Border face-off: China and India each deploy 3,000 troops

[Officer of Engineers]

Begs the question would you try these hacks in a grey zone operation and risk alerting the other side to the vulnerability or save them for something more serious.

War is a very bad time to find out your things don't work.

[Albany Rifles]

But both could experience loss of lift under certain conditions ?

Both of them entered into a danger zone because of the weather so they will call it pilot error.

I don't think mechanical because the maintenance would have been meticulous given the passengers. We've lost these earlier but not due to mechanical. Pilot error and weather. Sounds a lot like loss of lift.

There is another example to add here. The one that was lost in the Bin Laden raid.

1. Every aircraft can lose lift under certain conditions...that goes for both fixed and rotary.

2. I too expect the maintenance to be top rate...but where were they on the cycle of their phase maintenance...metal fatigue is often undetectable prior to failure except under X ray detection...and that is not not normal, every day maintenance even for VIP aircraft.

3. The specially modified UH-60 likely lost lift due to high heat and low humidity. Also due to the methods taken to provide stealthier characteristics added weight. Add a hover (which is not an easy task in goggles/blackout conditions) and I can see losing lift. What also could have happened was a tail rotor strike.

All that said it's likely no one would say NO to a senior leader because the weather was below flight minimums.

[Double Edge]

Wolfpacts are sucide pacts. There's a reason why we don't use them after WWII and even the Kreigsmarine were forced to abandon the tactic at the end of the War. Wolfpacts need co-ordination in order NOT to get into each other's way and that means radio chatter up the ying-yang. That radio chatter is a torpedo homing beacon. Without radio chatter, wolfpact subs were known to crash into each other trying to line up on target.

Good points. I forgot the complexity this would involve and suicide pacts is out of the question for grey zone.

Si pacem, para bellum. Our objective is not to deter them. Our objective is to let them know we will destroy them.

They can bellyache all they want but our lines in the sand have not been crossed. We've crossed theirs with impunity. The SCS is our waters, not theirs.

And the Indian Navy will say the same about the Indian Ocean. Today.

During the border tensions Chinese never acted belligerent or made any aggressive moves in the Indian Ocean because they knew we could handle them.

A naval officer i listened to said we will have that advantage for a decade more going by the rate India builds ships currently and the rate China builds ships.

Meaning the PLAN will be a match for the IN in a decade's time. I guess he means in terms of tonnage.

We have about 40 ships in various stages of construction right now. We have 140 and the idea is 200 by the end of the decade.

Makes the point India needs a third AC.

[Double Edge]

An overcomplicated and hard to achieve EMP equivelent. Next question.

Begs the question would you try these hacks in a grey zone operation and risk alerting the other side to the vulnerability or save them for something more serious.

[Double Edge]

Neither of those aircraft, the Mi-17V5 of the IAF and the UH-60M of Taiwan, suffer from the issues of the OH-58A which I mentioned earlier. Both are proven airframes with literally hundreds of thousands of flight hours, if not millions, since their inception. Both air forces have a lot of experience with both aircraft. Could have been mechanical coupled with crew error.

But both could experience loss of lift under certain conditions ?

Both of them entered into a danger zone because of the weather so they will call it pilot error.

I don't think mechanical because the maintenance would have been meticulous given the passengers. We've lost these earlier but not due to mechanical. Pilot error and weather. Sounds a lot like loss of lift.

There is another example to add here. The one that was lost in the Bin Laden raid.

[Albany Rifles]

Not at all. But there are commentators making these points. I wanted to avoid that and go to town on AR's loss of control explanation. It can explain the reason for both crashes without CT.

.

Neither of those aircraft, the Mi-17V5 of the IAF and the UH-60M of Taiwan, suffer from the issues of the OH-58A which I mentioned earlier. Both are proven airframes with literally hundreds of thousands of flight hours, if not millions, since their inception. Both air forces have a lot of experience with both aircraft. Could have been mechanical coupled with crew error.

[Officer of Engineers]

Good. Hope you think this next one qualifies as well

An overcomplicated and hard to achieve EMP equivelent. Next question.

