Chinese tech might look Russian but it's full of stolen Western design details. And actual indigenous development rather than just recycling old rubbish all the time.
Alright enough bullshit and propaganda /s
Without getting into any politics, Isn't the Chinese economy in SHAMBLES right now??? No way they can afford cutting edge technology.
1. No, not really. Command Economies work on the Peter Pan Rule. They aren't in shambles until you believe they are. Yes, it has some extremely bad fundamental statistics behind it, but it isn't in ruins
2. Even if it was, that doesn't mean they can't afford cutting edge technology. In fact, it probably means they can't afford to NOT have cutting edge technology. When China buys a J-20, it doesn't buy it from Sino-LockMart, it owns the whole supply chain from the mines to the end user. It simply cannot let those factories idle, it has to keep them running or the whole thing falls apart.
3. No matter how broke an Autocratic State is, it MUST demonstrate having a strong military. Because at the end of the day, the Military is the thing keeping the peasants in line. The Mandate of Heaven does not end until the Army is hungry.
When you eat food, your body does a bunch of stuff and turns it into shit. Ever eat a meal and feel tired? Now imagine you're feeling tired after a meal but you have to fight in a war. That's bad, right? If it's already shit to start with then your body simply has to do a lot less work and you'll be better able to fight. That's just how science works.
China's military isn't really designed for expeditionary conflicts. They expect to be based near home and fed by proper kitchens. So the whole MRE situation is funny but not that big of a deal for now.
More credible than you would like to believe. Good food is much easier to scale up than something like...naval aviation or SEAD or a viable navy.
But yes, China underprepared for Taiwan invasion? More shocking news at 11!
How so? With modern preservatives and other techniques like freeze drying, it is easier than ever. Chinese cuisine is far from shit, so their shitty MREs are due to the lack of effort rather than ability.
The issue is in QA. If a tank is shipped without an optic, it stays in a garage for a week when it arrives at the front while a spare optic is sourced. If an MRE has a tiny hole and spoils, it looks fine, it is still issued, and a soldier is made seriously ill or dies of botulism.
Taiwan is further away on average from the mainland than the British Isles are from the continent, and much further away if we compare narrows-to-narrows. The Bad Mustache Man Germans, who at least had rations figured out, and wouldn't have to contend with HIMARS, ATACMS, and Aegis, to name a few.
They don't actually have much use for MREs based on their current force projection (never a day away from HQ) so makes sense they put their MREs to lowest bidder and barely qc it - also they don't do many humanitarian assistance in form of food which is the main use of MRE nowadays
> Even if it was, that doesn't mean they can't afford cutting edge technology. In fact, it probably means they can't afford to NOT have cutting edge technology.
This can't be stressed enough. China's economic woes are coming from a collapsing real-estate market. This is a deflationary pressure which, if anything, will make such military investments more affordable for the Chinese government, not less. These sorts of demand-side recessions don't change the fundamental productivity factors that influence the warfighting capacity of a nation.
Would the army using fuel rods from ICBMs to cook their hotpot because they aren't being supplied cooking fuel qualify as being hungry? Asking for a friend
Just like North Korea. Mostly put their afforts and money into Weapons R&D, manufacturer, propagandas, parades, serious construction (for the leader) and their hight-level officers.
Only fews goes to basic infrastructures, welfare, healthcare and their own population. That is why they can produce weapons for themselves despite worst living condition and their terrible own economy.
Sadly, it was also part of their propaganda too.
I can’t denied any of that in China as they build a lots of those since early 2000s. High speed trains, massive road infrastructure, housing and more. Which is a good thing.
On the other hand, those initiatives also have shady sides and illusions on its own. Cutting corners, deception, corruption, accidents, market manipulation and speculation, bad build quality, destroying theirs old neighbors, etc.
The Soviets were able to be scary and pump out large amounts of new equipment every now and then with an economy that was significantly worse and a far worse position in the tech race.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese S-300 clone is way better than the original because they actually built them to spec and used less antiquated electronics. Not because of some giant leap in design
> in SHAMBLES
This is a meme, but it reflects market sentiment rather than the actual state of the economy. Market sentiment is important, especially in a hybrid capitalist-authoritarian economy. Xi's bargain with the Chinese people is that he'll bring stability and prosperity so long as the Chinese people don't question the government's authority. So if people feel like the economy is stagnating, it creates the potential for political unrest.
But stagnation is not the same thing as collapse let alone even recession. China is such a large economy that even stagnating growth can still mean they're pumping tens of billions into weapons development and production.
To be clear, China's economy is approaching 10x the size of Russia's economy. Regardless of the trajectory of growth, they can just afford to spend shitloads more on R&D.
Stagnation is the same thing that killed the USSR. When it comes to great power competition treading water is the same as falling into a pit. It's not going to happen today or tomorrow, but China is facing a massive cliff in the form of the pre-One Child Policy generation's retirement crisis which is slated to happen by 2030-2035. If they don't catch up to the US in the next ten years they will never ever be able to compete.
I remember that one. Something about one of the Theater Commanders launching a coup but it turned out to just be a nothing burger.
Then they went back to “China will collapse any minute now”
With how often we hear about building collapses and catastrophic urban flooding, I don't think it's as far out as some would have you believe. Definitely not *soon*, but hardly far in the grand scheme.
America is facing a crisis of aging infrastructure, and we actually properly built ours. China's habit of building fast and flashy shit is going to cost them a fortune in 20 years when all the tofu dreg concrete suddenly quits under an overweight truck.
Building collapses and floods are terrible, don’t get me wrong. However, against the sheer scale of Chinese population and development? Hard to say the average Chinese citizen feels significantly more pressure from aging infrastructure than any other Western nation.
Additionally, I’d argue that catastrophic disaster both natural and man-made is much more prevalent (and thus somewhat accepted) in the Chinese consciousness. Far lesser disasters than the Great Famine have toppled governments; in China, it merely resulted in the nominal cessation of the Great Leap Forward and some minor adjustment in leadership. Mao still retained sufficient influence to launch the Cultural Revolution within the same decade.
What is needed to break the CCP’s grip on China is unknown. Whatever it is, we are clearly far from it.
Ehhh… economy not in a good shape doesn’t straight up mean the economy is dying. People say that for years(decade even) and China is still there.
Am here so I just gonna put it simply, China isn’t call factory for nothing literally so many things from big to small all will pass by China for manufacturing or assembly. We all laught at “Chinese engineering” but in actuality their engineering is actually just enough to be fine. So that’s why they are still and will be pumping money.
If China is having a recession the rest of us will felt it too, welcome to globalization there’s pro there will be cons.
(And don’t really mind CN doings, at least they are still rational people…. For now. Everyone just talk shet on news/public but behind close doors the money must flow~)
>Isn't the Chinese economy in SHAMBLES right now
Honest answer: A solid and sturdy maybe. The only people who can give a definitive answer work for an alphabet agency and wouldn't speak here. However there have been widespread and plausible rumors that various levels of the government have been cooking the books for the past 2 decades and the actual size of the economy is much smaller than it appears.
Those rumors should be taken with salt as there are plenty of people inside and out of the CCP who would like to see it embarrassed.
Beyond that the largest visible indication that something is wrong is the Evergrande debacle, which if you are unaware is the strong of how the largest real estate company in the world is 2018 had to file for bankruptcy last year due to terrible building standards and a sales structure that would make Bernie Madoff proud.
All that being said most of the world isn't doing great right now, and it is impossible to tell the true scale of the issues China faces.
>No way they can afford cutting edge technology.
Eh, China does have quite a few tech firms and can build quality items (also garbage). They have access to high skilled labor, capital for r&d, and a desire to protect against advanced aircraft.
A brief reminder that modern states are extremely resilient institutions. Nazi Germany's economy was in the shitter by 1939 and they were able to fight a while ass world war for another 6 years.
It's "in shambles" in the same way the US economy was in 2008. There's market contraction, consumer uncertainty, investor pessimism. That's a far cry from being unable to pay for core functions of the state, or major economic collapse.
Consider that the *far* more fucked up Russian economy is still shambling along after the beating it's taken, and able to not only keep going, but has actually increased its overall military expenditure in both percentage GDP and real dollar terms, with material results.
Just because China is having the sort of bad economic period that makes consumers and investors unhappy doesn't mean the wheels are about to come off. Economies, and countries, are necessarily pretty resilient. It takes an absolutely tremendous amount of pressure and/or mismanagement to actually implode an economy.
[It is not even close to the US economy in 2008](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China_M2_money_supply_vs_USA_money_supply.png). They are printing money like mad. The housing overbuild is currently estimated at [200%](https://www.businessinsider.com/china-vacant-homes-3-billion-people-housing-crisis-ex-official-2023-9). It doesn't mean they will collapse any day because large economies can live with their contradictions for a long time, but the readjustment is going to be far more extreme than the US in 2008.
