engine to achieve about 15% improvement in operation cost over A320. However, Airbus quickly countered CSeries and C919/MS-21 threat by coming out with the A320NEO upgrade by offering the same new engine options, new sharklets and some other smaller upgrades. That has more of less crushed CSeries sales prospects and given it a lead over the improve B737MAX upgrades. At this point, both C919 and MS-21 are going up against the two entrenched players with significant resource advantage. Unlike the CSeries, C919 (and MS-21) can at least secure large quantities of domestic orders and also have significant government support. COMAC does not have the marketing, production, certification and sales experience that Airbus and Boeing do. It is always hard to knock off established players without advantage in product quality. Both airbus and Boeing have significant backlogs, so C919 maybe able to get more orders in both domestic and export market if it is able to have fewer future delays and obtaining FAA certification. I think if it can get FAA certification and several hundreds export orders, this would be considered a successful project. After all, Airbus's first project A300 only achieved 500+ sales.
More importantly, I think China sees this a significant initiative in lifting its civilian aviation industry. I've talking many times in the past about how China's shipbuilding industry allows it to quickly and cheaply build up China's naval force. China's aerospace industry simply doesn't have close to the same production capacity as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. I read that COMAC aims to lift C919 annual production rate eventually to 150 aircraft a year. Even though that's rather small compared to A320 production of 60 a month, it would still be a huge undertaking for COMAC and AVIC1. That kind of huge leap in production quality and capability would be transferable to military aviation projects. In the end, I think China is willing to loose money on both ARJ-21 and C919 project for these reasons.
After C919, COMAC and Russia UAC is said to be joining forces in the C929 project. It seems like the technology used in this project may be behind that of B787 and A350. Both of which represent the cutting edge of modern civil aviation. So, it's hard for me to see how they could compete for much outside of domestic project. In choosing to partner up with UAC, COMAC is signaling it does not think it's capable of developing a commercially viable C929 project on its own. All of which leads to me think it would be best for China followers to temper expectations on the C919 project.
AVIC1 has had a long history of supplying parts to both Boeing and Airbus airliners. China's large domestic market has even resulted in final assembly lines inside the country for A320 (and also A330 and B737 going forward). Even so, building a successful modern airliner require building up and maintaining a complicated supplier network, production systems, assembly lines, marketing network and after sales service centers. On top of this, the process of getting FAA certification for airliner is a tremendous undertaking. China had very little experience before it started ARJ-21, which resulted in significant delays while trying to get CAAC certification. Now 8 years after the initial planned service entry, the first ARJ-21 is finally about to enter service later this year without FAA certification. China certainly learnt a lot from ARJ-21 project from all I have read and is unlikely to have the sam delays getting CAAC certification in the C919 project. However, the thorny issue of have FAA recognizing CAAC certification still needs to be resolved before both aircraft can be sold to the wider markets. If they cannot be resolved, then C919 simply would not be able to land in large part of the world which requires on FAA or EASA certification. So until then, C919 is restricted to the domestic and surrounding markets. Based on COMAC's ARJ-21 delays, it's reasonable to assume that most airlines would prefer to wait until closer to certification before making decision on purchasing C919.