[Double Edge]

Chinese do have a listening network under the seas. Deployed between Hainan and the Paracel Islands.

Exploring China's unmanned Ocean Network | CSIS | Jun 16 2020

The network constructed in the northern South China Sea between early 2016 and 2019 is referred to as a demonstration system. However, future plans for the Blue Ocean Information Network involve expanding the sensor and communications network to the rest of the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and other ocean areas far from Chinese territory. While the Blue Ocean Information Network is largely cast as an environmental monitoring and communications system, the military utility of its sensing and communications functions makes its development important to monitor.

Still experimental

The ability to rapidly relocate platforms and sensors during a crisis may afford Chinese authorities information advantages in a crisis. This could include persistent monitoring of contested waters or a disputed island. An obvious military application might be to use the platforms and deployable underwater systems to close gaps in radar, sonar, or communications coverage in a military confrontation. The floating platforms also offer unique capabilities for crisis response. In the aftermath of a natural disaster, for example, they could be installed along a coastline to provide air and surface radar coverage as well as cellular communications to affected communities.

The potential deployment of E-Stations and other components of the Blue Ocean Information Network farther afield would raise security, political, and legal questions, especially in disputed areas. How would other states respond if China placed a fixed platform on an uninhabited reef outside the Paracels, ostensibly for environmental research? Scarborough Shoal would be an especially provocative location, and a deployment there would likely spark a new crisis in both Sino-Philippine and Sino-U.S. relations. In addition, coastal states are legally entitled to regulate marine scientific research in their exclusive economic zones and to refuse permission to anchor platforms to their continental shelves. That means deployments in contested waters of the South and East China Seas would be sure to provoke outcries, and potentially at-sea confrontations, with neighboring states.

If they start deploying these stations in unwanted locations, best thing is to do is impound them with their crew. Problem solved.

[Double Edge]

Good science fiction writing there.

Good. Hope you think this next one qualifies as well

Satellite photos reveal worrying antennas in South China Sea | News.com.au | Dec 21 2021

He refers to a CSIS article and then links it with another from Brookings.

International affairs think-tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) warns Beijing is “taking major steps toward improving its electronic warfare (EW), communications, and intelligence-gathering capabilities near the South China Sea”.

And that means potentially turning the contested waterway into a communication and navigation “dead zone”.

I was talking about no go zones. This guy is talking about dead zones. Dead zone just means things don't work.

How far is a dead zone from a kill zone ? Not far

Still does not translate into a no go zone as we see with Chinese positions in the Himalayas. They don't mind building things in non tactical positions.

Question is how to effect a dead zone ?

Using electronic warfare to hack into and disrupt the other's operations.

CSIS reports China’s artificial island fortresses at Subi and Fiery Cross Reefs in the South China Sea feature extensive communications and intelligence gathering facilities. There’s also a network of sensor towers between Hainan Island and the Paracel Islands.

They’re ideally placed to detect, monitor – and interfere with – any electronic activity in the region. And that means vital equipment may not perform as expected.

Drones could be hacked. Navigation signals could be distorted. Datalinks could be hijacked.

Communications could be both intercepted and jammed.

Just like that. Where is the proven ability of the Chinese to do this as yet.

This means combat aircraft may not find their targets – whether that is a refuelling tanker or a hostile warship. Drones may turn upon their owners. It could break the complex web of data sharing that’s supposed to make modern weapons, such as the F-35 stealth fighter, overwhelmingly effective.

And any digital device may be hacked.

“Our military systems are vulnerable,” the Brookings report warns. “We need to face that reality by halting the purchase of insecure weapons and support systems and by incorporating the realities of offensive cyberattacks into our military planning.”

What is the basis of that Brookings report ?

A 2018 GAO report expressed concern regarding the lack of secure and patchable U.S. weapons systems. The report observed that “in operational testing, the [Department of Defense] routinely found mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities in systems that were under development, yet program officials GAO met with believed their systems were secure and discounted some test results as unrealistic.” It’s a similar attitude to corporate executives who believe that they can’t be hacked—and equally naive.