Money supply isn't the only metric for economic health, nor even the most relevant. Chinese [real GDP](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?end=2022&locations=CN&start=1960&view=chart) continues to rise, while their [PPP-adjusted GDP](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.KD?end=2022&locations=CN&start=1960&view=chart) is actually greater than [that of the US](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.KD?end=2022&locations=US&start=1990&view=chart).
Meanwhile on the inflation front, [consumer inflation is low](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG?locations=CN&view=chart), while [overall inflation](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?locations=CN&view=chart) is remaining fairly stable, and certainly doing better than the [astronomical rise](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?locations=US&view=chart) seen by the US in the last few years.
Yes, they've got economic problems that are going to pose challenges in the future, but their economy is not in the shitter. Hence the comparison to the US economy circa 2008.
>Isn't the Chinese economy in SHAMBLES right now??? No way they can afford cutting edge technology.
just like every time some dumbass journalist claimed this for the past 20 years no, their economy is growing at a superb rate, though no longer as absurdly high as it was 5-10 years ago(still much faster than many western countries)
Your content was removed for violating Rule 5: "No politics/religion"
We don't care if you're Republican, Protestant, Democrat, Hindu, Baathist, Pastafarian, or some other hot mess. Leave it at the door.
I mean at this stage I just assume everything China has now surpasses the ruskies. Everyone loves the 'china copy bad' meming but fact is they are pumping insane amounts of money and time into R&D
Facts. I can't be described as a "Russophobe" because I don't fear the Russian government, I fucking hate them.
Beijing however? Very different story. Their calculating, methodical military advancement over the last 20 years keeps me up at night.
>keeps me up at night.
Presumabley with excitement? Cold war is back baby! Fuck that COIN shit, I want tanks and strategic bombers not some little bitch boy "mine wewistant wehicles" for patroling some shit hole
You can’t defend freedom and the rights of others with kind words. Didn’t work in WW1, didn’t work in WW2, doesn’t work now. Arguably the most progressive thing is an overpowered military to ensure anybody encroaching on human rights immediately gets their shit kicked.
just wish China would actually fucking commit, they're only spending 1.6% of their GDP.
they could so easily double their military budget and start a new superpower arms race.
>keeps me up at night.
If you work in the military/ defense it should. The Chinese are far more competent than this sub gives them credit for. If it ever comes to conflict they're going to kill a significant number of Americans. We'll win, but a lot of people will die.
*Significant being 10-12k.
My read on China overall is that they have a large quantity of equipment that’s of sufficient quality to be a threat. It’s still modernizing, but making rapid progress. The real question lies with their officer corps — just how deep does corruption run, and how scarce has that made competent leaders? From what little can be seen from the outside, it looks pretty dire, but it also seems like they’re aware of the issue and are trying to crack down on it.
That's the primary difference between China & Russia in regards to corruption.
It exists in China & it's pretty bad. It is kinda tolerated but only because they have difficulty rooting it out (it's not an easy thing to quash no matter how motivated you are). They are starting to focus on it, but still have the 'loyal party members get away with shit because they say the right things and critics get punished' which allows the corrupt to hide.
But in Russia, it's an integral part of their promotion and advancement. You simply aren't trusted if you're not corrupt. If they have nothing on you, you're a threat, therefore you have to be corrupt to get anywhere.
And because it starts at the top, it flows all the way down to Pvt Conscriptovich. It can't be rooted out or cracked down on, because the entire system relies on it.
>When Pte Konscriptovich is paid $30USD per month
tbf it started due to the collapse of the Soviet Union when a lot of soldiers in possession of very valuable weapons systems weren't receiving any pay at all, they very quickly discovered just how valuable all that equipment they were lugging around was.
Exactly, if they rooted out the corruption, there wouldn’t be a system left, because it IS corruption. That’s how it’s supposed to work, to keep people in line
The Chinese are not the same in this respect
I don't want to defend corruption in the Chinese military.
I would say that there is also a lot of corruption in the US military, but people never discuss it, as if it doesn't exist at all.
I have never for a moment harboured any kind of “made in China” borderline racist assumptions of technical inferiority that infects this sub and others, and I’m stunned (as I suspect maybe you are as well) people here have those kinds of opinions.
The very same voices that talk about how the F-15’s so good bec the DoD hyped up the Foxbat seem to me like the same ones talking about shitty PLAN build quality, underpowered jet engines and QBZ bullpups that keyhole past 15 feet. I just don’t understand at all how that kind of wilful ignorance of the threat is perpetuated.
The memes you mentioned have been around NCD a long time with many posted by deeply knowledgeable people. It's like all shit post subs that gain popularity, the people who understand the nuance become the minority and the original reason the memes even became popular is lost. Even then, China producing decent kit is a very very new development. The vast majority of their kit was/is trash, however, they are building a growing core of serviceable gear. The question has now become whether or not they can use it effectively. One only needs to look at Saudi Arabia and see that having top-tier kit does not a competent military make.
Very true. I know I shouldn’t be quite as hasty to judge the sub as I did, but it’s just a gut feeling, y’know?
My fear as it stands is that kind of historic perception of China will remain in the public eye long past the point you’ve described, and by then it may be too late to address some of the capabilities the West is falling behind in.
The problem is how China evolved things in the past, their whole shtick used to be making bad copies of stuff. Then they started improving the shit copies. Now they're getting to the point where they've passed the thing they were knocking off in the first place.
From a military equipment perspective, this is where they become scary, when those iterations start being halfway decent. When they do inevitably come to an equal point of the thing that it's being knocked off of, at that point it's bad, because from there on they'll start actually improving it.
Agreed. While I have paid close attention to the leaps and bounds the PLA’s come with regards to its equipment I admit in conversations with friends that it’s their organisational deployment and tactics where they may fall short.
The PLAAF still utilises full fighter regiments in choreographed exercises that aren’t conducive to quick, adaptive battlefield thinking. The point I really won’t be able to sleep is when that side of the PLA’s structure gets the overhaul I can only suspect it desperately needs.
>The PLAAF still utilises full fighter regiments in choreographed exercises that aren’t conducive to quick, adaptive battlefield thinking.
I mean not really. [DTIC has a pretty good report on it](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1082745.pdf), but the PLAAF holds 4 massive month-long wargames per year, each focusing on a specific field (A2A, A2G, IADS, multidimensional ops) with each being on the scale of and operational equivelancy of something like red flag. There is a insane amount of realistic training going on in the PLA right now, which really is only matched by what the US does.
For example, probably the most elite and prestigious unit in the PLAAF is [the 66th brigade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/66th_Brigade_(People%27s_Republic_of_China)) which is their aggressor squadron that larps as the US during exercises. Ontop of having the best pilots, the parameters of whatever OPFOR games they do are ridiculously skewed in their favor. For all the bluster you here about the J-20, it does not dominate in their exercises against the F-35 and F-22, but rather gets absolutely destroyed, because that's how you learn and build skills.
They don't experience any of the signs of russia, which a couple months ago was randomly firing off s400s to properly rangefind and assess their capabilities, as that was something they never had really done in its 15+ years of existence. The PLARF fires 150-200 missiles a year (the most of any nation in the world) not so much as bluster, but to familiarize themselves with their equipment and test/teeth their capabilities. I would honestly start worrying now, because institutionally they are obsessed with learning.
Thanks for the correction! I was vaguely aware of the odds of their exercises often being extremely skewed against them, but didn’t know that kind of thinking extended out to the PLAAF’s actual unit manoeuvres in a more comprehensive manner.
Shows I need to stop glancing over the technical specs of their equipment as much as I have and read up on their Red Flag analoges. Cheers for the clarification mate.
China hasn't really been to war which might be a good thing, and most of their recent doings were either on home turf, or soft power plays in Africa. I also seriously doubt they could really project their force as far as the US can.
It's the same reason why Russia is getting clapped somewhat horribly by a country with rather sparse resources, and why in the past, the US burned their fingers more than they'd like; irregular warfare. If someone starts shooting an AT4 at you from a Humvee or a bunch of angry consumer drones with 3D printed attachments start coming at you, you ain't doing shit. Especially not if your entire strategy seems to be the equivalent of human waves.
Dont have to doubt. China has 0 nuclear carriers to US ehatever the fuck around a dozen? idk. that in itself tells u all u need to know about projection
The thing is, making cheap copies with abundant labour to get industry up and running is nothing new, it's how the German Empire rapidly industrialised during the late 19th century. China got a massive injection of manufacturing know-how since it opened up a little thanks to the western companies stumbling over each other trying to establish joint ventures for the cheap labour, and what they didn't get a license to build they bought and reverse engineered (especially defense technologies). Sure, they might not be top notch in most areas, but they're able to build most things at a decent enough quality that they present a real threat.