From all of this, I think it's quite clear the tremendous undertaking to go straight into C919 without even achieving a successful production cycle in the less competitive regional airliner segment which is currently dominated by Bombardier and Embraer. Up to now, C919 has been able to get large amount of orders (about 500) based purely on the size of its domestic market. As seen in the Russian project of MS-21 and Superjet-100, it is far easier to get export deals in the regional jet segment than the A320/B737 segment. Even an experienced aircraft maker like Bombardier has struggled with breaking into this segment and is loosing a lot of money and facing long delays in the CSeries project. Bombardier made the entry into this segment trying to take advantage of the generation gap between A320/B737 and next generation of regional jet by utilizing the next generation engine to achieve about 15% improvement in operation cost over A320. However, Airbus quickly countered CSeries and C919/MS-21 threat by coming out with the A320NEO upgrade by offering the same new engine options, new sharklets and some other smaller upgrades. That has more of less crushed CSeries sales prospects and given it a lead over the improve B737MAX upgrades. At this point, both C919 and MS-21 are going up against the two entrenched players with significant resource advantage. Unlike the CSeries, C919 (and MS-21) can at least secure large quantities of domestic orders and also have significant government support. COMAC does not have the marketing, production, certification and sales experience that Airbus and Boeing do. It is always hard to knock off established players without advantage in product quality. Both airbus and Boeing have significant backlogs, so C919 maybe able to get more orders in both domestic and export market if it is able to have fewer future delays and obtaining FAA certification. I think if it can get FAA certification and several hundreds export orders, this would be considered a successful project. After all, Airbus's first project A300 only achieved 500+ sales.
More importantly, I think China sees this a significant initiative in lifting its civilian aviation industry. I've talking many times in the past about how China's shipbuilding industry allows it to quickly and cheaply build up China's naval force. China's aerospace industry simply doesn't have close to the same production capacity as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. I read that COMAC aims to lift C919 annual production rate eventually to 150 aircraft a year. Even though that's rather small compared to A320 production of 60 a month, it would still be a huge undertaking for COMAC and AVIC1. That kind of huge leap in production quality and capability would be transferable to military aviation projects. In the end, I think China is willing to loose money on both ARJ-21 and C919 project for these reasons.
After C919, COMAC and Russia UAC is said to be joining forces in the C929 project. It seems like the technology used in this project may be behind that of B787 and A350. Both of which represent the cutting edge of modern civil aviation. So, it's hard for me to see how they could compete for much outside of domestic project. In choosing to partner up with UAC, COMAC is signaling it does not think it's capable of developing a commercially viable C929 project on its own. All of which leads to me think it would be best for China followers to temper expectations on the C919 project.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
J-20 and more thoughts on 5th generation projects
Most recently, a 7th prototype of J-20 project (No. 2016) appeared and made its maiden flight on September 18th. It’s been 9 months since the last prototype had come out, so this new prototype is a sign that the program has not hit any major stumbling block and was just going through the next iteration in its development. As a refresher, 2 prototypes (No. 2001 and No. 2002) came out and flew in 2011. They were probably the demonstrators of this program. Over 2 and half years later, the 3rd J-20 prototype (No. 2011) came out and was followed by 3 more prototypes (No. 2012, 2013 and 2015). They had some major redesign and changes compared to the demonstrators. So they should be considered the first pre-production prototypes and were probably produced in the same batch. CAC and CFTE have been testing them since that time. I expect that more J-20 prototypes will be coming out in the next few months, since they seem to be building them in batches on this and past CAC project. Compared to the last batch of J-20s, the most noticeable changes have been on the DSI bump and the engine nacelle. The DSI bump looks to be a little larger and people have speculated that some EW equipment may be installed inside. From the relatively few changes between the batches, one can surmise that the J-20 design is more or less frozen.
Indeed, there have already been speculations that the first production J-20s will come out next year to be tested and evaluated by FTTC. While I think that is certainly possible, I think it is also best to tamper one’s expectations and expect some problems along the way. Every 5th generation projects so far have experienced some bumps along the way. The PAK-FA project had fire on one of its prototypes and still has not flown a new prototype since. IAF have continually complained recent years about the technology and progress of PAK-FA. The F-22 and F-35 projects are far more open, so there were many reports of issues along the way. One would expect J-20 to encounter similar issues along the way even if those reports only come out in the rumour mills of Chinese military forums.
