Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Ex Varyag ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ Author) Source- The Diplomat Author- James R. Homes Reports of Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning’s death — or debilitating wounds — are greatly exaggerated. The flattop suffered some sort of steam leak that prompted her crew to stop at sea and conduct repairs before resuming operations. The news comes from Robert Beckhusen of War Is Boring, who relays a Sina.com story that Liaoning suffered a “steam explosion” following “a leak in ‘the machine oven compartment to the water pipes.’” Beckhusen denies that PLA Navy leaders will decommission the flattop because of mechanical problems. (By raising the possibility, though, he seems to imply they might.) He does speculate that the accident will force the navy to relegate her to training duty. Would an engineering casualty represent a setback unseen in the annals of naval history? Hardly. All sea services have been there, done that, and will likely find themselves there again.

Type-52 C Destroyer of PLAN ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ Author- Took Ranch) Sources- The Want China Times The PLA's Type 052D guided missile destroyer, the most advanced class of China's destroyers, is capable of carrying supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles with capabilities similar to the Russian-built C-Club-N missile, according to the Canada-based Kanwa Defense Review. The Type 052D has various disadvantages caused by the DN/DA80 gas-turbine introduced from Ukraine, however, which limits the speed of the hefty destroyer. The turbine is used in Russia and India to power merchant vessels rather than warships because it is a gas guzzler. Without proper support from Ukraine, China is unable to carry out maintenance and overhaul operations for the turbine. Like the Chinese fighters which still rely on the engines imported from Russia, PLA Navy warships need turbines from Russia and Ukraine but the conflict in the region has cut off access to Ukrainian personne

Image credits-Wikimedia Commons/ United States Department of Defence Chinese leader Xi Jinping was humiliated during his just-completed meeting with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, turning the long-awaited summit into a “fiasco,” according to one observer. Sino-Indian relations, which were supposed to be propelled to new heights last week, now look troubled, at least in the short term. In mid-September, Chinese troops crossed the Line of Actual Control, the demarcation of the disputed China-India border, in the Chumar section of eastern Ladakh, high in the Himalayas. Reinforcements brought their number up to battalion strength, about 1,000 soldiers, according to reports. Although the Sino-Indian boundary there is ill defined, it was clear China’s commanders intended to create a provocation as they advanced several kilometers on the Indian side of the temporary line. Last Wednesday, while meeting Modi in Ahmedabad, Xi said he had ordered his forces to return to the Chinese

J-20 ( Image credits- Wikimedia commons/ Author- Baiweiflight) Over the past month, China has showed how its approach to its own rising superpower status applies to its defense policy. The results aren't exactly reassuring. Outside of its borders, China has forged a wide-ranging policy of outreach and investment in Africa. China claims the offshore extractive resources, and even the offshore territories, of nearly all of its immediate geographical neighbors in the South China Sea (see  this Business Insider graphic  for more). The country holds substantial American debt, and commands an enormous trade surplus with the world's largest economy - a label that it hopes to seize from a wheezing U.S. In the military realm, China's ambitions have a tendency to manifest themselves through weapons technologies that skirt the boundaries of international legality. Over the past month, it's been proven to be working on two such capabilities. This is an asymmetrical ta

F-35 ( Image Courtesy- Wikimedia commons/Author- Andy Wolfe) According to  Want China Times , China’s nationalistic  Global Times  has reported that China’s currently military capabilities would be unable to combat the F-35.  Want China Times  cites the  Global Times  as saying that in a hypothetical aircraft carrier battle between the U.S. and China, China’s current carrier-based fighter, the J-15, would be unable to compete with American and allied F-35s. “In an attack on the Liaoning the F-35 could carry joint strike missiles developed in Norway, which have a range of 290 kilometers. The J-15, on the other hand, could carry two YJ8-3 anti-missiles with a range of only 180 km,” the report cited  Global Times  as saying. It continues: “In terms of radar technology, the U.S. has the clear upper hand with its AN/APG-81 AESA radar developed by Northrop Grumman, which has a thousand transceivers with the ability to simultaneously search for 23 moving targets, including 19 targets

Peoples Liberation Army, China ( Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and US Army)  China's navy commissioned 17 new warships last year, the most of any nation. In a little more than a decade, it's expected to have three aircraft carriers, giving it more clout than ever in a region of contested seas and festering territorial disputes. Those numbers testify to huge increases in defense spending that have endowed China with the largest military budget behind the United States and fueled an increasingly large and sophisticated defense industry. While Beijing still lags far behind the U.S. in both funding and technology, its spending boom is attracting new scrutiny at a time of severe cuts in U.S. defense budgets that have some questioning Washington's commitments to its Asian allies, including some who have lingering disputes with China. Beijing's newfound military clout is one of many issues confronting President Barack Obama as he visits the region this week. Wash

Image courtesy- Wikimedia and the author In April 2003, the Chinese Navy decided to put a large group of its best submarine talent on the same boat as part of an experiment to synergize its naval elite. The result? Within hours of leaving port, the Type 035 Ming III class submarine  sank  with all hands lost. Never having fully recovered from this maritime disaster, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council  never  to have conducted an operational patrol with a nuclear missile submarine.............. http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/chinas-deceptively-weak-and-dangerous-military/?allpages=yes

http://indrus.in/articles/2012/03/21/high_sea_indian_elephant_versus_chinese_dragon_15211.html

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20131107/DEFREG03/311070016/RAND-Suggests-Using-Land-based-ASMs-Against-China?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|World%20News|p