China Expands Its Military Reach

[asad71]

China Expands Its Military Reach


Oct 18, 2011


By Bradley Perrett
Beijing

How far is China’s military reach? The answer depends on what it wants to do. A Chinese warship deployed to the Mediterranean this year, so, by that yardstick, global reach is at hand. But the isolated ship only supported civilian evacuations from Libya, and had no real military potential.
Pull focus back to 300 km (200 mi.) from China’s coast and it is a different story: More than 1,000 short-range ballistic missiles are ready to clear the way for around 2,000 increasingly modern aircraft. Zoom in a bit, and the airspace is dominated by powerful surface-to-air missile systems.
“China’s power-projection capacity is in its early stage of development,” says analyst Andrew Davies of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra. “It reduces rapidly with the distance from China’s coastline.”
The key reason is that the capability has been shaped for the need to assault Taiwan, the farthest part of which is just a few hundred kilometers from the mainland. The trump card held against the island—short-range ballistic missiles—can fly only about 300 or 600 km and the unrefueled combat radius of Chinese fighters is similar. Less obvious but just as critical, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) get harder and costlier as the distance from the Chinese mainland increases.
Yet, a number of programs under way are providing the capability the country needs to fight intensively and farther—more than 1,000 km—from its shores. No single program makes China a regional superpower; they all add up to a gradual lengthening of military reach. In geopolitical terms, this means China’s military strength is seeping further into the South China Sea, the scene of a territorial claim that ranks behind only Taiwan in importance. It will continue to seep.
An example is the Tomahawk-like DH-10 cruise missile. Although overshadowed in the Western media by China’s ballistic missiles, it is credited with a range of more than 1,500 km and is more practicably usable against U.S. targets, because it is unlikely to be mistaken for a nuclear weapon. China has been turning out perhaps 100 DH-10s a year. An air-launched version carried by H-6 bombers could reach 3,300 km, enough to hit Guam, Okinawa and, from a regional perspective, all the way down the South China Sea, across the Indonesian archipelago and into the Indian Ocean.
The reach of the combat aircraft force is subtly lengthening as short-leg fighters based on Cold War Soviet types are retired while squadrons re-equip with J-10s and especially J-11s (Flankers), with their enormous internal fuel capacities. Fielding fighters with longer range not only gives China an ability to strike targets farther from its shores; the air cover means that Chinese warships can be brought into play at the same distances, and so can vulnerable aircraft such as maritime patrollers.
China’s ability to fight enemy warships at a distance is rising, too. About 40 *H-6Ds are assigned to the anti-ship role, although ISR is especially problematic for aircraft with such ranges, since the targets will move far while they and their missiles are in flight; their performance will benefit from China’s growing constellation of ISR satellites. Distant combat also needs aircraft for airborne early warning and for detecting enemy radio emissions; such programs are under way.
Bolstering that effort, China is working on surveillance drones, and it shows interest in the class of very high-flying aircraft known as near-space vehicles—for command and control as well as ISR. The information gathered and passed by these systems stands to greatly boost the effectiveness of the one arm of the Chinese military that can already fight thousands of kilometers from home: the submarine service.
Closer to shore, China’s naval aviation forces are probably looking forward to moving on from their fleet of 80 or so JH-7 attack aircraft and C-803K anti-ship missiles (ASM) to the much larger, stealthier and possibly super-cruising J-20, whose apparent size suggests a strike radius above 1,000 km, plus the range of its missile. A squadron of Su-30MK2s already has Russian supersonic Kh-31A ASMs. And then there is the DF-21D, a potentially revolutionary anti-ship ballistic missile. The Pentagon estimates it has a range of more than 1,500 km and is operational; China says it is still in development.

p.2/--

 

