Hello and welcome to the Silk and Steel podcast.
Once again, I'm your host, Carl Zaat.
Today we have a returning guest, TP Huang, who is an expert in
anything China technology related, but is also an expert
in Chinese military. For the my audience who's not
familiar with UTP, could you do a very quick brief intro of who
you are, what you do, etcetera? Yeah, so I actually started just
on the military side of things. I started following Chinese
military back in mid 2000s and then I joined the, a Chinese
military forum called Sino Defence Forum.
And I've, I've been like a super moderator there ever since.
So I've been spending the good part of 20 years just studying
Chinese weapon systems and the technology behind it.
So I'm this is a topic I'm really very fascinated about.
Oh, this is a topic we're all very fascinated about,
especially, I'm sure after the result of the China's victory
parade that just took place few days ago.
And This is why I brought you here TP, because China has
showcased a lot of new weapon platforms and to I, I think we
surprised many and, and I, I need you, I need your help to
help us break it down and you know, and what we're seeing
here. Sure.
Like I think they showcased quite a few systems, but it's
such like a broad category. I think it's probably better if
we just, you know, go through category by category and just
talk about the, you know, the significance of each of them.
OK, let's go. Which category would you like to
start? Well, I think the one that's
like really struck people's attention to start off are the
missiles, right? Because the hypersonic missile
has been one their strong area that everyone knows about for a
while now. And this particular parade, they
showcased 4 like YJ missiles that, you know, we really
haven't seen before, the YJ 15, YJ 17, YJ 19 and YJ 20.
And they also showed off some of the hypersonic missiles we
already know about like DF-17 and a new variant of DF 26
called DF26D. And there was also this new
hypersonic land based cruise missile called CJ 1000.
So it overall, it kind of just like showcased a really wide set
of options that they have to deliver a payload on warhead to
I guess anything within 3000 kilometers.
And some of those weapons can go even a lot further than that.
So it's definitely a very, I guess, very terrifying prospect
for like some of their adversaries in the region.
So, so I think like there was a few that was really interesting
to us, like 1 was the YJ 19 because they made it in such a
size that it can fit into the torpedo tubes.
And that is really quite interesting because there's a
lot of complexity involved in getting the missile to such a,
you know, dimension that it can fit in the torpedo tube,
especially something that can fly at hypersonic speed of like
Mach 6 to Mach 8. That's what the some of the
Chinese social media account is saying.
And then the implication of that is quite huge because you could
have some of these submarines sail out to the ocean and the
diesel submarines are relatively hard to detect in the middle of
the ocean when they're not moving.
And they can essentially just sit there from different angles.
And then once they somehow they get the coordination where they
need to attack, then launch these missiles through their,
their torpedo tubes. And, and it's going to be very
hard to defend depending on how far you are.
Because the thing about hypersonic cruise missiles is
that it can go at once, they get to like hypersonic speed, it can
stay at that speed for quite a long time, like all the way to
the end. And it doesn't fly as high of
the horizon as the ballistic missile.
So it's a little bit harder to detect.
And because the terminal speed is still very fast, so it's very
hard to intercept. So this just gives them like
another option. And then we also saw the what we
call the hypersonic glide vehicles that are designed to
fit the, the VLS. So the, you know, universal
vertical launch system on the destroyers.
And that's kind of interesting because they, they're estimated
to be able to go like 1500 to 2000 kilometers maybe maybe
that's a little high, but like somewhere in that ballpark.
And they probably have pretty high speed in the middle part of
it and maybe a little slower to the end.
And the HGVs are pretty hard to intercept also.
And if you can actually pack like, so I think the the other
missiles that was kind of interesting is like the DF-17
and DF-20 and they're kind of interesting because they can
have relatively long range of 1500 kilometers or a little
more. And also they are going at
hypersonic speed and they're, they don't follow the ballistic
missile pass, which is goes pretty high up and their
ballistic missiles are a little easier to detect.
The HGVs are a little less easy to detect and intercept than the
HGVs. And so it's kind of
consequential when you can have these in your destroyers because
something like the Zero 55 has 112 tubes and if you load like
20-30 of these HGVs and they can hit targets from 1500 kilometer
out, that's a lot of firepower. And, and aside from that, they
also have this thing called YJ 15, which is an evolution of YJ
12. So what they did is they took an
existing missile that was probably had like, you know, 400
to 500 kilometer range and can go at probably three times the
speed of sound. And they made it a little more
compact, smaller. They made it's warhead a little
smaller and they improves the technology behind it.
So now I can go like maybe, you know, faster than the Max 3 and
it can go probably, you know, 500 kilometers again.
But now you can carry them on your J fifteens.
So then on your carrier group, your J fifteens can carry two of
them each or maybe even four of them and then fly off and then
shoot missiles that are probably faster than, you know, pretty
much what any other naval like aviation force have access to.