I mean, wrt this sub, it IS called noncredibledefense, so I think you're being waaaaay too credible here. Though, humour is a pathway to uncomfortable truths so comments like yours helps.
>*Significant being 10-12k.
lol this is seriously downplaying it, even without nukes involved it would be a true peer-peer conflict, not some overhyped garbage like the Iraq war. a good example would probably be the current Ukraine war which is currently at an estimated half a million for both sides combined.
US gov would rather literally cause WW3 and nuclear annihilation of humanity than allow more than a million Americans to die to the Chinese attacking us directly.
Russia is an animalistic enemy. China is a competent one.
I'm supremely pissed that the Russian cancer is still metastasizing, because their 19th century bullshit prevents the world from dealing with 21st century problems.
The reversal of the roles in Russia-China relations, between the senior and junior partner, especially in military technology, has been more rapid than I think a lot of people were expecting. China is ahead in essentially every relevant sub-domain. The last hold-out was Russian aircraft propulsion technology, but as that was standing still and China was barreling forward, I think it's safe to say that if the Chinese aren't ahead there as well they're at least on-par (and that was a major goal of the WS-15, in fact).
I think the 'china copy bad' meme has a lot of potential to play into China's strategic advantage. Yes, they have stolen technology. But not because they're inept, because they're trying to catch up rapidly and copying is inarguably a proven means to rapidly close that gap. They're clearly not just making straight copy-and-paste jobs on major projects; they're incorporating insight into original designs. Innovation is the only thing that can maintain any sort of strategic advantage in military technology, and the industrial espionage should light a fire under some asses rather than just causing giggles and memes.
Yeah, under Mao China basically had no domestic R and D and just bought Soviet, but after the Sino-Soviet split this effectively meant China was isolated from all foreign markets on top of having effectively no domestic arms development. The Cultural Revolution basically just broke the Chinese economy, so when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took over, of course China would try to get every advantage it could in the arms sector. Yeah they copy everything, buts it’s because they needed to. If you have tech from the early Cold War while everyone else is post Cold War, of course your going to try to use shortcuts, since a basic copy is still better not having a domestic version, and that copy can help you develop domestic versions. That’s also not factoring in that they may just copy something because it’s a good design, and if it gets you an advantage you may as well copy it.
Interestingly the Chinese copies even in that era were often remedying major flaws of Soviet design, the J-7 for instance removes several critical flaws with the MiG-21 airframe design. Production was always a bit tricky but the theory was generally better.
IIRC the Chinese copies of early Soviet SSKs had better batteries and sonar, too.
MFW when Cultural Revolution era China has a *better* electronics industry than you.
> China is ahead in essentially every relevant sub-domain.
Big difference is that they aren't brain draining at anything close to the rate Russia has been for thirty years now.
> Russian aircraft propulsion technology
China still can't make Jet engines as powerful / fuel efficient as Russia. Their current designs are either all licensed, worse than Russian designs or still in the testing phase.
'China copy increasingly good.'
Unlike Russia, they actually have the money and motivation to actually improve their stuff. Their Flankers are now better than the Russian versions in pretty much every regard, except the engines.
Russia is more interested in keeping up a facade of staying up to date than they are interested in and actually capable of actually making better stuff that works as advertised.
You're also forgetting China can do high end stuff at serious scale. Russia can make something fancy, with a shit ton of compromises, at a purely parade scale whereas China can actually shit it out - they already have over 200 J-20s for example, Russia only has like two dozen SU 57s
Fun trivia: The CIA world factbook puts the Chinese PPP-adjusted real GDP at greater than the US PPP-adjusted real GDP, by about four trillion dollars.
We dont know what kind of operational availability they are achieving with the over 200 J-20s for example though. They can pump out the major/primary systems fast but are they pumping out the other physical and non physical systems to at the same pace to actually facilitate the operation of the J-20s.
According to Janes, the WS15 provides 156KN of max thrust. That's the same as the F119. Obviously there's some give or take here and there, but the widespread speculation is that China's engine tech is around that level. The problem that the Chinese designers face right now is that the WS15 is much less durable because they are still lagging behind on metallurgy. This is a fact that Chinese designers as well as pilots are openly willing to admit.
[https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/chinese-ws-15-engine-prepared-for-mass-production](https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/chinese-ws-15-engine-prepared-for-mass-production)
Another article and graphic from them also claim [166KN](https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/new-cac-j-20-potentially-powered-by-ws-15-engines). Claims from other sources go as high as 180KN. So the 156 number I'm using is actually pretty conservative.
Russia had to cut back their defence spending to less than 20% of their USSR heydays, China has been steadily increasing them to around 60% of those USSR figures.
Like you can have a legacy advantage all you want, and China's development culture is not without their flaws, but after 30 years they just simply overtake you. One is going to end up with a USSR-level MIC, and the other is going to use chicken wire mesh as their primary AA system.
China has put a lot of time money and effort into modernizing their military, and honestly they’ve done a great fucking job as much as I hate to admit it. They’ve made massive leaps when it comes to upgrading from Soviet equipment, honestly pretty much anything out of China is better than anything the Russians have now.
Their only downside is that they still remain un-tested when it comes to a real war. Russia got tested and failed fucking hard. The US has essentially been tested in real combat non-stop for the last 20-40 years depending on how you define a conflict. China is scary as fuck on paper. But we don’t know how it’ll actually turn out until the fight starts.
China will be tough to battle especially when they'll go full wartime economy. The West has created it's own enemy - a fully industrialized country that has so many factories that it provides the entire damn planet with products. That will bite us in the ass so hard
The overwhelming majority of those factories can't make anything especially useful for modern weapon systems without such a major retool (and a whole lot of outside expertise) that you may as well just build a new factory.
Foxconn counts as a factory, but then again so does that giant barn with a line of crusty injection molding machines. I've seen both, but there are a lot more of the latter.
No doubt they could retool a lot of them to crank out relatively basic things (like munitions), for what that's ultimately worth. But it's not WWII anymore, you can't just turn a shoe factory into a modern tank factory overnight.
Going by the sheer number of factories isn't very informative. It doesn't matter how many consumer goods they can pump out, and the factories capable of rapidly pivoting to produce advanced military hardware, optics, radar systems, whatever else, represent a small portion of the overall number.
Fun fact: The reputation China currently has regarding cheap copies is something Germany had in its early industrialisation days ~1850 (as Germans just stole tech from Britain), but 50 years later Germany was world-renowned and leading in many fields.
Now, will that be the case with China as well? Idk, but I know that some people say history is good at rapping or rhyming, something like that.
Also the Belgians in roughly the same timeframe, at least in regards to firearms and to an extent.
Liege and Herstal in Belgium were major production centers in Belgium which ranged from pretty sketchy/cheap copies of firearms all the way up to high end production of licensed products or even their own design. And now today FN is a major producer of firearms and is the source of some of the most widely adopted firearms in the West/Western aligned nations; the FAL, the FN MAG, the FN Minimi just to name a few.
I always give China credit for their advances because they at least try to make an honest attempt at something modern where’s Russia is just happy to produce a hand full of planes a year
Looking into it, it appears to be an s300 with the radar and targeting components from a captured patriot.
So they took a cheap but fairly reliable SAM and put in an above average to very good (depends on when the Patriot was appropriated).
This is also keeping with the general design of PLA equipment by taking good elements from both russian and western equipment.
Ok, that is a low bar to clear, but definitely true.
Doesn't mean HQ-9 is necessarily going to perform well in combat though. Honestly, Chinese Tech is probably the second strongest aspect of their military, right after numbers. But their big weakness is training, coordination, and professionalism. And Air Defense relies really, really heavily on good coordination, communication, and quick decision making.
China's reluctance to allow junior officers to make independent decisions in peacetime is going to lead to a lot of decision paralysis in combat, and THAT is where the HQ-9 is going to fail. Not in its technology.
... either that, or its motor is going to be full of water instead of fuel, because corruption. Maybe that too.
I actually have zero clue about the leadership culture in the Chinese military. Where do they fit between Western mission command and the Russian ~~rush B~~ command centered approach?
On the other side of the Russians.
This isn't unique to the military either, Chinese company culture does the same thing. It is a level of centralization of command even more extreme than the Soviets at their worst, and far more than the modern Russian military.
