Anon

Yeah, the PLAAF is still mediocre, but they at least have long range bombers- which most in Asia do not.

Jay

Snipe,
Are you talking about the H6 (Tu-16) Bombers?? AFAIK they are really really old, 1950's design to be precise.

On the same note, India is supposed to get 4 (2?) TU-22 Backfires, which is easily one of the best bombers available to date!

__________________
A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

berkut

If I'm not mistaken India is considering buying SU-34 which will give it superrior deep strike capability. Also arent F-15s that were given to Japan and Korea are the most basic A models?
If you consider US Naval carrier presense then you have to consider China's vast antiship capabilities which significantly reduces USN advantage.

Also somebody here assumed that Russia is part of Asia.... uhm, sure, if you are considering empty land area, but if we are talking about concentration of air bases, infrastructure, and population then it is very much Europe.

Praxus

All I have to say is...

LOL

Jay

China may have cruise missiles and what not, but first they have to target USN...I think you know what I'm talking about!

Anon

Old bombers are still better than no bombers at all.

The PLAAF would have an extremely difficult time attacking a US CVBG. What's more, it would be even harder for them to find it to begin with.

berkut

Whats CVBG? Is that a carrier battle group? If it is then I'm not sure how it is hard to find it. That "rock concert" of noise can be detected even by the 14th centry sonar. Also there's no way somebody will miss the enormous amount of radiation from communication, radars, etc
What about satelites? Give me some money and even I right now can order surveilance from a very well equipped satelite over the Pacific.

Praxus

Hey Smart ass, if it is beyond the horizon chances are it doesn't matter how much radiation it's giving off or how much sound it's making.

lurker

In a case you haven't noticed - China have satellites, and China is one of only 3 countries that had put a man in space.

For now they are only "the biggest world's sweatshop", but looking how busily all the world supplies them with technology, I would say in 15-20 years they will try to claim their place as a superpower.

And Taiwan would be the 1st step to that claim. The one cannot be a superpower and have such a thing so close.

p.s. let see how their project 9935 will wok out.

__________________
Long time we thought that a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters would eventually type William Shakespeare's complete works.
After invention of the Internet, we understand that it's not true.

Praxus

In case you havn't noticed they can not relay real time information of our Carriers in the Pacific.

lurker

They have 1 Infra-red/visible imaging "meteorological" geosynchronous sat over Pacific and at least 3 geosynchronous military comsats.

No, I couldn't see why they can't track a bunch of BIG ships in Pacific in realtime.

Praxus

Again they can not provide real time information.

Anon

Believe me when i tell you that finding a US CVBG at sea on wartime footing is an extremely hard proposition.

If you get a sat image of it by the time that image can be forwarded to the shooters the CVBG will be over 100 nautical miles away(probably much farther), in one of many possible directions.

Closing to attack a CVBG by air means you have to pass an AWACs screen and F-14 interceptors, as well as all the Aegis escorts.

It is probably one of the hardest things in all of warfare to do- attack a US CVBG on wartime footing.

Officer of Engineers

From a long time PLA watcher, the PLA ain't aiming to be a super power. It cannot afford to do so. The PRC ain't the USSR. She has way too many theatres to handle (Russia, India, Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, and the US) and I'm not even including the potential challenages from Indonesaia and Australia and Australia would automatically bring in the Brits and the Canadians.

Tracking a CVBG is a hell of alot of work, the former USSR spent over 2 decades doing it and it wasn't easy. One thing that we did know. REFORGER was going to work though quite a few of us would have been kissing a fish.

__________________
Chimo

Officer of Engineers

Oh, btw, don't put too much in Chinese satellite capabilities. To this day, they still cannot implement an early warning system. During the Cold War, their early warning was a mushroom cloud.