So like the, so if you're going to shoot something faster on
Mach 3, it's actually really hard to defend because they're,
they're not used to seeing, you know, supersonic missiles go
that fast normally. And so they're so they're also
pretty lethal. So basically what they have is
they have the they have the aerial launched really high
supersonic, they have the the naval surface ship launched
hypersonic missile, and then they also have the submarine
launched hypersonic missile. So that just makes it a lot
harder for defenders to defend because now you're facing
different missiles from different directions flying
different profiles, which is a lot harder than if you're just
dealing with the fastest missile, but it's only coming
from One Direction and only flying 11 profile.
So the. Hypersonic cruise missile is
that is that new because my understanding cruise missile
usually they you know, they usually don't fly that fast,
right? They fly like the the speed of
the airplanes. Is this something that unique to
China or or is this to other countries possess them as well?
I'm not aware of any other country with hypersonic cruise
missiles in production that you can put on the on the ships
themselves. Like the hypersonic missiles
itself is pretty much not something that other navies have
access to. So I think this is actually
pretty unique in to China. Like some of the other military
around the world, they have land based launchers of hypersonic
missiles and they're typically not cruise missiles I think.
So some of them are just ballistic missiles and other
other ones are. I think there are some HGVs but
hypersonic cruise missiles that can go for like a good distance
that's. That's pretty rare.
And and I also want to go back to a basics little bit like it's
my understanding even regular ballistic missile at the end of
its trajectory it reaches hypersonic speed.
So what? What distinguish A hypersonic
missile versus a normal ballistic missile?
So I think the hypersonic missiles, it's the CCTV actually
had a recent definition for hypersonic missiles.
And it's basically something that can go the whole way above
Mach 5. And it also needs to be able to
do maneuvers and is relatively, you know, accurate, able to hit
targets. Like if you look at ballistic
missiles, right, they fly the ballistic path and most of the
time it has like I guess an APEC speed at the top and then slows
down as it comes down a little bit.
So sometimes even if it's you know goes faster and mock Max 6
or 7 at some point, it could still slow down by the end,
depending on like how long range ballistic missile it is.
But more importantly, it is just not able to do the same kind of
maneuvers against targets. And it's, you know, CP basically
CP just measures how accurate the the missile is against
target. It's just not going to be at the
same level as a as a what we call a hypersonic.
Right, so, so ballistic missiles or trajectories fixed once
they're fired, we can calculate where it's going to land.
Whereas hypersonic missile they can actually alter their flight
path right once once they take take flight and and.
And not only can they alter fly pass, they can, you know, I
think part of it is that they're able to maneuver in such a way
that it gets some closer or more accurate to the target.
Because some of the ballistic missiles, some of the
intercontinental ballistic missiles and some of the other
ballistic missiles can also maneuver.
But I don't we wouldn't normally consider them to be hypersonic
missiles because they don't. They don't have the same
accuracy when it comes to attacking the now.
This missile, how are you? Are you saying they were able to
readjust their fly path? You know, to, to correct for the
target? Like does that mean like there's
somehow linked to maybe satellite intelligence to to to
to make them self correct their path and and and focus to to
zoom on the target? I think most of them do have,
they do have the ability to get updates from satellites.
I'm not really sure the process behind the mid course guidance
correction. I I do think that especially
with something like cruise missiles, it, it can, you know,
it can change past a lot more than your, your ballistic
missiles and HGV because it's kind of like just glides applied
to a certain altitude. It can also maneuver a little
better than your and are more accurate than your usual
ballistic missiles. But you know, there are, there
are some ballistic missiles that they have in service, which are
also, I guess considered to be hypersonic missiles because like
the DF 26, because they're pretty much they're, they are.
I guess they at least they're considered to be in the same
category just because they're, they're considered to be pretty
accurate against the, the end target.
So the, the definition gets a little murky.
You know, generally speaking, I think the hypersonic missiles,
regardless of the definitions and some of that, you know,
maybe I'm a little more liberal about the including some of the
ballistic missiles in there like the DF 26.
But as a whole, they, they generally pose a big threat to
the defense. The CJ 1000.
That's some, that's not something we've seen before.
And it is a pretty big missile and it probably has something
close to like the 3000 kilometer range.
And it's a hypersonic cruise missile.
So, you know, you can, it can get to the target pretty
quickly. It gives them another profile,
another option against, let's say like a, you know, a naval
ship from Japan or US that are, you know, inside the second
island chain. And everyone's heard about the
DF 17 and 26. So those are the ones that the
Western analysts know a lot about.
So this, this, this parade was kind of scary for some of the
people because it just introduced a whole new selection
of weapons. That they which?
