The Royal Air Force has taken part in a massive aerial combat training exercise involving over 50 aircraft.
According to the RAF here, British Typhoon and F-35 aircraft operated alongside Royal Netherlands Air Force F-35A Lightning from Leeuwarden and United States Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles from the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk.
Air Vice-Marshal Ian Duguid, Air Officer Commanding 1 Group, was quoted as saying:
“Exercise POINT BLANK is an important serial in the training calendar for the UK and our allies – both in NATO and the US. This latest Exercise was a great opportunity for us to work closely with our Royal Netherlands Air Force colleagues using the F-35 Lightning II aircraft and the F-15E with United States Air Force.
The training allowed Combat Air to enhance interoperability in a demanding and highly contested air environment, including the support of NATO E-3A. It is not only the flying of complex missions, but the planning and developing of our capabilities in a collegiate manner that ensures we are ready to operate alongside our Allies across a number of dispersed units in multiple countries.”
The Royal Air Force said in the above-mentioned news release:
“Exercise POINT BLANK is a long-standing exercise designed by the 48th Fighter Wing and Royal Air Force with a mission to prepare aviators for operations against near-peer adversaries.
It provides NATO nations with an opportunity to practice and develop shared tactics, techniques and procedures. The training is invaluable in the continued refinement of interoperability across partners to maintain a unified, capable and confident NATO.”
Exercise POINT BLANK took place on 3rd and 4th February and included a range of 4th and 5th generation fighters, helicopters, command and control and air-to-air refuelling aircraft.
Training for a very useful purpose!
Report: New Stealth Aircraft and Capabilities in China’s Air Arms Eroding U.S. AdvantagesNov. 4, 2021
“Quoting China’s own internal defense white paper from 2019, the Pentagon said the air forces are transitioning from strictly air defense to “offensive and defensive operations,” toward building a “strategic” air force capable of projecting power at long range.
The Pentagon revealed that in addition to China’s J-20 Mighty Dragon and FC-31 stealth fighters, as well as a “strategic” stealth bomber, China is developing “new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to strike regional and global targets.”
https://www.airforcemag.com/report-new-stealth-aircraft-and-capabilities-in-chinas-air-arms-eroding-u-s-advantages/
MOSCOW, July 20 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin inspected a prototype of a new Sukhoi fifth-generation fighter jet on Tuesday that Russia unveiled at its annual MAKS air show with an eye on export markets.
The warplane, given the project name “Checkmate”, is likely to be touted as a rival to the U.S. F-35 stealth fighter, said Oleg Panteleyev, head of the Aviaport analytical agency.
The warplane is expected to take to the skies in 2023 with a first batch due to be produced in 2026, Yury Slyusar, head of the United Aircraft Corporation told reporters.
Russia plans to produce 300 of the aircraft over 15 years once serial production begins, he said.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-expected-unveil-stealth-fighter-jet-air-show-attended-by-putin-2021-07-20/
Yes these countries are catching up especially China. They may have been copies and lesser quality initially but they have learned over the last 10/15 years with stolen data or their own analysis and seem to be churning out prototypes showing an evolution of design and the have the industrial base to mass produce much more than we do.
We need to do the same with Tempest and move away from a PPT programme of work and show something tangible even if it is a prototype that is not the final article. All good with having a digital “twin” but your learn a lot with actually building something even if it is only used for taxi testing and radar cross section testing like “BAE Replica” back in the day. Also having something tangible makes it more difficult of a programme to cancel.
Agreed, we cannot afford to let Tempest fall by the wayside.
We need 6th gen to stay ahead of the pack now that they have caught us up to some degree and overtaken the west in others namely hypersonic missiles.
Which hypersonic weapons have they demonstrated that work against advanced maneuvering targets deploying very capable ECM? and an effective kill chain? Genuine question.
None and neither has anyone else ever.
👍
I think the tech is still pretty immature, and a lot is bigged up to justify spending.
Yep and to big up the ego of an insecure man. Maybe 10-20 years they will be viable against moving targets but the guidance problems are immense and maybe unsolvable at that kind of speed.