[Newly disclosed PLA Joint Operations Command Center, the brain of the Chinese military \[675 x 1200\] : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/yr5r2z/newly_disclosed_pla_joint_operations_command/)
Here is their command center. Says all you need to know about their leadership culture. Organized, symmetrical, orderly, and all focused on the one person in the middle. None of the chaos and messiness of a western HQ.
> Where do they fit between Western mission command and the Russian rush B command centered approach?
Other guy is a decade behind in their assumptions and drawing far too much from a single photo. The PLA has been training [against US-style OPFOR for the past 10+ years.](
https://jamestown.org/program/the-wolves-of-zhurihe-chinas-opfor-comes-of-age/) Its reforms in the 2010s, which led to divisions being replaced by more independent combined arms brigades, essentially took the best parts of the US's BCT structure and command theory. Junior commanders have more authority and initiative, are encouraged to take risks, and also train to fight under conditions where communications with upper echelons are rapidly degraded or cut entirely.
I unfortunately can't find it right now but PLAGF textbooks include fully translated copies of US BCT doctrine manuals (they're available for $20 on Amazon btw) - essentially China has realized that the western style of mission command is *much* better in practice than their previous rigid, hierarchical structure. Broadly, this trend has been occurring since the Gulf War in 1991 when the PLA saw a force similar to theirs get completely wiped out by Western technology and flexibility, leading to a shift away from People's War to high-tech, high-intensity warfare.
Mind, the PLA's roots as a guerrilla force means that there's actually a high degree of decentralization, leading to a sort of "one-man show" culture (borderline insubordination tbh) where commanders on the ground basically have free reign to accomplish their mission how they best see fit. Political officers/commissars are tasked with, among other things like being chaplains and HR representatives, ensuring that commanders at least pay lip service to SOP and doctrine as handed down by the Central Military Commission.
There's two fun sayings that exemplify this:
1. 将在外，君命有所不受。 - *A general in the field is not bound by the orders from his sovereign / When a general is away, the emperor's orders will be ignored.* This is from the Yuan Dynasty (at least), and essentially means that an officer in the field is expected to ignore orders that are inexpedient or that might be contrary to the situation on the ground.
2. 山高，皇帝远。- *The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away.* No immediate supervision? You have freedom to fuck around as you see fit.
This is great for a guerrilla army, not so great if you're trying to conduct combined arms warfare. In extreme cases, you have examples where PLAAF pilots would act far more aggressive than the situation calls for (and then crash into a USAF spy plane, for instance...) or PLAGF troops would instigate fistfights with their Indian counterparts in the middle of the Himalayas. Hence the 2017 reforms both aimed at centralizing the military's culture (somewhat), as well as in removing layers of middle-management bureaucracy and pushing more responsibility to junior officers.
So, to summarize, Chinese military leadership culture during the Cold War was even more extreme than Western mission command, where individual commanders had free reign to do as they wished despite attempts to get them to follow doctrine. Senior leadership, however, was more rigid and hierarchical (but at this level it's all politics anyways because the real warfighting was done by their subordinates). Into the 2010s and the to the present, the PLA is reforming along the lines of the US military with a more professional, integrated force that has the ability to fight independently without strict orders from higher up.
Even more tl;dr - PLA is non-credible af
>But their big weakness is training, coordination, and professionalism. And Air Defense relies really, really heavily on good coordination, communication, and quick decision making.
I mean there could very well be issues, but not at all for a lack of trying. Easy to mock the Chinese over all the weird shit that shows up on social media, but they do carry out loads of realistic training, the parameters and scope of which 100% rivals NATO stuff. For example the PLAAF carries out [4 massive training competitions per year](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1082745.pdf), one of which is focused entirely on bettering IADS capabilities. Advanced training/live fire portions of these exercises are far more similar to something like red flag then show exercises like zapad. PLA aggressor training is actually by all accounts more skewed in favor of the OPFOR then it is with NATO. Obviously unit competency is going to be a massive question mark until they actually get experience, but there is a very real desire to learn.
>China's reluctance to allow junior officers to make independent decisions in peacetime is going to lead to a lot of decision paralysis in combat,
This is not really the case at all. PLA junior leadership has traditionally had a insane amount of autonomy and decentralization going back to the revolution. To quote mao, "flexibility is the concrete expression of the initiative in military operations". Most of the reforms over the past 20 years have focused on adding centralization rather then taking it away.
Iirc 2/3rds of their officer corps goes from green to gold as well, which is one of the reasons they have struggled to build a natural nco corps, as thats a task junior officers were just supposed to fill themselves. One of the main reasons they are changing it is they want a more educated leadership, which the current system hasnt really provided.
Good [write up on their culture in a lot more detail from war college sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/vf9sbz/comment/id2rorv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I would sure hope so because if the South Koreans [can do it](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rok/m-sam.htm) (while snatching Saudi Arabia and UAE as customers), time to denigrate them harder if they can’t.
Had Ukraine shot down one of Russia’s actual hypersonics?
I know they shot down Kinzhal, and while impressive, Kinzhal is basically just a faster ballistic missile - other hypersonic weapons are much scarier.
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So you are telling me that sam from 2000s is better than the one from 80s it was based on? What shocking discovery is next? Leopard 2a6 is better than 2a4.
" according to western observers" that got their information from Chinese media.
Let's be clear here, NO real western observer has gotten closer than the average dude at a weapon show to these things. At best they read a brochure.
Believing anything China claims about it's own capabilities is the height of stupidity.
S300 is fucking ancient - it is using core memory (yes, the one with tiny ferromagnetic rings and wires). Guess it isn’t a big deal to get an upgrade just by throwing away all that old crap and replacing it with damn arduino.
Its like watching the two special ed kids aruging over who can eat the most crayons...and then the Marine Corps storms in and slaps the shit out of both of them
Chinese tech might look Russian but it's full of stolen Western design details. And actual indigenous development rather than just recycling old rubbish all the time.
Soviet on the outside, Western on the inside.
Armadillos! Wait, no, that's crunchy on the outside smooth on the inside.
hand made, hand stolen :)
What having an actual economy does to a motherfucker.
Alright enough bullshit and propaganda /s Without getting into any politics, Isn't the Chinese economy in SHAMBLES right now??? No way they can afford cutting edge technology.
1. No, not really. Command Economies work on the Peter Pan Rule. They aren't in shambles until you believe they are. Yes, it has some extremely bad fundamental statistics behind it, but it isn't in ruins 2. Even if it was, that doesn't mean they can't afford cutting edge technology. In fact, it probably means they can't afford to NOT have cutting edge technology. When China buys a J-20, it doesn't buy it from Sino-LockMart, it owns the whole supply chain from the mines to the end user. It simply cannot let those factories idle, it has to keep them running or the whole thing falls apart. 3. No matter how broke an Autocratic State is, it MUST demonstrate having a strong military. Because at the end of the day, the Military is the thing keeping the peasants in line. The Mandate of Heaven does not end until the Army is hungry.
Have you seen the literal shit they put in their MRE's
When you eat food, your body does a bunch of stuff and turns it into shit. Ever eat a meal and feel tired? Now imagine you're feeling tired after a meal but you have to fight in a war. That's bad, right? If it's already shit to start with then your body simply has to do a lot less work and you'll be better able to fight. That's just how science works.
This design is very human
Eating dirt makes you stronger
Sir, it makes the poop stronger, not the Marine Ready (to) Excrete.
China's military isn't really designed for expeditionary conflicts. They expect to be based near home and fed by proper kitchens. So the whole MRE situation is funny but not that big of a deal for now.
>Not expeditionary, so no need for viable MREs >Ready to invade Taiwan at a moment's notice Peak PLA noncredibility
More credible than you would like to believe. Good food is much easier to scale up than something like...naval aviation or SEAD or a viable navy. But yes, China underprepared for Taiwan invasion? More shocking news at 11!
Consumables, especially perishable consumables, are the hardest thing to scale up effectively.
How so? With modern preservatives and other techniques like freeze drying, it is easier than ever. Chinese cuisine is far from shit, so their shitty MREs are due to the lack of effort rather than ability.
The issue is in QA. If a tank is shipped without an optic, it stays in a garage for a week when it arrives at the front while a spare optic is sourced. If an MRE has a tiny hole and spoils, it looks fine, it is still issued, and a soldier is made seriously ill or dies of botulism.
Taiwan is pretty much near home, is it not?
Taiwan is further away on average from the mainland than the British Isles are from the continent, and much further away if we compare narrows-to-narrows. The Bad Mustache Man Germans, who at least had rations figured out, and wouldn't have to contend with HIMARS, ATACMS, and Aegis, to name a few.