Which one is what the Western defense analysts call the Guam
Killer? You know Guam is the the US
military base in Pacific. They typically think of the DF
26 because it has like about a 4000 kilometer range.
Although they have a new version of new version DF26D, that one
probably has like a 5000 kilometer range, so it can
probably hit Australia, the northern Australia and.
Also but why? Why call it Guam killer?
Because China possessed ICBM before right?
I mean like China had ICBM since since 1981.
What? What makes this DF 26 special?
So, you know, like in in the actual combat, in actual
conflict, ideally we'll never get to a situation where we have
to get to nuclear missiles because once you start launching
like intercontinental missiles, the other side, there's a good
chance the other side thinks that a nuclear weapon is coming
over. So that that's kind of
dangerous. So, you know, like there's,
there needs to be clear delineation of like which
missiles are nuclear tips and which ones are not.
And there's definitely within, you know, the, the PLA rocket
force, there's, there's, there's ones that handle nuclear payload
and there's ones that do not. So in terms of Guam, why Guam
itself is important is because it's basically it was at least
considered to be the center of U S S defense against Chinese
pressure in the West Pacific's because it's kind of a little
it's a little further away from the China's mainland.
It's like 2800 kilometer I think from the coast maybe around
there. And so some of the missile that
they had before, like DF-17 and DF-16 can't really reach there
and a lot of their earlier cruise missiles just can't go
that far. So, you know, they had to
develop a new series of both ballistic and cruise missiles
that can go that far. And something like the HH6K was
launching cruise missile was, you know, part of their arsenal,
their plans to be able to deliver enough ammunitions and
warheads against the the Guam base.
So that was why Guam was always considered to be very important.
And that's also why, you know, America started to invest in
building military facilities in northern Australia, in, in, in
Darwin, because it's, it's leaving a little bit further
away from China than than Guam is.
And they're able to, you know, build, expand on the, the
airfields and the naval bases there.
So like, you know, America was trying to try to find places
they can operate at are about 3000 kilometer from China's
mainland. So that's why DF 726 when it
gets when they have the 4000 kilometer range missile was you
know in in large part to deal with this threat.
Got it. And you know, just the the build
up of the spaces on Guam, this started back in Bush years.
You know, I know Donald Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld's idea was to pull
back from from deployed U.S. military bases in Korea and
Okinawa and to build up this giant base in Guam that's
slightly just just out of reach of China.
But US will still be able to base attack on Chinese target
from there. So now, now that's they have to
go back to the drawing board. You know this the Guam is
considered I think what they call the US call says the second
island chain. And US, the Chinese aircraft
carrier groups have already demonstrated they could reach
around the waters around Guam in the recent exercises.
And, and do you think this recent Chinese parade had a had
a impact in that leak? Pentagon reports where a
Pentagon plan where Pete H sefs said we're going to focus less
on contain China and more on our back, more on the homeland, more
on US and and Latin America. I think it's been known for a
while to the people in the US intelligence that it's basically
they're doomed in Westpac scenario for a lot of reasons,
right? Like America is not very focused
on Asia, despite the so-called Asia pivot and the Guam buildup,
you know, and they wanted to build up other field in this in
the area, like the Mariana Islands, I think Chinian,
there's a couple other ones they wanted to build up.
But as you can imagine, there's not a lot of people that live in
these places. So trying to build bases in
places that join peacetime, you know, in like these environments
where it takes a lot of effort to actually ship the equipments
over and actually do construction, America can't
build bases in America. Like building bases halfway
across the world is pretty hard for America, right?
So because of that, you know, all their efforts basically got
concentrated on Guam. And I think that in general, it
was known like pretty obvious to the US intelligence after a
while that the pace of China's missile buildup was far
outstripping their ability to defend them, to defend these
bases. And also, you know, America
can't really concentrate on one theater.
So he expended like all these missiles, air defense missiles
in Ukraine and Israel, right? So when you get someone
ideologically driven to to Neil lips like Joe Biden in power,
right? Like he has to continue to tell
the world like, you know, authoritarian democracies versus
autocracies, Whereas you get like a more of like, I guess a
realist kind of people into Defense Department.
They might not, they might hate China, but they're at least
looking at the situations like this is not going well for us
here. So we may need to like pull back
on things a little bit. So I, I think I think they know
a lot of these weapons before the the parade already.
It's just like, you know, when they came in, they're like, this
is a, this is a losing proposition for us.
That that makes sense. But I, I do remember they did
develop a try or try to develop a document where they're going
to build mobile launchers where, you know, the US will be able to
quickly deploy their, their missile launching force in one
island, fired a Chinese target and then evacuate and move to a
different spot. So they don't get, they don't
get hit. I mean, like, do you think that
was even realistic? On paper, but in reality, it's
actually really hard to, you know, get the support for like
fifth generation fighter jet and like advanced bombers in these
airfields, right? Because you need certain kind of
jet fuel, you need certain kind of maintenance stuff.