Russia proudly announced that Zircon had hit a target at sea…It was a static moored barge. So yes it was at sea but the missile basically flew from one GPS point to another which isnt exactly ground breaking.
OK its a fast missile but Russia/Soviets have been doing fast since the 1960s.
Its all in the media spin…
Yeah against a static target with zero ECM it’s a problem. For everything else meh. But at least it stops the serfs wondering how the boss got to be the richest man on earth !
Risk today is that hypersonic missiles could take out half to two thirds of the Royal navy on day 1 moored in port at all the usual mooring locations . All the naval base support infrastructure and all the RAF key facility buildings etc without any real ability to defend against it
With you on this Pete. Some CAMM Sabre units to protect RN ports could be useful here.
Indeed, In case of naval ports..Can 1 x vessel (either T45 or 23, stay hot while in harbour during hightened periods of tension ?. Aster would probably be better for hypersonic threat…or is there to much littoral clutter ?
Yes they can…but it will bugger up everyone’s TV when the radars are on…the locals would revolt!
Unless you had a zero warning attack everyone would sail in a time of tension anyway. As I have said before its a big ass ocean to hid in/on.
If the USA is concerned so should we be, China and Russia are building up their own defences first and expanding out from there, what layered defence do we have in place to protect the UK from such threats?
Nuclear arms experts say China’s weapons test appeared to be designed to evade U.S. defenses in two ways.
First, hypersonics move at speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kph (3,853 mph), making them harder to detect and intercept.
Second, sources tell Reuters that the United States believes China’s test involved a weapon that first orbited the Earth.
That’s something military experts say is a Cold War concept known as “fractional orbital bombardment.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/top-us-general-confirms-very-concerning-chinese-hypersonic-weapons-test-2021-10-27/
I agree Pete, we’re woefully prepared. All this dismissing of hypersonic missiles could be dangerous. The MOD now want their own hypersonic missiles so maybe some do work ok. Reminds me of how we dismissed the Japanese before WW2 & the nasty shoick of their larger, longer ranged Long Lance torpedoes.
An early pre-emptive strike will be far more damaging & harder to recover from with such a tiny fleet.
It was interesting to read that the RN are interested in hypersonic missiles.
It was clear from the words of the outgoing First Sea Lord that the RN has almost certainly decided not to purchase an Interim Surface to Surface Guided Weapon (I-SSGW) to replace the already obsolete Harpoon Block 1C which will go out of service in 2023.
“ISSGW has been paused” said Radakin. The navy is more interested in hypersonic missiles with much longer range.
The “sticking plaster” approach of spending £250M for 5 sets of missiles to equip just 3 ships is hard to justify and surprisingly he suggested it could be 2027 before ISSGW could have been fitted.
The original request for proposals from industry called for missile deliveries between 2023-4.
With several manufacturers ready to offer solutions, this would appear to be over-stating a modest integration task and the addition of weapon canisters to a few frigates.
is that like they planned to make sell and use the su57?
From what I can gather the Su-75 Checkmate as seen at the MAKs show, is very close to the finished product in design. If that is the case, it still won’t be in the same low-observability league as the F35. Like the Su57 Felon, they still have a ways to go before they can fully compete.
The aircraft does feature careful shaping to minimise radar returns especially when seen from the front. However, the more tubular top above the engine is poor at minimising radar reflections. As is the traditional round variable exhaust. Other features such as panel gaps and uncovered rivets and screw heads is another issue that will be needed to be sorted. The clear canopy will probably get replaced with a gold screened one on the production version. Otherwise the cockpit area makes a very good radar reflector. The close fitting chin inlet is a good aerodynamic compromise for mass air volume vs stealth and hiding the face of the engine. The ball like IRST in front of the canopy will also be a good radar reflector.