With everything that we can see, I think that CAC has been doing a great job with the J-20 project. At this point, I already consider J-20 project to be ahead of PAK-FA in both the design and timelines. In terms of design and technology, J-20 looks to be better configured for stealth from most profiles vs PAK-FA. The next generation AESA radar and the rest of electronic suite are already been deployed J-10B/C and J-16 compared to lack of such Russians platforms. Even the next generation missiles (like PL-10 and PL-15) seem to be further along in development and deployment than similar Russian systems. PAK-FA only seems to be using a more advanced engine at this phase of testing. Considering that the Russians started to research on 5th gen fighter jet in the 80s and first flew PAK-FA a year earlier than J-20, this does not speak very well of Russia’s aerospace industry.
For the past year or two, I’ve read numerous articles coming out of India that complained about the technology, cost and lack of their work share in the PAK-FA project. Since then, there was a fire on one of the PAK-FA prototypes when they were giving a flight demonstration to Indian delegation and have not shown a new prototype since. There have also been numerous online posts about the build problems and quality issues with those prototypes. Now most recently, I’ve also seen a report where India is thinking of pulling out participation in the development of PAK-FA and just buying them straight out of Russia. They probably realized Russia was unwilling to share its most sensitive secrets so they needed to devote more of their R&D resources on their domestic project MCA. At the same time, it also appears that some in IAF is favouring for purchase of more Rafael and less PAK-FA. There are numerous components of PAK-FA project like stealth and propulsion, which are not up to par with the standard established by F-22. If the leap in technology over Rafael is not big, then it makes all the sense to buy the more of the mature platform. Of course, that could also create a disastrous scenario for IAF if J-20 and FC-31 turn out to be much better than Rafael.
If all goes well, J-20 looks to join service in a couple of years. This version of J-20 will be quite underpowered and have to wait a few years before getting WS-15 engine. That would be the next major change for J-20. It looks like the second demonstrator or first pre-production prototype of FC-31 may be coming out soon. I think most people expect some significant changes vs the first demonstrator. In the recent years, CAC has devoted most of its resources on J-20, whereas other projects like J-10B/C have been a little slow in development. SAC is tasked with the development of numerous flanker variants and UAVs. It may not be able to devote the same amount of resource on FC-31 project, so I would expect the progress on FC-31 to be slower than J-20. Even if FC-31 becomes ready several years after J-20, it may still become available to export market at the same time as PAK-FA (after Russian and Indian orders). So I think FC-31 could capture a good chunk of the non F-35 market.
Indeed, there have already been speculations that the first production J-20s will come out next year to be tested and evaluated by FTTC. While I think that is certainly possible, I think it is also best to tamper one’s expectations and expect some problems along the way. Every 5th generation projects so far have experienced some bumps along the way. The PAK-FA project had fire on one of its prototypes and still has not flown a new prototype since. IAF have continually complained recent years about the technology and progress of PAK-FA. The F-22 and F-35 projects are far more open, so there were many reports of issues along the way. One would expect J-20 to encounter similar issues along the way even if those reports only come out in the rumour mills of Chinese military forums.
With everything that we can see, I think that CAC has been doing a great job with the J-20 project. At this point, I already consider J-20 project to be ahead of PAK-FA in both the design and timelines. In terms of design and technology, J-20 looks to be better configured for stealth from most profiles vs PAK-FA. The next generation AESA radar and the rest of electronic suite are already been deployed J-10B/C and J-16 compared to lack of such Russians platforms. Even the next generation missiles (like PL-10 and PL-15) seem to be further along in development and deployment than similar Russian systems. PAK-FA only seems to be using a more advanced engine at this phase of testing. Considering that the Russians started to research on 5th gen fighter jet in the 80s and first flew PAK-FA a year earlier than J-20, this does not speak very well of Russia’s aerospace industry.
