So where are the planes if that is the case? The Su-57 has been delayed and scaled back so many times that I have lost track.
That is not true. Delayed, yes, but I have never ever seen a max production number estimate from them.
The intention was never to make an all stealth fleet like the Americans did, so production of Su-35 and Su-30 and MiG-35 were expected to continue after production of Su-57 started.
The plan was always to get Su-57 into production and make a batch of them and then decide whether to make some more or a lot more.
To focus on the Su-57 the other stealth fighter programme was put on hold for a lighter cheaper model that MiG were going to develop.
They have now started work and funding on that LMFS programme now too, which will be developed in parallel with the MiG-35 development and production the same way they tested and evaluated new stuff for the Su-57 on the Su-35 fighter.
All aircraft need some RCS reduction, but not all fighters benefit from being stealthy and the cost in terms of payload is a handicap and price means having your entire airfleet stealthy is actually expensive and short sighted.
When I have ever said that the J-31 Will be better then the F-35 or the J-20 better then the F-22. The point was that you dont know. You are making statments without any facts.
Based on track record and history.
Same question for their navy ships ? How many breakdown engine during deployement ? How many successfull test about their weaponery ?
As a solution to their problems with Ukrainian made ship engines the Russians chose to buy Chinese copies of German engines that suddenly became unavailable due to western sanctions over Crimea. Those engines gave huge problems with reliability. Copying an engine is not the same as just replicating parts from any old material. Often a key part of the design of a reliable engine is getting the strength or brittleness or heat resistance or other feature of a material for a component right... sometimes it is several properties you need to get right or the parts fail rapidly, and you get engine problems.
The Chinese clearly could copy the parts but equally clearly did not correctly copy the parts or got something wrong that has led to reliability issues.
Now this is not being anti Chinese... if anyone could make good diesel engines then they of course would and wouldn't bother buying from other countries. Russia bought from Germany because they were the right fit for the purpose... Chinese copies would have been available at the time but rather than going cheap copy, they spent extra and bought the originals.
When that was no longer an option they were in a bind because of course they can learn to make their own copy but it would take time and money and testing to get it right and it seemed the Chinese already had a copy ready, so they bought those... only to have lots of serious problems with them.
To be fair if they had just taken the engines they bought from Germany and copied them it probably would have taken much longer to produce something they could use because of all the testing and then once it works getting it into serial production.
Spending lots of money on replacement engines and waiting for China to get the copy right is time and money they could spend on producing their own replacement engine families.
China will work it out and get it going fine... ultimately they should be able to make decent engines, but so can Russia so they stopped buying those Chinese diesel engines and started working on their own versions.
The funny thing I think is that not only has Germany lost the sales for engines for Russian naval vessels... and it will be for both military and civilian ships, but China now makes a copy... which while clearly not perfect now, eventually they will get right, and the Russians are going to do the same, so not just loss of customers but creating competition for themselves on the international market with at least two competing companies...
Never delayed. Scaled back yes, but not delayed.
I would say the opposite of that... delayed a couple of times to get it right, but I have only ever seen western estimates as to numbers they plan to make in total.
Unlike the US who initially planned quite a few F-22s to replace all F-15Cs with original plans for 1,500 F-22s, which was halved to 750 when they realised they were going to be 250 million each and eventually production was cut to about 190. Talk of 3,500 F-35s to replace everything and now F-15s being put back into production and it starts to look shaky.
Of course hugely inflated production numbers allow them to pretend they are going to be much cheaper than they were ever going to be and so they can blame production number cuts for increased prices for individual aircraft.
They basically had the stated goal of replacing all their fighters with F-35s so adding up all the current fighter types they operate and adding some export sales and you can fake numbers like 3,500, so the per unit cost does not seem so bad. The problem is that you only save money if you design and build sensibly, and if you never fix major problems then the costs of fixing old problems on brand new off the serial production lines compounds the problems and costs.
If they said they would make 76 and put them in service and iron out all the bugs and problems it would take longer, but they already had plenty of delays of their own... delays to get something properly tested and working right is a good thing.
China buys Su-35's because they want to learn how to copy and make better jets since theirs are shit.
To be fair, now they have them the quality of then new planes and upgrades to existing planes should improve.
Add to this that China is throwing money away without carrying.
China is spending lots of money, and are upgrading and producing all sorts of things. It is hard to tell from the outside, but I would feel certain there is a plan... the fact that we don't understand it doesn't really matter.
They have not long term long range naval experience but their plans regarding trade from Asia to the EU and back on land and sea and in the air suggests they are not planning evil aggression on the scale we have seen from the west in the last few centuries. Their new stuff does look modern, but as mentioned looks are not substance... they need to use these new products and get experience under their belts and decide what they need and what they want... which is not the same.
They can certainly afford to spend a lot of money on weapons and like Russia only spend a fraction of what they could, so they are certainly not approaching the wastefulness of the US or the west. I would suspect they will try to convert their military ship building capacity into something that can build civilian vessels in large numbers too, but to operate around the world they know they need the capacity to send military vessels there. Not to invade or destroy, but to support and defend Chinese interests.
We have seen how nasty and unfair the west is regarding both Russian and Chinese trade ties around the world.... Africa is full of (Russian) mercenaries stealing European trade customers, and China is using money and loans to drag the third world in to death trap spirals of debt to enslave them and control them... something the Europeans and westerners have been doing for centuries but now the suggestion that China might be doing that and it becomes evil and bad... but still only when they do it. EDIT: And the facts are that there is no evidence that the Chinese are using loans to ensnare and enslave like the west has been documented as doing for the last 3 centuries. Most deals with the west involve changes to local laws to improve the rights of foreign multinational countries and reduce the human rights and personal rights of the people in those countries. As the African countries say... the Chinese and Russians make no such demands and just want trade...
In such an environment China and Russia need to be able to ensure their interests are respected and ships that can sail around the world armed with guns and missiles is the easiest way to achieve that.
Russia is slowly building up forces to a plan based on what they have and what they have prepared and what they can produce, China is doing it much much faster, but with less obvious testing and less apparent care... you sort of get the feeling they are doing it blind with a simple recipes with all the components put into a ship shaped container... make ten and then use and see if they are OK and then bring out a new model or make more.
Which is fine... I am sure even a destroyer with problems is better than no destroyer at all.
Problems can be solved over time, and very few new and capable designs have no problems.
More ambitious projects are all new and when nothing works you get Ford class ships and Zumwalts and LCSs... too ambitious with no interest in finding cost effective solutions that work...
When every country will have hundred of billions of Yen in their banks the money will loose all its value.
I would say the opposite... with everyone having Yen it becomes a more transferable currency.
Even if it goes to zero value they make all their own stuff and also make stuff for other countries so they will be fine and the foreign currencies used to pay for their products will be worth so much more.[/quote]
Most people I know see two things in a shop... "American" Nike boot for $300, and chinese Nuke boot ripoff for $30... probably made in the same factory by the same workers just working different shifts from the same materials... I know which boot they are going to buy... and no bullshit about western made products being more durable.... shoes are not made durable any more otherwise people stop buying shoes. Like phones and everything else you buy shoes have a limited life time to make sure in 2-5 years you buy them again, whether it is soft sole rubber that wears through, or batteries that stop charging to full potential after 3-4 years... it is done on purpose and China are copying that too sadly... but at the prices they charge it becomes acceptable... but buy 5 pairs because in 3 years time when you go to buy another $30 pair of boots they will be $90 or more or you can't find that brand any more and have to risk something else like Nake, or Nirke.
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