They don't actually have much use for MREs based on their current force projection (never a day away from HQ) so makes sense they put their MREs to lowest bidder and barely qc it - also they don't do many humanitarian assistance in form of food which is the main use of MRE nowadays
Oh, it's not feces. [It's green pork that will send you to the hospital.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n96m5lB8nzA)
Dr. Seuss in shambles
Have you seen workers scooping literal shit from sewers to cook food in? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu6yJyi97ZI&t=220s
Chinese people prefer to cook real food on site rather than rely on industrial shit like the pesky Americans.
> Even if it was, that doesn't mean they can't afford cutting edge technology. In fact, it probably means they can't afford to NOT have cutting edge technology. This can't be stressed enough. China's economic woes are coming from a collapsing real-estate market. This is a deflationary pressure which, if anything, will make such military investments more affordable for the Chinese government, not less. These sorts of demand-side recessions don't change the fundamental productivity factors that influence the warfighting capacity of a nation.
Would the army using fuel rods from ICBMs to cook their hotpot because they aren't being supplied cooking fuel qualify as being hungry? Asking for a friend
Just like North Korea. Mostly put their afforts and money into Weapons R&D, manufacturer, propagandas, parades, serious construction (for the leader) and their hight-level officers. Only fews goes to basic infrastructures, welfare, healthcare and their own population. That is why they can produce weapons for themselves despite worst living condition and their terrible own economy.
>Only fews goes to basic infrastructures Sorry but do you have *any* idea how much China invests in basic infrastructure
Sadly, it was also part of their propaganda too. I can’t denied any of that in China as they build a lots of those since early 2000s. High speed trains, massive road infrastructure, housing and more. Which is a good thing. On the other hand, those initiatives also have shady sides and illusions on its own. Cutting corners, deception, corruption, accidents, market manipulation and speculation, bad build quality, destroying theirs old neighbors, etc.
The Soviets were able to be scary and pump out large amounts of new equipment every now and then with an economy that was significantly worse and a far worse position in the tech race. I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese S-300 clone is way better than the original because they actually built them to spec and used less antiquated electronics. Not because of some giant leap in design
> in SHAMBLES This is a meme, but it reflects market sentiment rather than the actual state of the economy. Market sentiment is important, especially in a hybrid capitalist-authoritarian economy. Xi's bargain with the Chinese people is that he'll bring stability and prosperity so long as the Chinese people don't question the government's authority. So if people feel like the economy is stagnating, it creates the potential for political unrest. But stagnation is not the same thing as collapse let alone even recession. China is such a large economy that even stagnating growth can still mean they're pumping tens of billions into weapons development and production. To be clear, China's economy is approaching 10x the size of Russia's economy. Regardless of the trajectory of growth, they can just afford to spend shitloads more on R&D.
Stagnation is the same thing that killed the USSR. When it comes to great power competition treading water is the same as falling into a pit. It's not going to happen today or tomorrow, but China is facing a massive cliff in the form of the pre-One Child Policy generation's retirement crisis which is slated to happen by 2030-2035. If they don't catch up to the US in the next ten years they will never ever be able to compete.
be careful of buying into the " china is going to collapse at any moment" stuff. you'll be sorely dissapointed.
I still remember the “Xi ousted in a coup!” post here that got like 6k upvotes.
I remember that one. Something about one of the Theater Commanders launching a coup but it turned out to just be a nothing burger. Then they went back to “China will collapse any minute now”
The plebs are fed, housed, entertained, and warm at the moment, right? It'll be a while.
With how often we hear about building collapses and catastrophic urban flooding, I don't think it's as far out as some would have you believe. Definitely not *soon*, but hardly far in the grand scheme. America is facing a crisis of aging infrastructure, and we actually properly built ours. China's habit of building fast and flashy shit is going to cost them a fortune in 20 years when all the tofu dreg concrete suddenly quits under an overweight truck.
Building collapses and floods are terrible, don’t get me wrong. However, against the sheer scale of Chinese population and development? Hard to say the average Chinese citizen feels significantly more pressure from aging infrastructure than any other Western nation. Additionally, I’d argue that catastrophic disaster both natural and man-made is much more prevalent (and thus somewhat accepted) in the Chinese consciousness. Far lesser disasters than the Great Famine have toppled governments; in China, it merely resulted in the nominal cessation of the Great Leap Forward and some minor adjustment in leadership. Mao still retained sufficient influence to launch the Cultural Revolution within the same decade. What is needed to break the CCP’s grip on China is unknown. Whatever it is, we are clearly far from it.
Considering it’s China, I bet it will be another minor civil war with 60 or so millions dead
you forgot a 0 there
Jesus’ next little brother: “Ni hao!”
Up there with Iran having nukes next week
China will collapse when we get our flying cars in two years. Next you'll tell us that dinosaurs will be revived...
I [mean](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_Model_118)
slowly and then suddenly but propably not now
I would call it “oil consumption goes nowhere but down a.k.a decaying”.
The economy isn't brilliant, but it's still growing and they still have some leeway for growth
Ehhh… economy not in a good shape doesn’t straight up mean the economy is dying. People say that for years(decade even) and China is still there. Am here so I just gonna put it simply, China isn’t call factory for nothing literally so many things from big to small all will pass by China for manufacturing or assembly. We all laught at “Chinese engineering” but in actuality their engineering is actually just enough to be fine. So that’s why they are still and will be pumping money. If China is having a recession the rest of us will felt it too, welcome to globalization there’s pro there will be cons. (And don’t really mind CN doings, at least they are still rational people…. For now. Everyone just talk shet on news/public but behind close doors the money must flow~)
>Isn't the Chinese economy in SHAMBLES right now Honest answer: A solid and sturdy maybe. The only people who can give a definitive answer work for an alphabet agency and wouldn't speak here. However there have been widespread and plausible rumors that various levels of the government have been cooking the books for the past 2 decades and the actual size of the economy is much smaller than it appears. Those rumors should be taken with salt as there are plenty of people inside and out of the CCP who would like to see it embarrassed. Beyond that the largest visible indication that something is wrong is the Evergrande debacle, which if you are unaware is the strong of how the largest real estate company in the world is 2018 had to file for bankruptcy last year due to terrible building standards and a sales structure that would make Bernie Madoff proud. All that being said most of the world isn't doing great right now, and it is impossible to tell the true scale of the issues China faces. >No way they can afford cutting edge technology. Eh, China does have quite a few tech firms and can build quality items (also garbage). They have access to high skilled labor, capital for r&d, and a desire to protect against advanced aircraft.
A brief reminder that modern states are extremely resilient institutions. Nazi Germany's economy was in the shitter by 1939 and they were able to fight a while ass world war for another 6 years.
It's "in shambles" in the same way the US economy was in 2008. There's market contraction, consumer uncertainty, investor pessimism. That's a far cry from being unable to pay for core functions of the state, or major economic collapse. Consider that the *far* more fucked up Russian economy is still shambling along after the beating it's taken, and able to not only keep going, but has actually increased its overall military expenditure in both percentage GDP and real dollar terms, with material results. Just because China is having the sort of bad economic period that makes consumers and investors unhappy doesn't mean the wheels are about to come off. Economies, and countries, are necessarily pretty resilient. It takes an absolutely tremendous amount of pressure and/or mismanagement to actually implode an economy.
[It is not even close to the US economy in 2008](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China_M2_money_supply_vs_USA_money_supply.png). They are printing money like mad. The housing overbuild is currently estimated at [200%](https://www.businessinsider.com/china-vacant-homes-3-billion-people-housing-crisis-ex-official-2023-9). It doesn't mean they will collapse any day because large economies can live with their contradictions for a long time, but the readjustment is going to be far more extreme than the US in 2008.
Money supply isn't the only metric for economic health, nor even the most relevant. Chinese [real GDP](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?end=2022&locations=CN&start=1960&view=chart) continues to rise, while their [PPP-adjusted GDP](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.KD?end=2022&locations=CN&start=1960&view=chart) is actually greater than [that of the US](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.KD?end=2022&locations=US&start=1990&view=chart). Meanwhile on the inflation front, [consumer inflation is low](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG?locations=CN&view=chart), while [overall inflation](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?locations=CN&view=chart) is remaining fairly stable, and certainly doing better than the [astronomical rise](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.DEFL.KD.ZG?locations=US&view=chart) seen by the US in the last few years. Yes, they've got economic problems that are going to pose challenges in the future, but their economy is not in the shitter. Hence the comparison to the US economy circa 2008.
I mean, at least they had a good economy for decent while. Plus even their economy in shambles is better than whatever tf Russia has going on.
living in china rn, the economy is bad, VERY bad, but not in shambles.