[asad71]

p.2/--

The possibility of a rapid improvement in Chinese air forces should not be discounted. The country has made quick leaps before—most notably with its nuclear and especially thermonuclear weapons programs in the 1960s, when far less money was available. There is reason to suspect that development of military aviation has been inhibited while resources have been thrown at the Second Artillery, the force that controls China’s land-attack missiles.
A Chinese aircraft carrier is undergoing sea trials but is not in service. Like the first carrier for any country, it will initially be a training ship. Over the coming decade it will become a fighting ship, with gradually rising effectiveness, while more Chinese aircraft carriers are expected.
China’s long-range air transport force is slight—just 10 Ilyushin Il-76s. This is probably because China would prefer to build its own airlifters. Avic has said it is developing one with a gross weight of 200 tons; an adaptation of the Il-76 seems likely. The efficiency of the aircraft will be limited by the available engines, widely thought to be Russian, but analyst Sash Tusa of Echelon Research and Advisory points out that the domestic CJ1000 Changjiang high-bypass turbofan proposed for the C919 158-seat airliner would be a good match for the new aircraft.
One of the key changes will be the rise of the Chinese aerial tanker fleet, currently thought to amount to fewer than 20 H-6Us, adaptations of the bomber with poor transferable fuel capacity. Eight Il-78 tankers were ordered in 2005, along with 30 Il-76s, but the contract has run into trouble. Obtaining those aircraft would be particularly important because they could refuel J-11s, which H-6Us apparently cannot, write Gabriel Collins, Michael McGauvran and Timothy White in Chinese Aerospace Power, a book published in July.
No more than a quarter of China’s combat aircraft can be refueled in the air, but the faction is rising. So in that way, too, China’s reach is gradually extending. “China’s air-refueling program today appears primarily geared toward enhancing Beijing’s ability to project power into the South China Sea,” say the same authors.
The C919 is too small to be an effective tanker, and its builder, Comac, is having enough trouble developing it for its primary role. Looking further out, a widebody, the C929, is planned, however.
It should be stressed that tanker developments are only speculated on at this stage. No specific plan for a new tanker has been revealed—and nor, for that matter, is there any sign of a Chinese heavy bomber.
The Chinese air force, at least, is thinking in terms of distances needed to cover the countries around the South China Sea. It has been working toward the ability “to conduct an air campaign within a 1,000-km radius of China’s periphery by 2010—one that it has yet to realize fully—and to extend the range to 3,000 km by 2030,” according to U.S. researchers Mark Stokes and Ian Easton who, in Chinese Aerospace Power, cite Taiwanese analysis. The maritime claim is not the only explanation for that ambition; not only is Guam about 3,000 km from China, that distance also encompasses all of Indonesia. And even less of a range is needed for confronting India, whose territory is almost all within 2,000 km of its border with China.
Photo Credit: USAF SGT. D. Myles Cullen
Photo: USAF

 

[Major Sam]

but as u know SUPER POWER IS INIDIA it doesnt matter wat china have

 

[asad71]

China Maps Original Defense Plan


Oct 11, 2011 By David A. Fulghum, Bill Sweetman
Washington, Washington

While China is not a specific target of Washington’s war planning, it does have the most impressive military force outside the U.S. As a result, Beijing’s aircraft, sensors, ballistic missiles, spacecraft, and fleet and missile defenses have become the standard against which U.S. tactics and technology are measured.
“We probably will fight their [equipment],” says USAF Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements. “China has the best capability, so we’ve taken their kill chains apart to the nth degree.”
But unknowns still abound.
“There is a sense of arrogance among the Chinese” that they will find their own path to a more effective military force, “so I don’t expect them to follow our lead,” says Carlisle. In particular, the Chinese have developed cyberprobing and exploitation operations that have pulled in a greater haul of stolen information than would have been possible even with a large, conventional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) force.
In response to China’s new military capabilities and cybersleuthing skills, the U.S. is beefing up its own abilities to predict foreign intentions. That shift includes ISR upgrades to U.S. fourth-generation tactical fighters and strike aircraft, as well as the introduction of more low-cost platforms like the MC-12 and a few new platforms such as the long-range strike (LRS) family of systems.
However, the possibility of deep cuts to the U.S. defense budget has created a lack of clarity about U.S. military plans, force structure and capability.
“There is a lot of discussion about sizing, so it’s not clear” what the U.S. force will be or what missions it will be required to conduct, says Carlisle. But there is no doubt that the LRS family will be a part of the future, he adds. The bomber will have a networked, integrated electronic attack (EA) capability around it. That capability, advanced weaponry and sophisticated sensors would be carried by unmanned adjunct aircraft operating in support of the projected 80-100 LRS aircraft force.
LRS is actually expected to spend more time operating as an ISR platform and command-and-control node than as a bomber. Both missions pull on its ability to penetrate sophisticated, long-range air defenses where other platforms cannot survive. There also will be a continuing need for advanced, unmanned, ISR aircraft that can combine stealth, great speed and high-altitude flight. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced projects organization has been working for some time on new high-speed, high- altitude UAV designs.
LRS will be a reflection of the growing demand for more and better integrated ISR, says Carlisle. It still appears to be one of the few areas where expansion will continue despite predictions from Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz that only 10% of the ISR projects of interest will actually become new program starts.
Industry’s plan for improving ISR focuses both on high-and low-end conflicts. The low-end effort against terrorists and insurgents will involve improving sensor resolution and fields of view, adding computing power, creating advanced algorithms, fusing data and packaging those refined capabilities into snap-in, snap-out kits for use on low-cost commercial aircraft.