For the past year or two, I’ve read numerous articles coming out of India that complained about the technology, cost and lack of their work share in the PAK-FA project. Since then, there was a fire on one of the PAK-FA prototypes when they were giving a flight demonstration to Indian delegation and have not shown a new prototype since. There have also been numerous online posts about the build problems and quality issues with those prototypes. Now most recently, I’ve also seen a report where India is thinking of pulling out participation in the development of PAK-FA and just buying them straight out of Russia. They probably realized Russia was unwilling to share its most sensitive secrets so they needed to devote more of their R&D resources on their domestic project MCA. At the same time, it also appears that some in IAF is favouring for purchase of more Rafael and less PAK-FA. There are numerous components of PAK-FA project like stealth and propulsion, which are not up to par with the standard established by F-22. If the leap in technology over Rafael is not big, then it makes all the sense to buy the more of the mature platform. Of course, that could also create a disastrous scenario for IAF if J-20 and FC-31 turn out to be much better than Rafael.
If all goes well, J-20 looks to join service in a couple of years. This version of J-20 will be quite underpowered and have to wait a few years before getting WS-15 engine. That would be the next major change for J-20. It looks like the second demonstrator or first pre-production prototype of FC-31 may be coming out soon. I think most people expect some significant changes vs the first demonstrator. In the recent years, CAC has devoted most of its resources on J-20, whereas other projects like J-10B/C have been a little slow in development. SAC is tasked with the development of numerous flanker variants and UAVs. It may not be able to devote the same amount of resource on FC-31 project, so I would expect the progress on FC-31 to be slower than J-20. Even if FC-31 becomes ready several years after J-20, it may still become available to export market at the same time as PAK-FA (after Russian and Indian orders). So I think FC-31 could capture a good chunk of the non F-35 market.
Sunday, September 6, 2015
More on Yuan submarine.
Recently, I saw a good article that Chris Carlson posted on USNI regarding Yuan Submarine. Although I have not attempted to do any GE measurement of Yuan that I had done with 093 class, I find his assessment on the size of the Yuan submarine to be well done. I previously would have estimated the ratio of Yuan's beam to that of Song at higher than 8.4 to 7.5 based on photos, but he uses a very thorough approach, so I will accept his numbers until anything else comes up.
On the topic of China using Yuan as an anti-ship cruise missile platform, I think he is also on the money here vs the other USNI author. At this point, China has put a lot of investment into different types of torpedoes whereas much less noise have been made about submarine launched anti-ship missiles, so I think their preferred method of attack on surface ships is going to be through blowing a whole underneath rather than hitting something on the midsection. There have not been any sighting of submarine launched anti-ship subsonic missile that's newer than YJ-82. On top of that, it's highly unlikely YJ-18 is designed to be launched from torpedo tube. With the specs of Chinese navy's new CCL VLS system, I think the diameter of YJ-18 is likely to be larger than 53 cm which is the requirement to fit inside the torpedo tube.
And I'm waiting for his article with Andrew Erickson regarding Chinese supersonic ASCMs to come out.
On the topic of China using Yuan as an anti-ship cruise missile platform, I think he is also on the money here vs the other USNI author. At this point, China has put a lot of investment into different types of torpedoes whereas much less noise have been made about submarine launched anti-ship missiles, so I think their preferred method of attack on surface ships is going to be through blowing a whole underneath rather than hitting something on the midsection. There have not been any sighting of submarine launched anti-ship subsonic missile that's newer than YJ-82. On top of that, it's highly unlikely YJ-18 is designed to be launched from torpedo tube. With the specs of Chinese navy's new CCL VLS system, I think the diameter of YJ-18 is likely to be larger than 53 cm which is the requirement to fit inside the torpedo tube.
And I'm waiting for his article with Andrew Erickson regarding Chinese supersonic ASCMs to come out.