You can't just land at F35 and expect it to fly again.
You need to do work on it. So there's always this mistreat
that people are wondering why do they just think you can just do
this? Like now the support is
required. And I mean, I think that's, I
think like the people that came up with the plans, they were
definitely hoping for the best. But, you know, there's some
reality checks to be concerned about.
And to be honest, I think it makes sense for them to
originally plan to build out airfields that are protected in
places like Tinian and Northern Mariana Islands.
But you know, the progress on those is very lacking.
Right. I mean, it seems like they're
still fighting the last Pacific War, right?
They still think it's going to be a replay of World War 2.
But you know, the whole power of balance have shifted.
I said many times, you know, if they think it's going to be a
replay of Pacific War, it's going to be the role will be
reversed. China will be in the role of
United States in 1941 and US will be in the role of Empire of
Japan because that's how much the, the the manufacturing power
has shifted to the east. OK.
So so can we maybe we can move on from the from the missile
part? Yeah, I think the the missile
part is only part of it. I think the the unmanned
platforms were some of the most interesting stuff.
So we saw on the parade. If you want, I can talk about
both the the aircraft and also the the the submarines that we
saw. Yeah, let's let, let's go, let's
do it. Yeah.
So I think the drones, the large drones that we saw really
surprised me personally quite a bit just because I actually had
no idea they were that advanced. Like I knew they had some stuff
planned, but I didn't know if they were that particularly
advanced. We saw like basically two large
drones that were somewhat comparable in size to AJ 10,
which is larger than any of the drones that are in development
with the US Air Force. So the US Air Force has what
they call the Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program, which
are basically drones that are, you know, much larger than your
FPV's that are intended to fly with your 5th or 6th generation
aircraft. That's what they call the loyal
wingman. So you have the manned aircraft
directing the unmanned aircraft to do whatever.
And what we saw China display was they showcase some smaller
drones that probably played a similar role to what American
envisioned the loyal wingman to look like.
And then we saw these two large drones, which are J10 sized, and
we know based on the layout that they can probably fly supersonic
speed. And it is not out of the
question that they can do supersonic cruise.
And they can also have these like tailless ends.
So, you know, it's very stealthy clearly because they're just
shaped that way. And basically I would say
they're built to like higher, you know, stealth standard than
J35 Even so there in reality, they should be very hard to
detect and they're built in a way that indicates that they can
maneuver very quickly. So the thing about humans is
like we have, you know, bodies. So if if the turn goes too fast,
then we might think so the real limits are like, you know, how
much the drones can turn when not drones, aircraft can turn
when humans are in them, right? You don't really have the same
limitations when there's no person in them.
So, so a lot of these like drones that we saw, you know,
hypothetically speaking, they can turn at much more aggressive
turn rates than the fighter jet that we're used to see.
And they're clearly very large and they're intended to be able
to be controlled by the the man fighters.
So if you think about it, if you have like AJ 20 at the you're a
little closer to the back, you might want to have like some
unmanned fighter in the front that's, you know, that's a
little more maneuverable. So or just pretty maneuverable.
So when it encounters like a adversary F35, it can it can
engage that aircraft in combat and forces that aircraft to use
a lot of energy to to fight it. So and expose itself.
So that, you know, like a lot of this stuff is still hypothetical
because the PLA itself right now, it's probably actively
testing out these drones to see the best way to use them.
So everything I say, just a hypothetical and I'm sure it
will turn entirely different than what I actually speculate.
But the idea is it gives you a lot of options out there in how
it can affect the battlefield, and nobody else is even
developing these things at the moment.
So you're saying that these drones, their role is to be
fighters? They'll be They're fighter
drones. Yeah.
So we first saw like a trace of this in 2013 when there was a
model called Dark Sword in Chinese and Jian.
And it was kind of surprising at the time because we had, that
was the first time we saw like a more like a fighter jet concept
kind of drone. And it was, it had canards on
the side and it had a layout that would indicate that you can
do supersonic speeds. And it was look quite stealthy.
But the ones that we saw like this in the parade was even
stealthier because they don't have the tail and they don't
have the canards or anything. It looks very, very advanced.
Oh, yeah. Like, you know, we, we first saw
that concept back in 2013. We just didn't hear anything
more about this topic until recently when we saw two of
them. And and they already already
have serial numbers. So evidently they're, they're
being tested somewhere, most likely in the somewhere in
Xinjiang. So it's way, way away from the,
you know, Western intelligence. You can only see them probably
through satellites. And my, my guess is, you know,
the PLA is using them to see how best to develop doctrines on how
best to use them in combat at the moment.
And they also just have the J20S.
So the two seater version of the J20 go into service.