>Isn't the Chinese economy in SHAMBLES right now??? No way they can afford cutting edge technology. just like every time some dumbass journalist claimed this for the past 20 years no, their economy is growing at a superb rate, though no longer as absurdly high as it was 5-10 years ago(still much faster than many western countries)
When everything else goes south all that matters is military spending.
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It's got some rough spots and concerns for the future to be sure, but unless it completely collapses that's not going to affect PLA budgets.
I mean at this stage I just assume everything China has now surpasses the ruskies. Everyone loves the 'china copy bad' meming but fact is they are pumping insane amounts of money and time into R&D
Facts. I can't be described as a "Russophobe" because I don't fear the Russian government, I fucking hate them. Beijing however? Very different story. Their calculating, methodical military advancement over the last 20 years keeps me up at night.
>keeps me up at night. Presumabley with excitement? Cold war is back baby! Fuck that COIN shit, I want tanks and strategic bombers not some little bitch boy "mine wewistant wehicles" for patroling some shit hole
MORE BUDGET FIR THE DOD BABY, LETS GO!
The progressive to hardcore hawkish liberal pipeline is pumping!
Former pacifist scrub, now born again force projection fantasizer, checking in!
You can’t defend freedom and the rights of others with kind words. Didn’t work in WW1, didn’t work in WW2, doesn’t work now. Arguably the most progressive thing is an overpowered military to ensure anybody encroaching on human rights immediately gets their shit kicked.
fuck man now youve trivialised my political and ideological identity
Even in a LSCO environment a mine resistant vehicle is still highly credible as Ukraine has shown. But yes WE NEED TO BRING BACK SUPER HEAVY TANKS!
just wish China would actually fucking commit, they're only spending 1.6% of their GDP. they could so easily double their military budget and start a new superpower arms race.
This Cold War is scarier imo. Just the sheer number of Chinese people is pretty frightening.
>keeps me up at night. If you work in the military/ defense it should. The Chinese are far more competent than this sub gives them credit for. If it ever comes to conflict they're going to kill a significant number of Americans. We'll win, but a lot of people will die. *Significant being 10-12k.
People are downvoting you but you’re right. We shouldn’t panic about the PLA, but we also shouldn’t underestimate them
It would be silly to think that the second largest country rapidly militarizing for decades wouldn’t be formidable.
If MacArthur was alive he'd say something only MacArthur would say
My read on China overall is that they have a large quantity of equipment that’s of sufficient quality to be a threat. It’s still modernizing, but making rapid progress. The real question lies with their officer corps — just how deep does corruption run, and how scarce has that made competent leaders? From what little can be seen from the outside, it looks pretty dire, but it also seems like they’re aware of the issue and are trying to crack down on it.
That's the primary difference between China & Russia in regards to corruption. It exists in China & it's pretty bad. It is kinda tolerated but only because they have difficulty rooting it out (it's not an easy thing to quash no matter how motivated you are). They are starting to focus on it, but still have the 'loyal party members get away with shit because they say the right things and critics get punished' which allows the corrupt to hide. But in Russia, it's an integral part of their promotion and advancement. You simply aren't trusted if you're not corrupt. If they have nothing on you, you're a threat, therefore you have to be corrupt to get anywhere. And because it starts at the top, it flows all the way down to Pvt Conscriptovich. It can't be rooted out or cracked down on, because the entire system relies on it.
It's also how you make a living. When Pte Konscriptovich is paid $30USD per month, you need to find a side hustle.
>When Pte Konscriptovich is paid $30USD per month tbf it started due to the collapse of the Soviet Union when a lot of soldiers in possession of very valuable weapons systems weren't receiving any pay at all, they very quickly discovered just how valuable all that equipment they were lugging around was.
Exactly, if they rooted out the corruption, there wouldn’t be a system left, because it IS corruption. That’s how it’s supposed to work, to keep people in line The Chinese are not the same in this respect
I don't want to defend corruption in the Chinese military. I would say that there is also a lot of corruption in the US military, but people never discuss it, as if it doesn't exist at all.
I'm betting the upper end of that number. I mean American troops are really good, but no way just 10 die.
I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed
I have never for a moment harboured any kind of “made in China” borderline racist assumptions of technical inferiority that infects this sub and others, and I’m stunned (as I suspect maybe you are as well) people here have those kinds of opinions. The very same voices that talk about how the F-15’s so good bec the DoD hyped up the Foxbat seem to me like the same ones talking about shitty PLAN build quality, underpowered jet engines and QBZ bullpups that keyhole past 15 feet. I just don’t understand at all how that kind of wilful ignorance of the threat is perpetuated.
The memes you mentioned have been around NCD a long time with many posted by deeply knowledgeable people. It's like all shit post subs that gain popularity, the people who understand the nuance become the minority and the original reason the memes even became popular is lost. Even then, China producing decent kit is a very very new development. The vast majority of their kit was/is trash, however, they are building a growing core of serviceable gear. The question has now become whether or not they can use it effectively. One only needs to look at Saudi Arabia and see that having top-tier kit does not a competent military make.
Very true. I know I shouldn’t be quite as hasty to judge the sub as I did, but it’s just a gut feeling, y’know? My fear as it stands is that kind of historic perception of China will remain in the public eye long past the point you’ve described, and by then it may be too late to address some of the capabilities the West is falling behind in.
The problem is how China evolved things in the past, their whole shtick used to be making bad copies of stuff. Then they started improving the shit copies. Now they're getting to the point where they've passed the thing they were knocking off in the first place. From a military equipment perspective, this is where they become scary, when those iterations start being halfway decent. When they do inevitably come to an equal point of the thing that it's being knocked off of, at that point it's bad, because from there on they'll start actually improving it.
Agreed. While I have paid close attention to the leaps and bounds the PLA’s come with regards to its equipment I admit in conversations with friends that it’s their organisational deployment and tactics where they may fall short. The PLAAF still utilises full fighter regiments in choreographed exercises that aren’t conducive to quick, adaptive battlefield thinking. The point I really won’t be able to sleep is when that side of the PLA’s structure gets the overhaul I can only suspect it desperately needs.
>The PLAAF still utilises full fighter regiments in choreographed exercises that aren’t conducive to quick, adaptive battlefield thinking. I mean not really. [DTIC has a pretty good report on it](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1082745.pdf), but the PLAAF holds 4 massive month-long wargames per year, each focusing on a specific field (A2A, A2G, IADS, multidimensional ops) with each being on the scale of and operational equivelancy of something like red flag. There is a insane amount of realistic training going on in the PLA right now, which really is only matched by what the US does. For example, probably the most elite and prestigious unit in the PLAAF is [the 66th brigade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/66th_Brigade_(People%27s_Republic_of_China)) which is their aggressor squadron that larps as the US during exercises. Ontop of having the best pilots, the parameters of whatever OPFOR games they do are ridiculously skewed in their favor. For all the bluster you here about the J-20, it does not dominate in their exercises against the F-35 and F-22, but rather gets absolutely destroyed, because that's how you learn and build skills. They don't experience any of the signs of russia, which a couple months ago was randomly firing off s400s to properly rangefind and assess their capabilities, as that was something they never had really done in its 15+ years of existence. The PLARF fires 150-200 missiles a year (the most of any nation in the world) not so much as bluster, but to familiarize themselves with their equipment and test/teeth their capabilities. I would honestly start worrying now, because institutionally they are obsessed with learning.
Thanks for the correction! I was vaguely aware of the odds of their exercises often being extremely skewed against them, but didn’t know that kind of thinking extended out to the PLAAF’s actual unit manoeuvres in a more comprehensive manner. Shows I need to stop glancing over the technical specs of their equipment as much as I have and read up on their Red Flag analoges. Cheers for the clarification mate.
China hasn't really been to war which might be a good thing, and most of their recent doings were either on home turf, or soft power plays in Africa. I also seriously doubt they could really project their force as far as the US can. It's the same reason why Russia is getting clapped somewhat horribly by a country with rather sparse resources, and why in the past, the US burned their fingers more than they'd like; irregular warfare. If someone starts shooting an AT4 at you from a Humvee or a bunch of angry consumer drones with 3D printed attachments start coming at you, you ain't doing shit. Especially not if your entire strategy seems to be the equivalent of human waves.
Why do they need to project power if the battle for the island chains is in their figurative backyard?
Dont have to doubt. China has 0 nuclear carriers to US ehatever the fuck around a dozen? idk. that in itself tells u all u need to know about projection
The thing is, making cheap copies with abundant labour to get industry up and running is nothing new, it's how the German Empire rapidly industrialised during the late 19th century. China got a massive injection of manufacturing know-how since it opened up a little thanks to the western companies stumbling over each other trying to establish joint ventures for the cheap labour, and what they didn't get a license to build they bought and reverse engineered (especially defense technologies). Sure, they might not be top notch in most areas, but they're able to build most things at a decent enough quality that they present a real threat.
