{"id":110921,"date":"2017-11-30T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T12:07:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-01-08T11:05:14","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T11:05:14","slug":"responding-to-pkf-article-on-asian-navy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/30\/responding-to-pkf-article-on-asian-navy\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to PKF&#39;s article on Asian Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><h3 class=\"post-title entry-title\" itemprop=\"name\"><\/h3>\n<div class=\"post-header\"> <\/div>\n<p>Just to report on some news before we get to the main purpose of this post.  There are some news from this week:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>EMAL catapult project has been confirmed by Qinghua alumni website<\/li>\n<li>LCAC in JN has apparently been launched<\/li>\n<li>Chinese WIG aircraft had its first lift-off\/flight<\/li>\n<li>Latest Chinese conventional\/nuclear subs are using all-electrical propulsion<\/li>\n<li>A  prototype for a major project in CAC has recently passed through AVIC-1  examination committee.  Not sure what this project is at this point.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And  now, the article I&#8217;ve really been responding to is PKF&#8217;s analysis to IN  vs PLAN.  This article appeared on the June version of Kanwa and then  all over the Chinese military bbs.  Now, it has even been spread to  English webs with its appearance on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Security_Industry\/2008\/07\/09\/Analysis_Asian_navies_--_Part_1\/UPI-32411215628470\/\">UPI<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Security_Industry\/2008\/07\/10\/Analysis_Asian_navies_--_Part_2\/UPI-35391215700620\/\">Part 2<\/a>.   Now, I personally think PLAN is better in hardware than IN.  But, my  focus here is to look at the arguments of PKF rather than to do a  comparison of PLAN\/IN.  With that in my mind, let&#8217;s look at PKF&#8217;s focus.<\/p>\n<p>First,  he states that China is far ahead of India in submarine.  I don&#8217;t think  anyone can debate this part.  Of course, he manages to understate the  number of nuclear subs and conventional subs China has.  We&#8217;ve seen at  least 3 094s, 3 Yuans, 1 new 039B, 12 to 16 Songs and more than 2 093s  (does he really think China will have the same number of SSNs as  SSBNs?).  Rather than consider the current force on both sides, he  compares what China has right now to what India will have.  And this is a  theme that will be used in the rest of the article.<\/p>\n<p>The second  part is his comparison of frigates on both side.  First, he totally  ignores the excessive number of Jiangwei&#8217;s that China has, but mentioned  the 3 4500 tonne Type 16A frigate serving for IN.  Of course, Type 16A  are actually 3850 tonne in full load.  And it doesn&#8217;t seem to contain  any sensor\/weapons that are actually more recent than the recent  Jiangwei.  So, I would&#8217;ve ignored both.  Just focusing on the relatively  advanced frigates, China has 6 054\/A, whereas India currently has the 3  Talwars.  PKF believes that the construction is at a parity, with India  slightly ahead in technology.  I suppose that he is factoring in the 3  Project 17 class frigates, but there really is no telling that these  ships will be completed before the next batch of 054As.  Yes, we know  that Project 17s are launched, but we&#8217;ve also seen 4 054As getting  commissioned in less than 2 years of seeing the first pictures coming  out.  With the next batch of 054As already under construction in 2  shipyards, it&#8217;s hard to see these ships actually coming out later than  the Project 17s (considering how much delay Indian ships normally  suffer).  And it&#8217;s also quite perplexing where this technological  disadvantage for 054A comes from.  We&#8217;ve argued for quite long that  054A&#8217;s sensors\/SAMs are upgrades over what is on Sov class.  So,  considering that Sov class&#8217;s air defense suite is basically the same as  the ones on Talwar and Project 17.  PKF&#8217;s belief must have originated  from the Club missiles on these ships.  We could spend all day arguing  over and the sensors\/missiles on these ships, but I think it&#8217;s generally  agreeable that they are in the same class.  The upgraded Talwars on  order are not going to change that scenario.  So for the forseeable  future, IN will have a maximum of 9 frigates in this class, but PLAN  will have far more than that given the current rate of construction for  054 class.