And when you have two seater aircraft, it gives you like a
second operator whose job is concentrate on controlling these
drones to fully utilize. So this so you all you have an
aircraft and you have drones that you can develop tactics
with now. This is like the Macross stuff.
You know, I, I remember 20. Was it 20 years ago.
I, I, I back in college, I watched the anime Macross Plus
and you know that that that was with, with the drone fighters
fighting the human, human fighters.
I mean, like looks like that's, that's going to be reality in
like next few years. It's already happening in PLA
exercises, actually, according to like according to one of the
podcasts that talks about these things, they're saying that
you're already having cases where the unmanned drones are
scoring hits against fighter jets.
Wow, wow. We're we're really moving
quickly here like this. This is the kind of thing I
thought was sci-fi 2025 years ago.
Like, I don't know how how much of that is hyperbole, but like,
you know what the scenarios that in which they did this under.
But it's it was really surprising to me why when I
heard about this, because the first concept was they're moving
way faster on this than I expected.
And the and the technology behind this is probably moving
faster than what a lot of people have anticipated by this point,
because people up to this point aren't really expecting that the
drones that they're controlling to do that to be fighter jets
itself, right? Like we're expecting the drones
to, you know, maybe attack some ground targets or go after some
easier target in the air. And they're just there as like a
bomb truck, You know, they, they're actually just to launch
the missile. And if and if they get spotted
and get shot down, it's no big deal.
But the, the PLA is moving like a they're like, we have so many
aerospace engineers. We're going to do those, those
stupid drones and we're going to do these super drones that, that
are just awesome. And then we're going to testing,
selling our ranges with our huge swaths of engineers until we get
this right. And then you can't mess with us.
That reminds me that there's recently launched a a new
amphibious assault ships this one right And that's this one
looks like it's designed to be a dual launching platform, no?
Yeah. So we actually also saw the
aircraft design for that. It's called GJ 21.
So in the 2019 parade, they had a what they displayed something
they called GJ 11, which was more designed for the Air Force.
So this GJ 21 is actually designed more for the, you know,
the Zero 76 to start off. And it's kind of interesting
because they're just expecting this, which is extremely
stealthy. Like if you look at it, it's
what we call flywheel design and it can fly to the target, drop
the bombs. And against most, most
adversaries, I would imagine it's very hard for them to
detect something this stealthy and do the tax and then fly
back. So yeah, so they, they have,
they have they, they. And it looks like that is also
being tested out, you know, being evaluated.
There's, they're also figuring out how to use it because when
you have both types zero 76 and you have your carrier groups,
you know, they have different missions obviously, but how you
want to utilize these assets, I think the PLA is going to have
to take some time to figure out because they have a lot of toys.
So they need to figure out how to use them.
But what I want to point out is that, you know, current time,
the Chinese Air Force right now have at least two six generation
fighter jets. They have probably 5 or 6
advanced drone concept that they're actively flying and
testing out. Whereas the US Air Force has one
project that's a fighter and they have two drone projects
which are not as impressive. So this just shows you like, you
know, the, the, the engineering differences between what the US
has access to and what China has access to.
Is that, is that just a matter of numbers like China just have
more engineers or or China just devoted more funding to this or
or actually no, US has way more US defense budget is way larger,
but it's Chinese. It seems Chinese funding defense
budget is lot more efficiently deployed, right?
Yeah. So when J35A came out like late
last year, one thing that they mentioned was that the average
age of the core engineering team for the project was like 33.
Wow. So it's a very young and very
energized engineering team. And whereas if you look at the
the US aerospace industry, right, the last major project
that Boeing did of any kind was 77.
That's the last major new project it did.
It hasn't really done a major fighter jet project for a long
time. So just in terms of like people
that have experience in designing and developing new
aircraft, you know, the, the Chinese aerospace industry is
way ahead on that one, which is kind of surprising when you
consider like this is probably the one area where China should
be nominally be behind America. Because, you know, America does
have Boeing and, and the China's commercial aviation project
isn't as far along. But because it has had these
like development teams that's been working on J10 and Flankers
for like 20-30 years. And then they move down to J20
and J35A. So it's it's pretty clear that
they have a pretty good pipeline in training the next generation
of engineers and these engineers are now, you know, developing a
lot of really advanced designs. Now what?
What what do you have to say to the the claim that, oh, Chinese,
they just copy, you know, they're, they're just, they're
just stole. They just stole the American
designs. They just copied everything.
I mean, you can't really look at the two humongous drone that
they have and say that they copied anyone because there's
those those concepts are just not anywhere else to be found in
this world right now. And you know, if you look at the
J 36, it's a very, it's a very innovative design.
Let's put it that way. Nobody's thinking about doing 3
engines with two on the side and 1 on the top right.