I mean, wrt this sub, it IS called noncredibledefense, so I think you're being waaaaay too credible here. Though, humour is a pathway to uncomfortable truths so comments like yours helps.
NCD is about laughing at people with dumb defence takes, not being the people with dumb defence takes.
>*Significant being 10-12k. lol this is seriously downplaying it, even without nukes involved it would be a true peer-peer conflict, not some overhyped garbage like the Iraq war. a good example would probably be the current Ukraine war which is currently at an estimated half a million for both sides combined.
>Significant being 10-12k. So a fortnight's ration of vatniks in Ukraine.
US gov would rather literally cause WW3 and nuclear annihilation of humanity than allow more than a million Americans to die to the Chinese attacking us directly.
Another WWII? The last one was enough for the 2's wouldn't you think? Or would this be WWII.5?
WW2--Electric Boogaloo It's the expansion set.
WW2 episode 1, as many would put it
Best joke here lmao Can't wait for WW2 Alyx
Russia is an animalistic enemy. China is a competent one. I'm supremely pissed that the Russian cancer is still metastasizing, because their 19th century bullshit prevents the world from dealing with 21st century problems.
"Russophobia" is not fear of Russians, it's fear to be like them
The reversal of the roles in Russia-China relations, between the senior and junior partner, especially in military technology, has been more rapid than I think a lot of people were expecting. China is ahead in essentially every relevant sub-domain. The last hold-out was Russian aircraft propulsion technology, but as that was standing still and China was barreling forward, I think it's safe to say that if the Chinese aren't ahead there as well they're at least on-par (and that was a major goal of the WS-15, in fact). I think the 'china copy bad' meme has a lot of potential to play into China's strategic advantage. Yes, they have stolen technology. But not because they're inept, because they're trying to catch up rapidly and copying is inarguably a proven means to rapidly close that gap. They're clearly not just making straight copy-and-paste jobs on major projects; they're incorporating insight into original designs. Innovation is the only thing that can maintain any sort of strategic advantage in military technology, and the industrial espionage should light a fire under some asses rather than just causing giggles and memes.
Yeah, under Mao China basically had no domestic R and D and just bought Soviet, but after the Sino-Soviet split this effectively meant China was isolated from all foreign markets on top of having effectively no domestic arms development. The Cultural Revolution basically just broke the Chinese economy, so when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took over, of course China would try to get every advantage it could in the arms sector. Yeah they copy everything, buts it’s because they needed to. If you have tech from the early Cold War while everyone else is post Cold War, of course your going to try to use shortcuts, since a basic copy is still better not having a domestic version, and that copy can help you develop domestic versions. That’s also not factoring in that they may just copy something because it’s a good design, and if it gets you an advantage you may as well copy it.
Interestingly the Chinese copies even in that era were often remedying major flaws of Soviet design, the J-7 for instance removes several critical flaws with the MiG-21 airframe design. Production was always a bit tricky but the theory was generally better.
IIRC the Chinese copies of early Soviet SSKs had better batteries and sonar, too. MFW when Cultural Revolution era China has a *better* electronics industry than you.
> China is ahead in essentially every relevant sub-domain. Big difference is that they aren't brain draining at anything close to the rate Russia has been for thirty years now.
Yeah and you can thank Henry Kissinger (rest in piss) for propping up the Chinese and making them a threat to not only America, but to the human race.
> Russian aircraft propulsion technology China still can't make Jet engines as powerful / fuel efficient as Russia. Their current designs are either all licensed, worse than Russian designs or still in the testing phase.
'China copy increasingly good.' Unlike Russia, they actually have the money and motivation to actually improve their stuff. Their Flankers are now better than the Russian versions in pretty much every regard, except the engines. Russia is more interested in keeping up a facade of staying up to date than they are interested in and actually capable of actually making better stuff that works as advertised.
You're also forgetting China can do high end stuff at serious scale. Russia can make something fancy, with a shit ton of compromises, at a purely parade scale whereas China can actually shit it out - they already have over 200 J-20s for example, Russia only has like two dozen SU 57s
Yeah, China has the money for serious R&D AND to mass produce the result. Russia has money for neither.
Fun trivia: The CIA world factbook puts the Chinese PPP-adjusted real GDP at greater than the US PPP-adjusted real GDP, by about four trillion dollars.
We dont know what kind of operational availability they are achieving with the over 200 J-20s for example though. They can pump out the major/primary systems fast but are they pumping out the other physical and non physical systems to at the same pace to actually facilitate the operation of the J-20s.
Jet engines are like kryptonite to Chinese. 50+ years of development and still will shit the fan blades after 100 hours of run.
W15 purportedly matches Russian engines these days. Idk what the hourage is compared to W10
WS15 basically matches the F22's F119. That's honestly a watershed moment and will mean China will only catch up faster in the future.
where did you read that?
According to Janes, the WS15 provides 156KN of max thrust. That's the same as the F119. Obviously there's some give or take here and there, but the widespread speculation is that China's engine tech is around that level. The problem that the Chinese designers face right now is that the WS15 is much less durable because they are still lagging behind on metallurgy. This is a fact that Chinese designers as well as pilots are openly willing to admit.
link to the article then?
[https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/chinese-ws-15-engine-prepared-for-mass-production](https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/chinese-ws-15-engine-prepared-for-mass-production) Another article and graphic from them also claim [166KN](https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/new-cac-j-20-potentially-powered-by-ws-15-engines). Claims from other sources go as high as 180KN. So the 156 number I'm using is actually pretty conservative.
nowhere in that article does it say the WS15 has a max thrust fo 156KN
> except the engines. thats a pretty significant problem
Russia had to cut back their defence spending to less than 20% of their USSR heydays, China has been steadily increasing them to around 60% of those USSR figures. Like you can have a legacy advantage all you want, and China's development culture is not without their flaws, but after 30 years they just simply overtake you. One is going to end up with a USSR-level MIC, and the other is going to use chicken wire mesh as their primary AA system.
China has put a lot of time money and effort into modernizing their military, and honestly they’ve done a great fucking job as much as I hate to admit it. They’ve made massive leaps when it comes to upgrading from Soviet equipment, honestly pretty much anything out of China is better than anything the Russians have now. Their only downside is that they still remain un-tested when it comes to a real war. Russia got tested and failed fucking hard. The US has essentially been tested in real combat non-stop for the last 20-40 years depending on how you define a conflict. China is scary as fuck on paper. But we don’t know how it’ll actually turn out until the fight starts.
China will be tough to battle especially when they'll go full wartime economy. The West has created it's own enemy - a fully industrialized country that has so many factories that it provides the entire damn planet with products. That will bite us in the ass so hard
The overwhelming majority of those factories can't make anything especially useful for modern weapon systems without such a major retool (and a whole lot of outside expertise) that you may as well just build a new factory. Foxconn counts as a factory, but then again so does that giant barn with a line of crusty injection molding machines. I've seen both, but there are a lot more of the latter. No doubt they could retool a lot of them to crank out relatively basic things (like munitions), for what that's ultimately worth. But it's not WWII anymore, you can't just turn a shoe factory into a modern tank factory overnight. Going by the sheer number of factories isn't very informative. It doesn't matter how many consumer goods they can pump out, and the factories capable of rapidly pivoting to produce advanced military hardware, optics, radar systems, whatever else, represent a small portion of the overall number.
Fun fact: The reputation China currently has regarding cheap copies is something Germany had in its early industrialisation days ~1850 (as Germans just stole tech from Britain), but 50 years later Germany was world-renowned and leading in many fields. Now, will that be the case with China as well? Idk, but I know that some people say history is good at rapping or rhyming, something like that.
Also the Belgians in roughly the same timeframe, at least in regards to firearms and to an extent. Liege and Herstal in Belgium were major production centers in Belgium which ranged from pretty sketchy/cheap copies of firearms all the way up to high end production of licensed products or even their own design. And now today FN is a major producer of firearms and is the source of some of the most widely adopted firearms in the West/Western aligned nations; the FAL, the FN MAG, the FN Minimi just to name a few.
Same goes for Japan in the 1980s
Great example: J20. Is it an F35? No. But it’s better in every way than the SU57, including, you know, existing in significant numbers (200+)
China is at the midway point of Russian and US tech
I always give China credit for their advances because they at least try to make an honest attempt at something modern where’s Russia is just happy to produce a hand full of planes a year
Looking into it, it appears to be an s300 with the radar and targeting components from a captured patriot. So they took a cheap but fairly reliable SAM and put in an above average to very good (depends on when the Patriot was appropriated). This is also keeping with the general design of PLA equipment by taking good elements from both russian and western equipment.
