051C is in service or should be in service? As for OHP while they aren’t most modern ships in the region Taiwanese 90s build Cheng Kung class is still among most capable ships in both fleets… Certainly better then any Chinese frigate (type054a excluded but they aren’t operational at this moment) and thanks to better air defense system better then Kang Ding class...
They aren’t capable as new PRC destroyers you mentioned but I wouldn’t discard them so fast (especially since they are in ROC fleet for some time now, crews are trained and they have all bugs sort out unlike Kang Dang and some of new Chinese ships).
well, 115 is in service for sure. 116, I'm not 100% sure. But it's anyday now. If you really want to get technical, then I need to ask wether the last two Kidd class are commissioned or not?
well, OHP doesn't have any of the stealthy features of 054 or Lafayette. And note, I didn't include 054 or 051B or 956E or the monkey version of Lafayette in my modern ship list either.
Yet Taiwan's defense industry received more assistance from US defense industry then most of closest US allies. To name few: IDF, GD-53 Golden Dragon radar, TC-1/TC-2 missiles etc… Like I said I wouldn’t discard ABM capability...
you are comparing getting a low grade fighter like IDF, an out of date radar like GD-53 and missiles like TC-1/TC-2 to having ABM capability? How many US allies have more favoured status in military clearance than Taiwan? Other than Israel, who else has developed their own ABM?
So design and testing of completely new fighter (and twin-engined J-10 is exactly that) will be over in only 7 years? Not just that but fighter will at that time be in PLAF operational service? Sorry but I’m just not convinced that this can be achieved in 2012 time frame.
CAC redesigned JF-17 from prototype 3 to the current form in 2 years. And that's not even their premier project. On top of that, why would CAC wait until J-10B is certified before starting on the twin-engined J-10? I'm sure they've been working on these for a while now.
I must admit that I’m more then impressed whit rise of PLAN amphibious capabilities over last few years and whit type071 class those capabilities will be greatly improved (not to mention that whit type 071 Chinese have finally moved from WWII stile beach landings to modern amphibious operations) but even whit more those ships in the loop they are still far from needed level of capabilities for operation of this scale…
Actually even whit air superiority this would be quite hard task to achieve and I’m still not so convinced that they are capable to achieve even local air superiority in required time frame…
if they have complete air superiority, they would be getting civilian ships to transport stuff over too. They would just leave the heavy equipments to the amphibious ships.
I don't think a lot of people realize how good J-10 really is. It's been labled as as Lavi-clone, F-16-clone and so forth. Last time I checked, US DoD was comparing the plane's capability to Rafale and Typhoon.
I've been using 35-50m all the time
cool, I've been using this too. My other thought was that the ASAT kill demonstrated some level of accuracy in Chinese Ballistic missile, because it was a direct kill rather than exploding near the satellite.
That is probably true. That was ODS and the targeting issue was solved. Is it pre-ODS batteries that Taiwan employs?
well, they got them in 97, but ordered them in 92
The problem in ODS was that they wanted to make absolutely sure that any WMD warhead was mission killed. Assuredness from the political fallout of Iraqi WMD use (Israel would have entered the war).
well, they had to keep on shooting them, because they were missing the Scud and even then, scud still hit Israel all the time.
In the ABM role, yes. The PAC-2 has also been significantly improved - including the lessons learned from ODS.
As I have gotten a clearer picture of the BM threat, it has become clear to me, that the best use of the PAC-2 would be against PRC air power, as this is much more of a threat. However, if a high value target was threatened and/or geometry allows for a high probability of kill - then why not take the shot?
well, you have a limited amount of missiles and a fixed amount of assets to protect + a fixed amount of BM, you have to pick your poison on which ones you go after.
Had time to look at the WS-2, and you answered one of the questions I had. As it is unguided with a deviation of slightly better than .17% and a range deviation probably twice of that (typical), but even when using only .17% for the range, then we are talking a CEP at 250km of at least 601m! If the deviation was hypothetically less than half of that (.08%) - the CEP would be 283m...
Does it hit the airbase at all with a CEP of 601+m?
well, it actually said smaller than .17%, so we don't know exactly what it is. I suppose the domestic version should be more accurate than that. Considering the guidance package of WS-2, it will be less accurate than the SRBMs. I don't know the pla doctrine on something like WS-2, so really don't know how they would use it inspite of its inaccuracy.
No I read it and understood it well. I think you didn't understand what I was suggesting. Hard Kill methods of "blowing up" satellites is a rather primitive technique. You wouldn't even be likely to notice some of the more modern U.S. ASAT capabilities except that your space based assets would be experiencing an abnormal amount of failures. Only in the most extreme circumstances would it be necessary to get a "hard kill". And as I hinted, even that wouldn't necessarily cause the issues you mentioned.
no, I was saying China could blow up its own satellites in LEO. That would cause a cloud up there.
When they are able to do this to an object in an arbitrary orbit and at higher altitude.
It's only speculation that they moved it directly to an arbitrary orbit and it was at a higher altitude than any previous ASAT tests.