So it's, they're definitely, they're definitely, you know,
pushing the boundaries with a lot of new designs and they have
a lot of engineers and the supply chain is quite
impressive. Like a lot of it really invites
me of just generally China's any other industry where they, you
know, slowly build up the supply chain.
And once they build up the supply chain and they have this
huge pool of engineers, they can just, you know, iterate through
processes like much faster than anyone else.
So like this, if people want us to talk about DeepSeek moment
for military industrial complex, this should be it because
nobody's expecting to see this many drones.
Like, you know, The funny thing was the war zone originally, it
was getting really excited to talk about how many drones that
China has. And when the parade came out, no
more articles on because I'm pretty sure they looked at it
and they're like, OK, America doesn't have anything that looks
like that, so let's just not talk about this.
I, I, I, I thought I was going to give them a, a, a, a, you
know, a benefit of doubt. I thought maybe these are too
many Jones. They're going to have to some
time to process all that information.
But that's why we we have you here for TP to help us break it
up. Yeah, you don't.
You can't hurt the feelings too much.
So you just let's give them a little more time on that one.
All right, are we are we do we have a wrap on drones and we can
move on for to to the next? Next Yeah, I think the
submarines were really interesting too because you know
like we've seen what the UUV's on man underwater vehicles.
So the submarine drones for a while now, and this was like the
first time that we actually saw the that mean displayed in
parade. And they have these huge drones
like, you know, that can they have the one that is supposed to
be able to lay mines. And we had another one that's
more like has a lot of sensors on there.
And they they're both pretty large.
And so you'd imagine that they can they can stay in the water
for a while. And you know, when people ask
what is so important about drones, this this important part
about drones is that you can build as many of them and you
don't have to worry about training the people to actually
operate them, right? So there's no limitations in
terms of finding enough people to be willing to spend days
after days in the water and not having touch with their family.
So this actually adds a lot of flexibility in how they can
deploy like large number of these underwater vehicles around
China. And I think the idea is like
when you have enough of the underwater sensors and nodes,
you have a much better situation awareness in the water.
Against modern submarines, the best way to detect them is just
having as many water sensors in the water in that area as
possible and then network them together so that once you do
detect it, then you can pass a lot of the information and then
you can send over the aircraft or the helicopter to actually
attack them. So that's why, you know, against
the submarine threat, having a lot of underwater nodes is very
important. That reminds me, do you think
China took any lessons from the Ukraine war that's going on?
Because you know, like the Ukraine war is like a real
example of kind of the 21st century Modern Warfare that's
been fought by near peer adversaries, right?
And then there were also a lot of autonomous units being used,
like whether aerial drones or naval drones.
Do do you think China incorporate any lessons from the
Ukrainian war into their their designs?
I think the the most evident place where they took the
Ukraine conflict into design is actually just looking at the
ground forces they changes that they displayed.
The new Type 100 is pretty clearly developed or designed
with the need to combat drone swarms in mind, because it's
very much about like having a whole bunch of sensors.
It's no longer about, you know, the traditional armor combat.
And I'm not too familiar with land warfare in general.
But my view of the how people did tanks in the back in the in
the past is just basically having the best armor you can
get and having the best round that you can use to penetrate
armor. Whereas now that you're facing
the the drone threat, what you actually need to be able to do
is use information warfare to link together all the sensors.
So you can detect enemy drones, enemy artillery or enemy armored
vehicles from further out and then attack them.
And you might not be your own vehicle to attack them right?
Like it could be you detect the drone from a few kilometer out,
then you direct it to the air defense unit FK 3000 with its
micro missiles, and then it can attack the drones with it so
that it doesn't get too close to your tank.
Or your drone detects a tank from a little further out than
you and then one of your armored vehicle can then send you know,
anti tank missile over there to attack it.
And if you look at the Chinese vehicles there, it looks like
they took the entire like EV revolution and put the military
version of it out there because they all have a lot of sensors
around there and they're all using hybrid technology.
And so that they're all very quiet.
And then they also can have lower heat signatures and they
all have like higher power generation capabilities.
So all that power generation can, can supply the power needed
for all the sensors. And you know, in the future, if
you want to add like lasers to them, you can.
So that's kind of the interesting part.
And you probably saw the humongous laser they had in the,
in the parade also. That thing looked really funny.
Yes, yes, let's talk about the laser weapons.
I I'm, I'm curious about the laser weapons, you know, like
those those kind of things before you saw only in like
James Bond or Austin Power movies.
What what, what, what are they, what do they do?
What they're supposed to be designed for.
I think generally speaking, they're just supposed to be
designed to for the Navy, for the Navy in this case, to
probably shoot down incoming drones from like a certain
distance out or even I think because the one that we saw in
the parade was pretty large. It needs to be able to also
shoot down anti shipping missiles so that it can provide
a last line of defense against missiles attacking it.