In the high-end conflict, manned platforms may largely disappear from the forces designed to penetrate a foe’s most dangerous threat rings. Instead, unmanned, stealthy aircraft will operate as penetrating sensor and weapons-carrying adjuncts to the manned fleet. Manned aircraft would likely occupy a middle ground where they could also replicate some missions conducted by the RC-135W Rivet Joint (signals intelligence), E-3 AWACS (command and control) and E-8B Joint Stars (radar ground surveillance), although at ranges much closer to the tactical, high-threat arena.
Legacy aircraft that survive the defense drawdown—primarily late-model F-16s, earlier F/A-18s, F-15Cs and *F-15Es—will be upgraded with variants of sensor packages being developed for those fleets of ISR aircraft that are already operating around the world. Fighters will take on more ISR roles so they can contribute to the larger, common picture of the battlefield.
As the U.S. Air Force—and by association, many of the world’s smaller military aviation arms—become smaller and less well funded, they may actually be carrying considerably smarter payloads over the next decade.
Only two aircraft have been built for sensor fusion and as a system of systems: the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
“But we’re never going to turn a legacy platform into an integrated system, simply because their avionics are federated,” which makes the cost too great, says Jim Hvizd, Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems vice president for international strategy and business development. And because of the lack of stealth, “they would have to stand off so far from the target area to survive that the upgrades wouldn’t make sense.” The trick, then, is to identify key technologies that can increase sensor ranges and enable the use of standoff weapons to keep nonstealthy aircraft relevant to high-end combat.
“So we’re looking at getting the value and capacity of active, electronically scanned array [AESA] technology for radars into platforms like the F-16, earlier F/A-18s and other markets like the new USAF tanker,” Hvizd says. “As that takes shape, we’re continuing to evolve systems where we’ve integrated AESA, electronic warfare and even EO/IR [electro-optical/infrared] to make federated architectures relevant. Will they be an F-35? No, but they can operate effectively in a networked battlefield.”
More importantly, an AESA increases radar ranges 2-3 times beyond that of a conventional, mechanically scanned system. Exploitation of the data it collects also can be greatly improved.
“We’re being pushed to make those systems figure out things that are important to the aircrew before they have to screen all the data,” says Hvizd. “We can process an image, a frequency response or a measurement, and do more earlier so that decisions can be made about where the information should go and what we can blend with it. As the frequency spectrum in which we operate becomes wider, our advanced work is letting us [refine] cross-cueing and electronic warfare-AESA integration. We can mix and match sensor suites and put advanced capabilities into the air.”
Another focus area for Raytheon will be hyperspectral imaging (HSI).
With insurgents operating in areas with different foliage and terrain, if signals-gathering and exploitation are integrated with HSI, the capability allows operators to understand where and how the targets are moving while their communications reveal what they are likely to do. HSI in particular has proven helpful in human-activity pattern monitoring when combined with moving-target indicator technology.