It has a smaller internal payload than a F35A,B or C, as it can only fit 3 AA-10 sized missiles. Aerobatically, it will be less responsive in pitch, as the F35 has dedicated elevons providing better leverage. In roll they are probably quite close. With the Su75 being slightly better due to the larger wing area. It will likely have a comparable range, though will probably be faster. The smallish leading edge root extensions (LERX) will give it high angle of attack authority. But these are very closely blended to the fuselage, so they don’t have a lot of area. It won’t be as good as say an F18 in that respects, but more similar to the F35. I am not sure why the the canted fins have a notch cut out in them? It doesn’t really give any benefits and would make an good reflector for the rear 3/4 aspect. Overall from a top view it does mimic the Su57’s planform. Though that has dedicated elevons and better LERX. In the MAKS presentation, they say the aircraft is limited to 8g, but it will also have thrust vectoring. Which may help its high alpha abilities and slow speed combat.
The other items of note is that the nose cross section area (CSA) is quite small, especially when compared to the F35. The CSA in part determines the size of the radar antenna/array that can be fitted. So by this deduction the radar will have a poorer capability than the F35’s. The other item of note is the small size and high wall of the cockpit’s canopy. Soviet Cold War fighters were notorious for having a crap view for the pilot. The Mig29 and Su27 changed that, but the Checkmates cockpit looks very small. The third item of note, is that in the presentation it said the aircraft can be used from austere sites. Now I know both the F16 and Typhoon need a very clean runway before they can land or take-off. As both aircraft hoover up dust and debris, as the intake is quite close to the ground. The Checkmate looks no different. The Mig29 got round this problem by closing off the main intakes and opening auxiliary intakes on top of the wing/fuselage. I don’t see any auxiliary intakes in the presentation. So it will be interesting how this aircraft copes with FOD.
To be fair, I don’t believe the aircraft is truly aimed at the F35. It is similar to the Gripen in size, but more likely designed to compete with the Chinese/Pakaistan JF17 Thunder as a “5th” Gen alternative. Russia have yet to announce a price point and they have been losing out to China in traditional markets. So a relatively lightweight and modestly stealthy aircraft would be a good option for countries on a smaller budget. There have been no announcements of the aircraft being bought for the Russian Air Force, as they seem to be happy with the Su27 family. But as a cheaper alternative to the Su57 possibly.
Very good analysis there Daveyb, especially the last paragraph. The RuAF have not fielded single engined fighters for a long time so this may not be for them. The tactical defence role performed in the past by the Mig-29 now seems to be SAMs.
The Checkmate seems to have ‘sucked’ as much as possible from the, now in series production, Su-57 with the intent to get a modern day Mig-21 out there in the market. Some stealth but only enough to help against the opposition it might meet, very low purchase price and low cost and straightforward maintenance. It will sell as well as CAATSA allows.
Hi Davyb, thank you again for your detailed reply, it appears to me to be 4+ gen aircraft with some stealth features added into the mix.
I wonder if a deal will be struck with China to use their engines in future?
I’m not sure, China are still a good ways off having reliable engines. The Russian ones are smokey, but they are powerful and relatively reliable by Western standards. China has dumped shed loads of money into engine research. So they will be on par with Russia within the next 10 years I’d say. Western engine makers will still have a significant advantage over them for a quite a while yet.
What is Xi going to extract from Vlad in return for bailing him out if he does go into Ukraine and the Russian economy is put into the deep freeze?
Xi may well hope that he does it so that Vlad is then dependant on his best mate Xi.
Xi will milk Vlad for all he can get.
Nasty though that.
The Russians understand the military tech in a theoretical way that the Chinese don’t really appear to. Decades of primary systems research and knowledge are there.
A quick answer to that is land, resources and energy. In SE Siberia here has been a mass migration of Chinese. Whole new towns have been created in what was once Siberian forests. This is causing a fair bit of dissent in Siberia with ethnic Russians. However, Russia has been hit hard by the Corona virus, especially so in more remote areas. The Chinese have been only to willing to help send labourers. Who are working in the mines, but also cutting down the forests to make arable land.
As Quoted in Asia News: “China imports the energy resources it increasingly needs from Russia. In some way, Beijing extends its systems of control and management of the economy and public life to its Russian neighbor. The enormous disparity in the number of inhabitants (the Russians are about a tenth of the Chinese) means that China increasingly tends to consider Russia as a modest province of its own empire.”