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, he concluded his arguments by talking  about Indian superiority in 6000+ ton warships.  He starts by saying  that China has a lead right now with the 052B\/C, 051B\/C and Sovs vs 3  Project 15s.  However, he continued by saying that IN will have an  absolute lead in quantity and quality in the future, because it is  building 3 Project 15As and will take in 2 aircraft carriers next  decade.  I think it&#8217;s pretty obvious by now that China is preparing a  carrier group at Sanya.  So, to say do the comparison without factor  that in is not realistic.  Also, he mentioned that the only major ship  that China is building recently is 054A.  He seemed to have forgotten  the recently launched Type 071 LPD.  At the same time, he is ignoring  all the signs that China will be building its next wave of destroyers  (successors to 052C) in JN very soon.  The relocation of JiangNan  shipyard did not really slow down PLAN naval expansion.  It simply  shifted the focus from destroyers to frigates, FACs and submarines.   With the world&#8217;s largest shipyard coming into line, I think the shift  will come back to large warship in the coming 3 years.  Of course, IN  advantage in carrier operation cannot be underestimated.  However, it is  not the only determining factor when judging large warship strength.<\/p>\n<p>A  lot of PKF&#8217;s arguments are made against the unknowns of PLAN&#8217;s future  expansion plan.  However, we&#8217;ve seen that PLAN has managed a very  comprehensive modernization\/expansion plan.  They have put the effort  into improving all the areas that PLAN observers thought they needed  improvement in.  They built almost every type of warship that we&#8217;ve  expected them to add.  So, I don&#8217;t think anyone should believe that  their progress would just stop now.  And I think he summed up the  situation and negated his own point at the end by saying the following,<br \/>&#8220;In  terms of shipbuilding technology and production craftwork, however,  especially in such production processes as cutting, welding and  spray-painting, the military vessels produced by China &#8212; particularly  those vessels built at the two shipyards in Shanghai &#8212; are far superior  to the Indian navy ships.&#8221;<br \/>Although PKF did not want to admit to  this, but you can same the same thing when compared to Russian built  ships.  That&#8217;s why in the end, China has more concerns on the Eastern  side with South Korea and Japan.  These are the two countries that have  well established shipbuilding industry and the economy to compete  against a PLAN naval build up.  China has the advantage of being able to  simply outbuild most countries in the world due to its existing  shipbuilding capacity and the high quality to cost ratio of the  shipyards.  It doesn&#8217;t have this advantage against South Korea and  Japan.  All 3 countries are very competitive in the shipbuilding market  because of this.  Having said this, China is technologically behind  South Korea in civilian shipbuilding, but that&#8217;s not necessarily the  case with military shipbuilding.  For example, South Korea would not be  better than China in submarine or aircraft carrier construction, because  China has been investing\/developing in these areas for much longer.  In  addition, I do think that China has the advantage in sensors\/weapons,  because it uses all indigenous products -&gt; better cost to performance  ratio than South Korea and Japan.  And when compared to India, these  advantages are even more pronounced.<\/p>\n<p>PLAN&#8217;s military hardware  probably surpassed IN only in 2006, but it&#8217;s hard to see IN reversing  the trend and actually catching up.  IN talks about building 1 scorpion a  year from 2012 to 2017, but China is already building 3 yuan a year  right now.  The only thing that IN has over PLAN is its carrier  operation.  And certainly, this is one area that PLAN needs a lot of  experience with in the next 20 years.  We can certainly say the same  thing about the other ships that it has been getting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just to report on some news before we get to the main purpose of this post. There are some news from this week: EMAL catapult project has been confirmed by Qinghua alumni website LCAC in JN has apparently been launched Chinese WIG aircraft had its first lift-off\/flight Latest Chinese conventional\/nuclear subs are using all-electrical propulsion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnextjob.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}