So at first, you know, you try to shoot it down with your
longer range missiles. If it doesn't get if you can't
get a shoot shot down, then you use your short range missiles.
And if you still can't get it down, then you use the lasers at
the end. So that's kind of the idea
behind the lasers and you know, like they have the land warfare
version also. Those are probably more to
target just the drone swarms and if you saw, they also have the
microwave weapons which they first showcased in the Druhai
air show. And those can probably get the
drones down from like you know, 2 kilometer out and they can fry
a bunch of them. And the laser is kind of
interesting just because the technology behind it has really
improved in the past couple years.
And a lot of that also is just driven by various new technology
that China is developing. You know, there's the, there's
the laser communication that they're working on, there's the
Lidars that they work on. But a lot of it is really just
using the right materials, using the right power generation.
And, and you're seeing that like in the weapon system that they
trotted out because you're able to efficiently utilize all this
power and to actually actually focus the beam and bring down
targets. You know, like when you laser
something, with enough time it will come down.
That's kind of the idea. Speaking of lasers, whatever
happened to rail guns? Because I remember China was
testing rail gun for a while and then then there's not no more
news coming out of that. And I think recently I saw Japan
was also testing real guns. Is that still ongoing?
Is that still a thing or they just decide it's no, it's not
worth the effort? My guess is that they probably
still have the program going on going because they they have the
enough bandwidth to pretty much work on every project that they
want to. Like that's just, you know, when
you have overcapacity in engineers, you can just do that.
And I think they probably didn't display it because it's just not
ready to to be displayed right now.
Like a lot of the stuff that they displayed have been in
service for a few years now. You know, so obviously some of
the stuff like the drones, they're they're relatively new
and we're not going to see them in large numbers until later
that those are just more to like showcase, you know, China's
current on man warfare prowess to the rest of the because you
impress a lot of people with lasers on men, robotic looking
stuff, right? So and but yeah, like I think, I
think they're, I think it's still on a lot of the other
stuff is that you read about they're probably still ongoing,
they just haven't been able to put into production yet.
So what we saw in the parade is actually products that has been
serviced, that been serviced in Commission.
They're not prototypes. I think some of the drones are
probably like, they're technically in service, but
they're still more of like a testing and evaluation phase,
like they're still trying to figure out how to use them.
But most of the weapon system are actually, you know, already
in service. So, you know, I don't really
believe this stuff about them. Showcase things, prototypes that
don't work at the parade. I think most of it is actually
in service. Wow.
Yeah, like I guess some of the more scientific stuff, they're
probably still trying to figure out how to use it.
So it might take them a few years to figure out how to use
it and decide if they want to mass produce it or not.
But they are being evaluated somewhere.
Yeah, I mean, this is my argument for why the, the the
the Pentagon 2027 deadline for China's quote, UN quote invasion
of Taiwan is bogus because China just need to wait until 2030.
They will even have more firepower and more goodies.
It's why why 2027? That's just an arbitrary date.
Anything else? Any other areas you want to
cover? I mean, I think generally
speaking it was very impressive. Like even a lot of the stuff
that they, they displayed for the, you know, the Air Force was
kind of interesting and the, they had their new, I guess new
generation of aircraft from the, they always start off with
AJ16D, like electronic warfare aircraft, followed by the J20
and the J20A and J20S. And the J35A kind of is kind of
like showcasing we have these latest 5th generation aircraft
along with these new electronic warfare aircraft that, you know,
makes them pretty much invisible.
And yeah, go ahead. I have.
I have a question. Actually, China also showcased
some anti ballistic missile systems.
I was actually surprised to see that because you know, we know
the United States was a pioneer in the anti ballistic missile
program. But you know, from what we saw
in the 12 day Israel Iran war, even you know, Israel had the
most advanced, most sophisticated layer ballistic
defense. You know, they had, they had
aircraft shooting Dung Jones in inside airspace of Serbia,
inside airspace of Syria and, and, and Jordan.
And then they have the fat system shooting down Iranian
missiles and they have Americans Asia system from U.S.
Navy station in Mediterranean shooting down Iranian missile.
Then they, they have Israel's own Iron Dome and David Sling
and all that and Iranian, Iranian missiles still find, you
know, still enough of them made through and find their target.
So, so missile defence is really, really hard to do,
especially you are faced with a huge number of missiles and but,
but, but, but, but, but it looks like China is also investing in
its own anti ballistic missile defence.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, I think like, you know, ballistic missile defence is
generally very expensive, right? You're not going to get the
right price ratios when you talk about offensive versus defensive
because you know you need a better missile to intercept the
missile that's coming over. So that's why it's always been
hard. But when you have important
assets in your Navy to protect and it could face ballistic
missiles coming over, you just need to have some to protect
your carrier groups. And you know, like, I don't
hope, I hope we never get to this.