An updated GAO report from earlier this year found some improvements, but the basic problem remained: “DOD is still learning how to contract for cybersecurity in weapon systems, and selected programs we reviewed have struggled to incorporate systems’ cybersecurity requirements into contracts.” While DOD now appears aware of the issue of lack of cybersecurity requirements, they’re still not sure yet how to fix it, and in three of the five cases GAO reviewed, DOD simply chose to not include the requirements at all.

The military believes they're good. Until one fine day they learn they're not.

Militaries around the world are now exploiting these vulnerabilities in weapons systems to carry out operations. When Israel in 2007 bombed a Syrian nuclear reactor, the raid was preceded by what is believed to have been a cyber attack on Syrian air defenses that resulted in radar screens showing no threat as bombers zoomed overhead. In 2018, a 29-country NATO exercise, Trident Juncture, that included cyberweapons was disrupted by Russian GPS jamming. NATO does try to test cyberweapons outside such exercises, but has limited scope in doing so. In May, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said that “NATO computer systems are facing almost daily cyberattacks.”

The war of the future will not only be about explosions, but will also be about disabling the systems that make armies run. It’s not (solely) that bases will get blown up; it’s that some bases will lose power, data, and communications. It’s not that self-driving trucks will suddenly go mad and begin rolling over friendly soldiers; it’s that they’ll casually roll off roads or into water where they sit, rusting, and in need of repair. It’s not that targeting systems on guns will be retargeted to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; it’s that many of them could simply turn off and not turn back on again.

That is how the dead zone comes about. A successful exploit disables things.

So, how do we prepare for this next war? First, militaries need to introduce a little anarchy into their planning. Let’s have wargames where essential systems malfunction or are subverted—not all of the time, but randomly. To help combat siloed military thinking, include some civilians as well. Allow their ideas into the room when predicting potential enemy action. And militaries need to have well-developed backup plans, for when systems are subverted. In Joe Haldeman’s 1975 science-fiction novel The Forever War, he postulated a “stasis field” that forced his space marines to rely on nothing more than Roman military technologies, like javelins. We should be thinking in the same direction.

NATO isn’t yet allowing civilians not employed by NATO or associated military contractors access to their training cyber ranges where vulnerabilities could be discovered and remediated before battlefield deployment. Last year, one of us (Tarah) was listening to a NATO briefing after the end of the 2020 Cyber Coalition exercises, and asked how she and other information security researchers could volunteer to test cyber ranges used to train its cyber incident response force. She was told that including civilians would be a “welcome thought experiment in the tabletop exercises,” but including them in reality wasn’t considered. There is a rich opportunity for improvement here, providing transparency into where improvements could be made.

Introduce failures as part of exercises is a good idea.

They need to do penetration testing.

And this is the state of affairs with the Americans. India has yet to designate a cyber force command (!)

All bullshit!. We define and control the battlespace. Not the Chinese. At the very least, the Soviets were able to force a battle of their choosing on us. There is zero ways for the Chinese to force a battle of their choosing on us. Every move they try to make, we pre-empt them. They have a wargame at sea. Our ships are in place watching them before their fleet arrives. I'm not impressed with Dahm.

With information superiority they are looking to challenge that control of the battlespace.

It's been twenty years that i've been hearing how American and allied systems are facing cyber attacks.

Don't hear much about attacks going the other way. The Chinese don't talk about them just like Indian incursions taking place in the mountains in their areas of perception.

These cyber ops fall under grey zone so its a matter of time before we hear of strange things happening. If its made public at all.

[Double Edge]

Are you suggesting this crash or that of the Taiwanese Army Chief was the result of foul play? What exactly is the evidence in either of the cases?

Not at all. But there are commentators making these points. I wanted to avoid that and go to town on AR's loss of control explanation. It can explain the reason for both crashes without CT.

Thing is unless you understand how these wake phenomena work there is no way for a layperson to comprehend one plane can capsize another following too soon in the former's wake as can a helicopter getting caught in its own wake and going down too.

