While I was giving a talk – A Rising China, Impact
on the World and Its Symbolisation to Ethnic Chinese – at Shing An
Association in Kuala Lumpur on May 10 afternoon, two stop-press events had just
happened: (a) the downing of some Indian fighter jets by Pakistan’s China-made
PL-15E missiles fired from also its China-made J-10Cs, and (b) the “agreement”
reached between China and the US over tariff rates in Geneva. The second is
quite irrelevant to what the topic was, but the first was one which directly
affected my presentation, and I had to make some impromptu remarks about its
significance. (The essence of the presentation I meant to deliver that day has
been posted on my blog.)
I was too casual in sweepingly saying that the Pakistanis had used the J-10s to kill India’s Rafales which prompted a friend in the audience Dato Dr HY Yeang to write to correct my understanding. He says, “… Superiority of the Chinese jets might well be true, but there was actually no dogfight between the planes from the two countries. Much of the Pakistani success leading to the downing of the Indian Dassault Rafale jets (from France) could be more directly attributed to the Chinese PL-15 air-to-air missiles and related electronic support. The Mach 5 missiles were equipped with Beyond Visual Range (BVR) ability that allowed them to be launched against targets detected by radar even when they were still kilometres away. The Indian pilots had reportedly only 9 seconds to react when their planes first detected the approaching missiles….”
Indeed, I did know it was the PL-15s that did the destruction, but not quite know the full account. I must thank YH for the feedback.
However, until today, no one in India would want to admit the fact that at least three of their recently acquired Rafales and two Russian-made fighter jets had been shot down in the “May 7” incident. The Western and pro-West media would only say “maybe one” had met this fate.
The French made Rafales are supposed to be the world’s most sophisticated 4.5th generation fighters, and on the other hand, J-10Cs have often been ridiculed as China 4th generation wannabes.
It is impossible, they scream!
But it happened, and only the Indians are still believing that they have done the Pakistanis in instead.
On April 22, five armed militants opened fire on a group of tourists, killing 26 people and injuring 20 others, and this prompted India to launch Operation Sindoor. No one seems to be able to tell for certain how many aircraft were used by India to strike hard on the Pakistanis, but for sure, many squadrons were deployed.
Let me return to the May 7 incident.
The above illustration was made by a former deputy
air chief of Taiwan.
The invading Indian aircraft were firing missiles and thus were exposing their radar signatures to Pakistan’s AWACS 500 (whose ZDK-03 system has a detection range of 400 km) and J-10C fighter jets. Soon, the Indian aircraft came under the tracking of Pakistan’s HQ-9B (HQ stands for Hong-Qi, “Red Flag”) mobile anti-aircraft missile launchers, which have a range of about 300 km. However, they did not strike; instead, it relayed the Indian aircraft’s exact paths back to their AWACS. When the Indian aircraft flew within PL-15E’s range, the J-10Cs, without giving away their radar signatures, fired the PL-15Es, and allowed their air-to-air missiles to be guided by the AWACS to lock and hit the targets with incredible precision. The Indian pilots had hardly any time to react, let alone to fire the Rafale’s Spectra air-to-air missiles. Of course, all this would not have been possible without the help of China's BeiDou satellites.
India’s formidable Russian-made S400 defence system was also rendered useless in this incident.
This is a classic example of Sun-tze! Deception, deception, deception! (The West is always about frontal attacks, the Japanese about flanking, and the Chinese, “You don’t know what I am and where I am!”
The whole Pakistani theatre was conducted with China’s wholesome system – the awesomeness of it far exceeds the mere aggregation of the components’ individual capabilities. On the other hand, India’s is a mixed bag of advanced tools with little room for complementarity in terms of uses. (Apparently, always wanting to stamp their own mark, the Indians had also had their radar system Originally supplied by the Israelis, modified!)
It is said that two Rafales were shot down by a one Pakistanis pilot alone! And she is a woman pilot!
It is also said that a couple of days before the incident, four Indian fighter jets had to turn around after they were intercepted by two Pakistani J-10Cs. Some experts speculated that they were electronically jammed by J-10Cs and rendered “blind”, hence the retreat. I do not know how true this is: apparently, India’s deputy air chief was sacked after this incident.
This incident is going to change the global market for weaponry for good.
J-10C is built by China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation. The price is $40 million apiece. It can reach to a speed of Mach 1.8. However, its combat radius is only 1,250 km, compared to Rafale’s 1,850 km. The basic price of a Rafale is around $100 million basic, but together with all the other stuff thrown in, the Indian version costs more than $250 million apiece!
So far only Pakistan has bought J-10s from China, and the variant sold is J-10C. J-10 is in fact a somewhat dated fighter jet. It was developed in the mid-1980s and first introduced into service in 2005. Today, China is flying J-20 and J-35, which are 5th generation aircraft. The prototypes of its 6th generation fighters J-36 and J-50 have already been seen in the skies of Chengdu and Shenyang respectively.
The US’s F47 is still very much on the drawing board. And its F35 has a reputation for being able to dive deep into oceans!
It is without a doubt that China is not producing toys that the West wants us to believe. They sell “systems” that can achieve much more than others – at a fraction of the latter’s costs.
Wouldn’t you want to try them out?
I heard Egypt is now seriously considering China’s war planes. Several other countries are likely to follow; some may even cancel or cut down their French orders. Or for that matter, the US, the Swedish, or the Korean contemplations!
And the US’s Military-Industrial Complex is certainly going to take a sharp dive too. Countries like India and Israel will not dare to bully their neighbours in the way they use to do.
The Modi government is now rallying the Indian masses to celebrate the country’s “victory” in Operation Sindoor. Isn’t their joy a perversion of the worst kind?
No wonder the comedians and cartoonists in China are having a field day in helping the Indians celebrate their victory.
End
A few things astonish about China.
ReplyDeleteOne, that for a once despondent economy, it became the world's ppp-richest in such a short time.
Two, that while becoming the richest, it became the world's best and strongest builder of infra-structures which means the most confident and extensive application of engineering.
Three, that for its past insularity and language barrier, it absorbed at fastest rate the world's knowledge and then made improvements in its applications until they grabbed all the world's attention.
And four, that in this its prowess with air-to-air missile targeting, it achieved full integration of radar detection by four modes - land, air fighter, air awacs, and satellite - thus achieving combat domain parity. Only because there was no lake around else autonomous submersibles would also have been involved.
While Buffett might have said never bet against America (the messed up 248 year-old), the world may be excused for saying never bet against the Chinese man (there are 1.4 billion of them in a nation 5,000 years old).
America knows technology is the key. The French will now disabuse any American notion that technology where it matters is a western monopoly and a privilege.
Some thirty years back i was asked an innocuous question by someone young in Shanghai. Which led me to conclude they must have gone through all eleven million (at that time) high-quality articles.
You can't beat brains, focus and fortitude - both in public inasmuch private sectors.