But you know, if, if a war between China and India breaks
out and you have to worry about Indian nuclear weapons, for
example, then you need to have some form of ballistic missile
defense for your major cities to defend against OSA, to defend
against OSA. I, I don't, I don't think, I
don't think there's going to be that kind of war between China
and India, but I get your point, but I don't think.
My point is you need to protect the really important targets.
I agree, which if you let you know, hopefully we don't get to
a situation where that happens. But you're never going to
protect, intercept 100% of really good missiles.
Like if you face really good missiles and if there's enough
of them coming over, you're just not going to intercept all of
them. Like, I'm sorry to tell people
that, but you know, China's a big country also, right?
Like you can't protect all the rural areas.
So, you know, you need like these really good missiles to
protect your important military assets and also your population
centers and your industrial centers clearly.
So they need that. Anything else?
Yeah, like I, I, I just, I, I just think it was very important
to see like a lot of the, the technology come out.
I mean, the laser stuff was very fascinating.
The unmanned technology that they showcase was way beyond
anything else that we've seen from other countries up to this
point. The the hypersonic missiles that
we saw were like like a couple generations ahead of everyone
else, right. So they're very ahead in these
areas and the Air Force that they have currently is also
probably, you know, the second largest in terms of size of
fifth generation and and doctrine wise, you know, they're
probably right up there with America in terms of like, you
know, fighting modern air warfare.
And it's very important to think about this, that an aircraft
agency that they don't even care about, they don't even display
in their own air air show, you know, was able to shoot down
pretty much every Indian aircraft.
And, you know, it came across so like it was that just showcase,
you know, how good these Chinese aircraft is in terms of sensor
fusion and being able to fight Modern Warfare.
That reminds me, AWAC seems to be very important in the Chinese
aerial combat doctrine, you know, even doing even in the
Pakistani India conflict, you know, a wax play a role in
railing targets to the J10C fighters.
And we saw some, you know, China displaced some of their own
indigenous, develop a wax plane during the parade, right?
Yeah, yeah, I think we saw the the KJ 600 definitely and I
think we saw the KJ 500 also. I don't remember if we saw the
KJ 3000 or not, but the KJ 600 is kinda important just because
you need it for the carrier groups.
And if they were to, you know, eventually send the carrier
group out. And they really need something
like KJ 600 to do the command and control, to do the advanced
early warning and to do the electronic warfare and all all
that jazz. And another really important
aircraft that they showcase with the J15DT, which is the, the
electronic warfare version of the J15 key, so it can be
launched off the, the catapult and the, the electronic warfare
aircraft are very important. Like, you know, the the PLA has
invested a lot of money into those things and it they're also
very hard because you need to stick a lot of equipment inside
them and they still need to be able to take a fly off from an
aircraft carrier. So that's why some of these
projects has taken so long to be fully developed.
And if you look at the parade, they always have the electronic
warfare aircraft flying in the front that showcases ahead of
the other fighters. That just showcases how much
highly they think of it. I'm very impressed with how far
China has come in the electronic warfare area because I remember
in the old days, like back in the 80s, nineties, 2000, what
they did was they had these basically Soviet era airframes
and China was just trying to stick in like Western electronic
warfare system into them. But but by now I guess like
China has its only indigenous electronic warfare system,
right? I mean like the like they don't.
I'm assuming they don't no longer rely on Western suppliers
for their electronic warfare parts, right?
You know, when you have the leading telecom provider in the
world in Huawei, you know, makes all these radio frequency
related applications, which is generally you know what
electronic warfare is basically it's to disrupt the enemy
communications and figuring out where they're from and then
trying to spoof them. That's like that is what telecom
companies have to do themselves in all their development.
So when you have when you have entities like that, you have a
huge supply chain, which then you can build up all to develop
modern electronic warfare equipment.
So that's why they got so good at this stuff and that's why
like you know, U.S. government was very anti Huawei for so.
That's a very good point. Wow.
I think we cover a whole wide area of the the weapons display
on the parade. Did did we miss anything?
Is there any particular thing that you felt we need to talk
about? No, I think, I think that pretty
much covers all the important ones.
All right. Well, thank you very much TP for
for coming to our show to explain about the latest advance
of Chinese military as it was displayed during the latest
victory parade. If people want to find you and
follow your writings, where would they go?
Yeah, so you can find me at TP Huang on X or Twitter or you can
find me on Sub Stack under TP Huang.
Also I post a lot on Twitter normally.
OK, so there you have it. Go go subscribe to TP on both
Twitter and sub stack. You know he's a a treasure trove
of information on anything Chinese tech related.
And, and thank you again TP for making the time to join us and
thank everyone for for tuning in.
Until next time.