Yes, this can happen with military grade equipment and experienced pilots.

[Firestorm]

Grey zone operations. Operations carried out below the threshold of war. All are one and the same.

And here is the further complicating factor. grey zone takes place in more domains than just military. Economic, Diplomatic, Space, Cyber.

I'm also discussing what Quad does here because that is the arrangement put in place to handle grey zone. Quad does more than naval exercises.

How many threads would i need otherwise to discuss these and they would be all separated instead of being in one thread.

Figure out China's play book and beat them at their own game.

Are you suggesting this crash or that of the Taiwanese Army Chief was the result of foul play? What exactly is the evidence in either of the cases?

[Double Edge]

Just curious, how does this relate to Indo-Sino border tension?

The General in question was Army chief during the Doklam trouble at the start of this thread. There is a tribute to him few pages back that shows he was in the forefront of our actions to counter China.

Reason i pushed it i wanted to understand how his helicopter went down leading to his death along with 13 others in the Mi-17

I then learn a Taiwanese chief of Army Staff died in a similar accident just two years ago.

Just could not understand how or why these accidents happened with top flight aircraft with very skilled pilots.

I'm getting a better idea now. None of these explanations will appear in the media. At best we will get one or two paras after the enquiry.

Phrased carefully and i expect vaguely not to create further controversy.

You can further ask what has SCS, or Taiwan and Japan even Australia have to do with Indo China border tension ?

Grey zone operations. Operations carried out below the threshold of war. All are one and the same.

And here is the further complicating factor. grey zone takes place in more domains than just military. Economic, Diplomatic, Space, Cyber.

I'm also discussing what Quad does here because that is the arrangement put in place to handle grey zone. Quad does more than naval exercises.

How many threads would i need otherwise to discuss these and they would be all separated instead of being in one thread.

Figure out China's play book and beat them at their own game.

[Double Edge]

Vortex Ring State

a helicopter can disrupt its own flight with its own wake!

It’s called a “vortex ring state”, and happens if the helicopter descends vertically above a certain vertical speed. It can lead to a very dangerous situation, with massive loss of lift. The easiest way to avoid it is to descend with some forward speed, even very slow - that’s what helicopters almost always do, if you observe them carefully.

If you have to descend vertically for some reason, then it must be very slowly, typically below 300 ft/min, but I wouldn’t advise it…

https://www.quora.com/Does-the-down-...-just-below-it

If you lose lift you descend faster than is recommended and enter a Vortex ring state.

It's like you're in trouble already with LTE and then this VRS thing jumps on top....

[Dazed]

I am no expert.

The vortices are the results of generating lift. They are at their strongest when are slow and at a high angle of attack. Think landing and take off. Atmospheric conditions have an effect on the strength and duration of the vortex. The aircraft encountering a vortex is going to perform as it always does. The problem is the air mass it encounters is a large parcel of rotating air. Think of it as you are in your personal watercraft on a smooth ocean. A Tsunami wave approaches, you enter it head on as encounter the wave your craft is still performing as advertised and will continue to do so as the it is being thrown asunder by the wave. The area you most likely will encounter a vortex is take off and landings mostly due to aircraft following the same flight path.

Delta Air Lines Flight 9570 an American DC-10 killed a Delta DC-9. This crash gave rise to the wake separation rules.

Just curious, how does this relate to Indo-Sino border tension?

[tbm3fan]

The same happens in the wake or near any rotary wing aircraft or large jet aircraft. Being caught in jet/rotor wash is a real threat. It can cause loss of control or an engine to be cutout because it is cut off from air. Seeing that this is a small private aircraft with a fairly low power engine not surprised at all by the outcome.

The Co-Pilot of AA 587 caused the crash of that jet near Rockaway in 2001 because of an over reaction to jet wash from a 747 flight a few minutes before him. The Airbus A300 was yawing a little and the Co-Pilot tried to counter it by moving the rudder hard left then hard right exceeding the capabilities of the rudder to handle such stress. Consequently snapped the rudder off and killed a total of 265 people. AA 587 was cautioned before they took off about the prior JAL flight.