Victory Parade and Chinese politics
Most recently, China had a Victory parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of war against Japan. As part of this parade, China rolled out its latest ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, armored vehicles, UAVs, helicopters, fighter jets and special missions aircraft. All of the displayed weapon systems are believed to be in service. For the first time, China publicly displayed DF-21D and DF-26, which are the ballistic missiles designed for attacking moving targets like a carrier. Certainly, I have posted numerous blog entries in the past regarding China’s ASBM program and the challenges around it, so this has always been an area of interest for PLA followers. We have now seen these ASBM missiles on display and know that it is in active service. What we don’t know is how good China is at finding a fast moving carrier group in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, tracking it and then engaging it. Certainly for a missile DF-26 which will have longer range and higher re-entry speed than DF-21D, the engineering challenge of finding carrier upon re-entry and maneuvering to hit something that can move at greater than 30 knots is very daunting task. They also displayed DF-5B, which is China’s first public display of an ICBM with multiple nuclear warheads. The parade also displayed the DF-10A LACM (land based version of KD-20 LACM) and various other short and medium ranged ballistic missiles. The second artillery certainly had a field day at this military parade. Comparing this to the pictures from China’s military parade in 1984, it was quite interesting how backward they were back then. It still had the same nationalistic tone and show of strength from all the Chinese leaders.
Behind all of this, it’s a time of uncertainty and worry for the current Chinese leadership. China’s major leaders of past and present were all there (even ones I didn’t realize was still alive) to present a united front. By this point, most people have seen the crash of Chinese stock market. The Chinese economy has also slowed down a lot by this point. Nobody can predicate what will happen there or anywhere else, but these parades are used to show the power and accomplishments of the communist party and distract people from the worries of economic and other problems. I’ve read numerous articles on the politics of recent events. While I’m not sure about their accuracy, it does paint a picture where the younger generation of leaders is still battling the older generation in their efforts to carry out reforms. China’s previous paramount leader Hu Jintao was quite limited in his power due to the continued influence of his predecessor Jiang Zemin. It seemed like the leadership of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang would get more freedom in their efforts to bring a more market based economy to China since taking control 2 years ago. Reading about their pilot free trade zone in Shanghai, the attempted deleveraging of the credit bubble and wider trading band of RMB, I have gotten the feeling that Li Keqiang has some pretty good ideas about resolving some of the problems in the Chinese economy. In the past couple of month with the worsening stock market and rapidly slowing economy, you can really see a lot of his moves getting reversed. (If you listened to any of Donald Trump’s speech recently, you would hear about the greatest one-day devaluation of RMB of 2%.) To clear up certain misconceptions before we continue: China does have its own foreign exchange market similar to EBS, which allows RMB to be freely traded within the 2% daily band for entities inside China. It just has capital control preventing money from easily flowing outside the country (like Brazil, Korea, India and numerous other nations), so does not appear free-floating to outsiders.
Throughout PRC’s history, elderly members of the politburo have been more reluctant toward reform efforts. Even when the all-powerful Deng Xiaoping was pushing his reforms in the 80s, other party elders like Chen Yun and Li Xiannian limited Deng’s efforts as soon as troubles started. The most reform minded Chinese leaders of their day Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang were pushed out and humiliated after the student protests of 1987 and then the infamous 1989 TianAnMen Square protests. In a functional economy, we have the boom and bust cycle where credit expand during the boom and contract during bust causing problems in the economy. The bust part of cycle allows the inefficiencies and ailments of the economy to be removed. It is natural for any reform and deleveraging economic efforts to cause a period of economic and social problems. The last time China really allowed the bust to happen is during the Asian economic crisis of 1997 and 1998 when the inefficient state owned enterprises were allowed to fail. At the time, unemployment rate, early retirement and crime rate skyrocketed in the country. The FaLanGong movement arose during this period. Since then, China enjoyed 10 years of good economic growth, a slowdown in 2008 and another 6 years of economic growth. While this was happening, it has been accumulating unsustainable amount of debt and credit creation.
