The Chinese Military

I never understood why we switched from steam catapults which worked very well to the electronic ones which are said to only be able to launch a couple of times before needing to be shut down for a time. I hope this problem has been solved by now. The British carrier doesn’t use catapults just an angled deck. The one thing I couldn’t help but notice was the cost factors. The Chinese carrier’s cost is secret, our latest carrier was over 13 billion dollars and the British carrier which is 50 meters shorter cost 6.2 billion pounds for two of them. Which is roughly 7.4 billion dollars.

The Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group takes its name from the city of Chengdu where it is located.  The city is in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. As you can see, they produce many of the military aircraft. They also had a license to build the MIG-21F-13. They also build civilian aircraft.

The Chinese have been able to steal the specs on some of our great planes and there is talk their newest fighters look a lot like ours, especially in the placement of devices. Some of their planes are the Chengdu J-20, which is their newest fighter plane we know about. The Chinese were said to have built it to compete with the F-35. I think that wasn’t very hard to do because that is one of the worst new planes we built. If it wasn’t for the secret packages it carries, it would have been outclassed by some of our older planes. There is also a Chengdu J-10 which the Russians helped design and is used by the Chinese navy and air force. The engine is a Russian engine because the original Chinese engine didn’t function properly. The plane has also been sold to Pakistan.

Just as we have some very old planes like the B-52, the Chinese also have planes like the Chengdu J-7 in service which was first acquired in 1966. They are used both by the Chinese navy and the air force. It is estimated there are about 300 in service. The Shenyang J-15 first came on the scene in 2013 and are still being produced. It is considered to be a fourth generation fighter which the F-35 from the United States and the Chinese FC-31 are considered fifth generation fighters. This has not stopped the Shenyang J-15 from being considered one of its best fighter planes.

Some of the Chinese fighter planes were based on Russian models, and the J-11 is no exception. Originally it was to have a Rolls Royce engine, then a Chinese WS-10A engine, but in the end, it got a Russian Lyulka Al-31F engine. That engine powers the plane at over two times the speed of sound.

A story went around which we do not hear much about anymore stating the Chinese stole the plans to our B-2 Spirit Bomber. Next there was an announcement the Chinese were going to build a flying wing bomber which closely resembled the B-2. It is amazing to me how we keep spending billions of dollars on secret aircraft only to have the designs stolen by China and maybe others.

It is not only planes and ships which China is furiously building but all sorts of weapons. One of the most fearsome is the hypersonic missile. It is part of their new orbital bombardment system. The system was tested recently, but the Chinese missed their target by about 25 miles, but don’t be too happy about this, since we have no way to shoot down hypersonic missiles which are capable of changing direction while flying. Another problem is the Russians and Chinese both may be ahead of us in this area, but not for long as the leading Chinese designer of the missile has defected to the United States. China also has recently increased the number of ICBM silos by 250. Of course, we could have secret weapons, and I am sure we do.

China has embarked on improving their small arms and some of their rifles have been called the most powerful on the planet. Not to be left behind, the U.S. military has acquired some very powerful small arms of their own. China started out using American Sherman tanks, then Russian T-34 tanks. One of the best Chinese tanks is the Type 99. It is said to be the equal of the best American and Russian tank, but since it has never been in combat, we can’t know for sure. Taiwan has said they would like to buy the American Abrams tank, so has Australia.

There is something which is relatively unknown and it is the fact the Russians are selling weapons systems to countries which are potential enemies of China. For example, they have sold them to India and Vietnam, two countries China has repeatedly clashed with in the past. They have sold India over 1,000 T-90 tanks and guess where they were put? Right on the border at the Himalayans between India and China. They also sold the Indians the Brahmos cruise missile. This would put Russian weapons directly against Chinese weapons if there is an attack and I am sure the Chinese are not too happy about that.

Even if we never had hypersonic nuclear missiles, which we have already tested, a nuclear war would wipe out life on earth. We would still be able to destroy any country which attacked us, the difference being we would be wiped out also. No country is yet to have such an advantage that they could attack us with nukes and not be annihilated themselves. I hope as I am sure you do, there will never be a nuclear war. So far countries want nukes to be used for bargaining chips. The problem is it would take only one madman with his finger on the button to end everything. That is one of the reasons I personally would never want to see Iran get the bomb.