Last year there was a joint signing between Russia and China to develop parts of Siberia. However, there is going to be an ecological. As the Chinese are heavily using chemicals to make the land more fertile.
At some point China will realise, it doesn’t need Russia authority to develop Siberia, as it will have a substantially larger Chinese population, who answer to the CCP.
Hopefully China does not invade to protect its own citizens. By putins accounts that is ok to do
And to think we fought with n armed both these countries up in 2ww & they’ve become our arch enemies
It’s not just in hypersonics China is taking a lead but also AI, quantum computing, quantum communications, novel nuclear fission and also nuclear fusion. In all of the fields China leads the world. They’re not far off cracking quantum communications at all, after which eavesdropping on their back and forth basically ends. The US didn’t anticipate this and have been caught seriously off guard. In fact, I think the West has been engaging in a lazy, racist dismissal of the collosal efforts China has made in pursuing ground breaking tech.
We are the ones now playing catch up. In fact I read recently that they are even rolling out their own domestic jet engines, ones that ..work and no longer need Russian imports.
Their development has come at a cost…there a huge and totally unsustainable property bubble set to explode and destroy the new middle classes. 10yrs ago Chinese mums were giving birth to 20m babies per year. That’s now down to 10m. Demographic Armageddon is coming their ways fast and finally they’re enduring massive environmental degradation. With pressure from India, Aukus, failing energy policies resulting in rolling blackouts and a zero COVID policy in the era of Omicron, they are facing multiple crises the CCP might not be able to manage….there’s only so much oppression and falling living standards the people will tolerate.
“In fact, I think the West has been engaging in a lazy, racist dismissal of the collosal efforts China has made in pursuing ground breaking tech.”
Like the use of substandard steel being used in the construction of their Navy with poor welds as mentioned by a few on here over the years forgetting that they are the worlds leading exporters of all grades of steel.
I think the west has woken up to the fact that they have overtaken us in many areas as you say, the question is what will we do about it?
China
The biggest steel producing country is currently China, which accounted for 57% of world steel production in 2020. In 2020, China became the first country to produce over one billion tons of steel.
Indeed. Internally they operate, I think, a five tier rating scheme for the quality and range of products produced in their steel mills. Their tier 1 mills and many of the tier 2 mills are a match for globally equivalents in terms of quality for the products they produce. There are,a couple of ultra exotic product ranges where the West (Europe and Japan) hold an advantage . The quality performance of the tier 1 and tier 2 mills has been driven largely by partnership with European and Japanese IP owners such as Sumitomo, Marubeni Itoch, Vallourec etc looking for lower cost production of high end products. Tier 1 and 2 mills generally compete on international market or critical domestic products while Tiers 3/4/5 mills (the vast majority) are generally focused on low end domestic needs or low end international needs.
What is the in-service date of the first type 26?!
“To put this massive scale of production into perspective, the destroyer commissionings alone brought a total of 768 additional VLS cells into the PLAN fleet last year, comparable to the entire Royal Navy fleet in service.”
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/01/plan-in-motion-chinese-navys-massive-ship-commissionings-in-2021/
There are indications the Chinese are looking to let the intellegensia grow and move to AI and robots.
Very good piece. I totally agreed.
Quality does not always have the edge, you need numbers to and the opposition are growing theirs. Already we are falling behind. No boots on the ground and even if we had nothing to give them… Start of WW2 all over but at least then we made our own kit, now we don’t
50! Really that is massive, it’s nothing really and we all know it
I am in borth wales and we have had none stop F15 fighters over here and up to snowdonia for about a week normally in flights of 3 from Mildenhall and Lakenheath, very loud as they were mostly at around 17,000 ft .
I read yesterday this article regards the F35 winning the Finnish comp regards a new Aircraft. What I found interesting was the contract the Finns wrote out:
Article will self delete after 7 days:
https://i.postimg.cc/t4ZcbFHK/img205.jpg
I am assuming all the F35’s are on the same side! lol.
Is it just me or have a whole bunch of comments been removed from this thread…. IT/IS glitch or are thought police getting nervous?