AESA radar technology in particular will be a commercial battleground. Currently, some U.S. developers contend that European and Russian AESA capabilities are a decade behind those of the U.S.
The Israelis, for example, “have something that is flyable but whether it is producible is a question,” a longtime U.S. radar specialist asserts. “Producibility is all in how much power you can get out of each module and how easily you can get consistent performance.”
Other U.S. analysts disagree. They note that the French company Selex has AESAs in service or full-scale development on three U.S. programs—Customs and Border Protection Citations and King Airs, and Coast Guard HC-130s.
Another point of criticism is that foreign systems often combine a mechanical with an electronic scan.
“It’s not a computing issue as much as it is trying to [create] beam agility,” the U.S. specialist says. “It’s also hydraulics and trying to move a big AESA at high speeds. [Some European developers] were moving the antennas around at 80-100 degrees per second. I don’t know if you want to do that. It’s a more complex algorithm. You have to decide, as that processing frame [functions], if the antenna is moving and in what direction, and electronically where the beam is within that physical movement.”
U.S. AESA radars don’t move physically and are limited to a field of view of roughly 120 deg. before reduction in effective aperture becomes a problem. U.S. analysts contend that the battle will take place front of their fighters and strike aircraft. By comparison, European and Russian developers want a 360-deg. scan AESA.
“It’s very much a tactics-based” decision to use a hybrid AESA, says a longtime military analyst with insight into European systems. “The idea is to get supersonic maneuvering and acceleration. You want to accelerate for maximum launch speed and range [of your weapon] and then crank [into a high-speed turn] to extend the distance the enemy’s missile will have to travel while still being able to track your own missile.”
Boeing Concept

 

[khanz4996]

india couldnt even make its tejas or lca as they call it from 1982 its still not being weaponised.and india thinking of being a super power?lol.china proved itself and is a super power

 

[SpArK]

5000 years..

LOL.. thanks for the entertainments.

 

[Major Sam]

m with Indians.. bec m scared from SUPER POWER india.. so i cant say anything against them ....

 

[Chinese Century]

china needs to build a strong military to counter the indian military dictatorship.
india is a threat to regional peace and stability.

india reminds me of germany in the 1930s

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

china needs to build a strong military to counter the indian military dictatorship.
india is a threat to regional peace and stability.

india reminds me of germany in the 1930s

But the Nazi Germany was a war machine beast at its time, whereas today's India is not in that league.

 

[Fantasy]

china needs to build a strong military to counter the indian military dictatorship.
india is a threat to regional peace and stability.

india reminds me of germany in the 1930s

Let's be honest with ourselves, this buildup is entirely targeted towards the Pacific and the USA, not India.

 

[IndoCarib]

but as u know SUPER POWER IS INIDIA it doesnt matter wat china have

Does your world revolve around India ??

---------- Post added at 03:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:03 PM ----------

china needs to build a strong military to counter the indian military dictatorship.
india is a threat to regional peace and stability.

india reminds me of germany in the 1930s

So you must be very old man ?? How was Germany like in the 30s grand pa ?

 

[cloneman]

Let's be honest with ourselves, this buildup is entirely targeted towards the Pacific and the USA, not India.

I don't agree.China's military build up is not specifically towards anyone but to defend her interests which include trade route,energy safety,national security,territory and the Chinese civillians safe.So in general it's not specifically towards anyone,but if anyone threatends our core interests,the Chinese policy makers will have no hesitate to use the armed force.

 

[asad71]

I agree with the above. India is just not in China's league. There is no need for China to be targeting India in any way. Nor can India pose any threat - even moderate, to China.

 

[Fantasy]

I don't agree.China's military build up is not specifically towards anyone but to defend her interests which include trade route,energy safety,national security,territory and the Chinese civillians safe.So in general it's not specifically towards anyone,but if anyone threatends our core interests,the Chinese policy makers will have no hesitate to use the armed force.

America is our major threat, they have this idea of containment and attempt to stir up conflicts between regional countries as much as possible by encouraging disputes from being solve peacefully, India is part of their parcel to stir up conflict with China, but the snake head is the USA who encourages such conflicts, that threat is worst than any of our other territorial dispute and must always be vigilant, so that is where our arms buildup should focus towards countering, exclusively, and never let up.

 

[NALANDA]

Whether India is a threat to China or considered a threat to China gets revealed in the way Chinese react to few of Indian counter-mesures lately.

Reading the post from Chinese, Pakistani and few Bangladeshi cyber army on PDF, i would expect nil reaction from China.....isn' it?

But is this the truth?