By Carlo Kopp
In addition, the land-based sensor part of the PLA air defence C3ISR network is being supplemented by fixed high speed fibre optic links that provide interconnections that are immune to electronic intelligence intercepts and radio frequency jamming. But a recent and unique addition has been the deployment of indigenous TS-504 mobile tropospheric scatter (troposcatter) communications terminals, which are modelled on US Army equipment that was the employed by US land forces during the Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom Campaigns. These troposcatter terminals appear to be being used to connect mobile radars and missile batteries to the fibre optic network, which increases their ability to survive air assaults, and without the cost penalties and electronic vulnerabilities of satellite links or microwave relays.
The airborne C3ISR segment has also seen investment, with three concurrent programmes to develop AWACS/AEW&C capabilities. Following the abortive KJ-1 effort, the PLA invested in developing a conventional system carried by the Y-8. This system was supplanted by the KJ-200, which uses electronically steered active phased array radar technology that’s two generations ahead of the mechanically steered technology used by the US.
The much larger KJ-2000 AWACS, which also uses active phased array radar, is directly modeled on Israel’s A-50I and Elta Phalcon radar. The PLA had actually negotiated the purchase of the A-50I, only to have the Clinton administration block the sale, resulting in an acrimonious war of words. As a consequence, the Chinese made a national commitment to build their own—resulting a decade later in the recently deployed milestone of the KJ-2000.
All this means that China is deploying a modern, high technology air defence system based largely on the same or more advanced basic technologies used by the US, EU and Russia in their systems.
Once fully deployed and matured, this system will be effectively impregnable to regional air forces, and largely impregnable to US naval air power, itself the victim of chronic underinvestment. Indeed, the technology being deployed in strength by the PLA is so sophisticated that only the small planned inventory of US Air Force B-2A Spirit and F-22 Raptor aircraft will be capable of confidently penetrating a post-2015 PLA air defence network.
Washington, meanwhile, has yet to appreciate the long-term strategic implications of this developing West Pacific environment.
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ozivan
Hi..Prabhu. If you are Indian by the sound of your name, isn’t Arunachal Pradesh was once Southern Tibet? It was annexed as the 24th Indian province in the 1940’s.
The people there looks very much like Tibetans, so are the Bhutanese and Sikkimese…genetically, by color or whatever biological classification you may think of…but certainly they don’t look like the dark looking Indians or the beautiful hazel eyes of Northern Indians.
Please enlighten me about AP province of India.
fibo nacci
China’s New J-20 Stealth Fighter Jet – First “Flight” Video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTzlhAH7aeY
Paul
Chinese capabilities are an unknown quantity until they actually have to do something. The most notable deployment I can think of was the recent Chinese earthquake and subsequent mobilization of PLA and PLAA elements in support of a rescue operation. The logistical and organizational problems displayed in that endeavor (and subsequent domestic outrage over the snafus) do not lend confidence that the Chinese military establishment can project power outside its borders, given it can’t project power very well within its borders.
The Chinese – aside from some notable asymmetric weaponry like the DF-21 – seem to suffer the same myopia that all militaries have in the sense they are procuring and constituting themselves to fight the Last War and not the Next War. For instance, what the hell does China need an aircraft carrier for other than making some nameless Admiral happy on Christmas morning? Even the Soviets realized the uselessness of an aircraft carrier for their strategic situation. The Chinese need is for sea control and denial; that M.O. is submarines, not carriers.
The Chinese also have only the most bare-bones air-to-air refueling capability, airlift capability, rotor-wing fleet (the dearth of choppers during the earthquake fiasco was amazing), sea-lift capacity, and a HUMVEE rip-off/afterthought as their basic grunt-mover. The logistics system that feeds and provisions the whole mess I bet is more Great Leap vintage than Wal Mart efficient. They still depend on requisitioning commercial trains and rolling stock (incredibly vulnerable trains and rolling stock) to supply any force more than a few hundred miles from depot. Their nuclear forces are still run as a CCCP direct-line monopoly, by a grandfathered artillery outfit no less.
All they’re doing with AWACS, carriers, and other snazzy toys is satisfying a deep wish list for their senior military leadership while inadvertently inventorying a vast target list for US-MIL. These assets don’t do them a whole lot of good in either guaranteeing control of air and sea space on China’s periphery or projecting power over to Taiwan for a sustained campaign. Only hard-core investments in logistics back-end, logistics capacity (air, land and sea), a re-org of command-and-control for joint operations (a political bitch I bet in the Byzantine world of the CMC and CCCP), and a subtle but absolutely critical movement away from grunts + CCCP officers + CCCP tool hierarchy at the small-unit level to a grunts + professional non-comms + professional officer (few officers) – CCCP tool hierarchy will get the Chinese to the promised land of a superpower military that you can use in more than a parade.
Prabhu
A thumbs up for the reply.I would say technology is half of the story.The rest comes in the operation and efficiency with which it can be used.We have acknowledge at instances US security supervisor would be as experienced as an officer.
I always have doubted , somebody in china is saying their top brass that they are at a level playing field in defense with US.I find it nothing more than absurd.
Cheers
Prabhu.G