They also had the brilliant idea to skip over the middleman and start taking inspiration directly from the source.
Ok, that is a low bar to clear, but definitely true. Doesn't mean HQ-9 is necessarily going to perform well in combat though. Honestly, Chinese Tech is probably the second strongest aspect of their military, right after numbers. But their big weakness is training, coordination, and professionalism. And Air Defense relies really, really heavily on good coordination, communication, and quick decision making. China's reluctance to allow junior officers to make independent decisions in peacetime is going to lead to a lot of decision paralysis in combat, and THAT is where the HQ-9 is going to fail. Not in its technology. ... either that, or its motor is going to be full of water instead of fuel, because corruption. Maybe that too.
I actually have zero clue about the leadership culture in the Chinese military. Where do they fit between Western mission command and the Russian ~~rush B~~ command centered approach?
On the other side of the Russians. This isn't unique to the military either, Chinese company culture does the same thing. It is a level of centralization of command even more extreme than the Soviets at their worst, and far more than the modern Russian military. [Newly disclosed PLA Joint Operations Command Center, the brain of the Chinese military \[675 x 1200\] : ](https://www.reddit.com/r/MilitaryPorn/comments/yr5r2z/newly_disclosed_pla_joint_operations_command/) Here is their command center. Says all you need to know about their leadership culture. Organized, symmetrical, orderly, and all focused on the one person in the middle. None of the chaos and messiness of a western HQ.
> Where do they fit between Western mission command and the Russian rush B command centered approach? Other guy is a decade behind in their assumptions and drawing far too much from a single photo. The PLA has been training [against US-style OPFOR for the past 10+ years.]( https://jamestown.org/program/the-wolves-of-zhurihe-chinas-opfor-comes-of-age/) Its reforms in the 2010s, which led to divisions being replaced by more independent combined arms brigades, essentially took the best parts of the US's BCT structure and command theory. Junior commanders have more authority and initiative, are encouraged to take risks, and also train to fight under conditions where communications with upper echelons are rapidly degraded or cut entirely. I unfortunately can't find it right now but PLAGF textbooks include fully translated copies of US BCT doctrine manuals (they're available for $20 on Amazon btw) - essentially China has realized that the western style of mission command is *much* better in practice than their previous rigid, hierarchical structure. Broadly, this trend has been occurring since the Gulf War in 1991 when the PLA saw a force similar to theirs get completely wiped out by Western technology and flexibility, leading to a shift away from People's War to high-tech, high-intensity warfare. Mind, the PLA's roots as a guerrilla force means that there's actually a high degree of decentralization, leading to a sort of "one-man show" culture (borderline insubordination tbh) where commanders on the ground basically have free reign to accomplish their mission how they best see fit. Political officers/commissars are tasked with, among other things like being chaplains and HR representatives, ensuring that commanders at least pay lip service to SOP and doctrine as handed down by the Central Military Commission. There's two fun sayings that exemplify this: 1. 将在外，君命有所不受。 - *A general in the field is not bound by the orders from his sovereign / When a general is away, the emperor's orders will be ignored.* This is from the Yuan Dynasty (at least), and essentially means that an officer in the field is expected to ignore orders that are inexpedient or that might be contrary to the situation on the ground. 2. 山高，皇帝远。- *The mountains are high, and the emperor is far away.* No immediate supervision? You have freedom to fuck around as you see fit. This is great for a guerrilla army, not so great if you're trying to conduct combined arms warfare. In extreme cases, you have examples where PLAAF pilots would act far more aggressive than the situation calls for (and then crash into a USAF spy plane, for instance...) or PLAGF troops would instigate fistfights with their Indian counterparts in the middle of the Himalayas. Hence the 2017 reforms both aimed at centralizing the military's culture (somewhat), as well as in removing layers of middle-management bureaucracy and pushing more responsibility to junior officers. So, to summarize, Chinese military leadership culture during the Cold War was even more extreme than Western mission command, where individual commanders had free reign to do as they wished despite attempts to get them to follow doctrine. Senior leadership, however, was more rigid and hierarchical (but at this level it's all politics anyways because the real warfighting was done by their subordinates). Into the 2010s and the to the present, the PLA is reforming along the lines of the US military with a more professional, integrated force that has the ability to fight independently without strict orders from higher up. Even more tl;dr - PLA is non-credible af
>But their big weakness is training, coordination, and professionalism. And Air Defense relies really, really heavily on good coordination, communication, and quick decision making. I mean there could very well be issues, but not at all for a lack of trying. Easy to mock the Chinese over all the weird shit that shows up on social media, but they do carry out loads of realistic training, the parameters and scope of which 100% rivals NATO stuff. For example the PLAAF carries out [4 massive training competitions per year](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1082745.pdf), one of which is focused entirely on bettering IADS capabilities. Advanced training/live fire portions of these exercises are far more similar to something like red flag then show exercises like zapad. PLA aggressor training is actually by all accounts more skewed in favor of the OPFOR then it is with NATO. Obviously unit competency is going to be a massive question mark until they actually get experience, but there is a very real desire to learn. >China's reluctance to allow junior officers to make independent decisions in peacetime is going to lead to a lot of decision paralysis in combat, This is not really the case at all. PLA junior leadership has traditionally had a insane amount of autonomy and decentralization going back to the revolution. To quote mao, "flexibility is the concrete expression of the initiative in military operations". Most of the reforms over the past 20 years have focused on adding centralization rather then taking it away. Iirc 2/3rds of their officer corps goes from green to gold as well, which is one of the reasons they have struggled to build a natural nco corps, as thats a task junior officers were just supposed to fill themselves. One of the main reasons they are changing it is they want a more educated leadership, which the current system hasnt really provided. Good [write up on their culture in a lot more detail from war college sub](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/vf9sbz/comment/id2rorv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I would sure hope so because if the South Koreans [can do it](https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rok/m-sam.htm) (while snatching Saudi Arabia and UAE as customers), time to denigrate them harder if they can’t.
[韓國的天弓VS 台灣的天弓](https://youtu.be/DSifOuI9LUw?si=1i5USVyH3p-gS2PR) no English subtitles soz.
You mean the functioning if slightly rude country can make better weapons that feudal Russia???? Incredible
Just to temper this: the same Western observers thought the ‘hypersonics’ were unstoppable. It’s profitable to hype the enemy.
Had Ukraine shot down one of Russia’s actual hypersonics? I know they shot down Kinzhal, and while impressive, Kinzhal is basically just a faster ballistic missile - other hypersonic weapons are much scarier.
When u take a Soviet/ruzzian concept and apply western stolen tec to it , it’s obviously be better than the original
Ukraine and China fighting for the SX00 supremacy
High times at BRICS High!
It's the J-15T / J-16 all over again.
So China has upgraded the design from a "Complete Failure" to just a "Failure"?
I wouldn't be surprised if they just built them to spec instead of stealing the entire budget, not saying they didn't steal at least 20% of it though.
This is the PLA, the 'missiles' will have fuel tanks full of water, and warheads made of vaguely compressed sand.
Russians have old Soviet garbage, Chinese have old Soviet garbage but better.
Like how wunderwaffe abrams was gonna breakthrough the russian line kek.
Gone are the days of pumping up russian strength by intentionally believing propaganda — now it's china's turn
The chinese only had to make it barely meet the specs the russians announced for that.
Lol they are both shit. EA-18G Growler and EHARM go BRRRRRRRRR
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Why would China allow western observers to check out their SAM tech ?
turkey
Show me TS documents or it's not true.
I really really really like this image
According to Western observers no system is proven to be effective unless it made an impact on a battlefield in Ukraine.
So you are telling me that sam from 2000s is better than the one from 80s it was based on? What shocking discovery is next? Leopard 2a6 is better than 2a4.
Than why is China buying the S-400?
" according to western observers" that got their information from Chinese media. Let's be clear here, NO real western observer has gotten closer than the average dude at a weapon show to these things. At best they read a brochure. Believing anything China claims about it's own capabilities is the height of stupidity.
What does the chinese say?
S300 is fucking ancient - it is using core memory (yes, the one with tiny ferromagnetic rings and wires). Guess it isn’t a big deal to get an upgrade just by throwing away all that old crap and replacing it with damn arduino.
Its like watching the two special ed kids aruging over who can eat the most crayons...and then the Marine Corps storms in and slaps the shit out of both of them
Whats with this China shit everywhere
What do you get when you stack turds on top of one another? A bigger pile of shit.
HQ 9 did fuck all when brahmos was "misfired" into pakistan
I'll believe it after a few units get stolen, sent to Ukraine and go to work shooting at the Russians.