In May of 1989, Zhao Ziyang, who was nominally China’s president at the time, told the visiting Soviet leader Gorbachev that he was not really in charge of China in real decision-making. After taking over in 1987 from Hu, Zhao needed to survive 10 years against the pressures of the conservatives inside the politburo, but lasted less than 2 years after refusing to participate in crushing the student movement. Since then, most of the reform efforts have been economically related and is badly needed in China right now. If reform minded leaders inside the day-to-day leadership get pushed every time there is a setback and become blamed by the elders for economic problems, it’s hard for me to see how this new generation of leaders can get anything done while Jiang Zemin and Li Peng are alive and functioning. Looking beyond China’s display of military power in this parade, China’s biggest threat to the world is an economic crash that slows down its major trade partners and vacation destinations.
Behind all of this, it’s a time of uncertainty and worry for the current Chinese leadership. China’s major leaders of past and present were all there (even ones I didn’t realize was still alive) to present a united front. By this point, most people have seen the crash of Chinese stock market. The Chinese economy has also slowed down a lot by this point. Nobody can predicate what will happen there or anywhere else, but these parades are used to show the power and accomplishments of the communist party and distract people from the worries of economic and other problems. I’ve read numerous articles on the politics of recent events. While I’m not sure about their accuracy, it does paint a picture where the younger generation of leaders is still battling the older generation in their efforts to carry out reforms. China’s previous paramount leader Hu Jintao was quite limited in his power due to the continued influence of his predecessor Jiang Zemin. It seemed like the leadership of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang would get more freedom in their efforts to bring a more market based economy to China since taking control 2 years ago. Reading about their pilot free trade zone in Shanghai, the attempted deleveraging of the credit bubble and wider trading band of RMB, I have gotten the feeling that Li Keqiang has some pretty good ideas about resolving some of the problems in the Chinese economy. In the past couple of month with the worsening stock market and rapidly slowing economy, you can really see a lot of his moves getting reversed. (If you listened to any of Donald Trump’s speech recently, you would hear about the greatest one-day devaluation of RMB of 2%.) To clear up certain misconceptions before we continue: China does have its own foreign exchange market similar to EBS, which allows RMB to be freely traded within the 2% daily band for entities inside China. It just has capital control preventing money from easily flowing outside the country (like Brazil, Korea, India and numerous other nations), so does not appear free-floating to outsiders.
Throughout PRC’s history, elderly members of the politburo have been more reluctant toward reform efforts. Even when the all-powerful Deng Xiaoping was pushing his reforms in the 80s, other party elders like Chen Yun and Li Xiannian limited Deng’s efforts as soon as troubles started. The most reform minded Chinese leaders of their day Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang were pushed out and humiliated after the student protests of 1987 and then the infamous 1989 TianAnMen Square protests. In a functional economy, we have the boom and bust cycle where credit expand during the boom and contract during bust causing problems in the economy. The bust part of cycle allows the inefficiencies and ailments of the economy to be removed. It is natural for any reform and deleveraging economic efforts to cause a period of economic and social problems. The last time China really allowed the bust to happen is during the Asian economic crisis of 1997 and 1998 when the inefficient state owned enterprises were allowed to fail. At the time, unemployment rate, early retirement and crime rate skyrocketed in the country. The FaLanGong movement arose during this period. Since then, China enjoyed 10 years of good economic growth, a slowdown in 2008 and another 6 years of economic growth. While this was happening, it has been accumulating unsustainable amount of debt and credit creation.
In May of 1989, Zhao Ziyang, who was nominally China’s president at the time, told the visiting Soviet leader Gorbachev that he was not really in charge of China in real decision-making. After taking over in 1987 from Hu, Zhao needed to survive 10 years against the pressures of the conservatives inside the politburo, but lasted less than 2 years after refusing to participate in crushing the student movement. Since then, most of the reform efforts have been economically related and is badly needed in China right now. If reform minded leaders inside the day-to-day leadership get pushed every time there is a setback and become blamed by the elders for economic problems, it’s hard for me to see how this new generation of leaders can get anything done while Jiang Zemin and Li Peng are alive and functioning. Looking beyond China’s display of military power in this parade, China’s biggest threat to the world is an economic crash that slows down its major trade partners and vacation destinations.
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