Possible new type of Chinese military drone spotted

[Deleted]

You've clearly not bothered to actually educate yourself on things or even to bother to read any replies in the topic that you didn't already agree with.

Targeting a ICBM or a missile in that class on something that moves is a non-trivial problem, guiding it through the fireball of re-entry at mach 15 to such a target is again a non-trivial problem and there is good reason to doubt it has been done or how well it works. Anything less than an ICBM is a considerably easier target and while it's not an easy task to stop one, it has been done and anti-theater level missiles is one of the main tasks for Aegis equipped ships. You might be too young to remember the gulf war, but it's been more than a quarter century since that and the technology has only gotten a LOT better since then.

There's a good reason why in the past they've been designed to attack immobile objects and generally large densely packed areas like cities. It's a vastly simpler task and much easier to do precisely.

You also have a poor grasp of scale. The ocean is big and a fireball a few miles in diameter doesn't cover nearly as much territory as you seem to think it does. Ships in a battle group are typically several miles apart. Those nice tight little formations you see in pictures are just PR photo ops. They don't cluster up like that in operation, for precisely the reason that you don't want them all to get taken out in one blast.

Dong Feng 21. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.

[I Push Buttons]

Sure, whatever. That's why they probably do them.

The US has never fought against anyone that has modern subs, not to mention subs with nukes. That's the reality.

Because the US would just advertise to potential adversaries "Hey look at this fancy sophisticated anti-sub tech we are using!", encouraging them to develop ways to defeat it...

Do you genuinely believe we would spend half a century building our entire surface fleet around carriers and do nothing to combat submarines?

Also nukes are irrelevant to this discussion. "They will just nuke your battle group!" Yeah and then we will nuke them back and vice versa into a full scale exchange. So losing a carrier battle group is pretty damn irrelevant at that stage.

[Akainakali]

Dong Feng 21. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.

Learn to Read.

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Do you genuinely believe we would spend half a century building our entire surface fleet around carriers and do nothing to combat submarines?

Any non-submariner who tells you they aren't afraid of submarines and believes they aren't a threat is a liar and probably an idiot. They aren't going to drop carriers like clay pigeons, but they are the biggest threat to one.

[I Push Buttons]

Any non-submariner who tells you they aren't afraid of submarines and believes they aren't a threat is a liar and probably an idiot. They aren't going to drop carriers like clay pigeons, but they are the biggest threat to one.

I am not denying that, since the air space is completely off limits around a battle group, the only major threat is from below... I am simply challenging the "lolololol carriers are so useless, a single submarine sank your whole fleet in a wargame lolololol" retardation.

[Skroe]

Dong Feng 21. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.

US Carriers have defense against ballistic missile attack. Two defenses.

First is that they're fast. They're very, very fast. The most probable way a Chinese "Carrier killer" is defeated is that the kill chain is disrupted... basically the missile hits open water - where the carrier was 20 minutes before. This is what the poster you were replying to is stating. DF-21 would hit the water.

Secondly, carriers are so big and so heavily armored, it's unlikely that unless the carrier killer had a nuclear warhead, it would even disable the carrier. The carrier could get hit with anti-ship missiles and, though damage, still fight. The size of the strikes from missiles are not as large as you may imagine and there have been ship-board accidents that have inflicted damage larger than would be comparable to combat damage - and the ships still fight.

That's even more true with carriers.

[PACOX]

Why do people think carriers are out there all alone.

Drone looks like the time Iran said they cloned a US drone. Im sure China could do better than that. Its not like they dont build all if quadcopters

[Deleted]

Puupi is right when he says aircraft carriers are only useful against shepards. They are a fucking nightmare. Good for the people who make them tho. £££

They are the most expensive floating targets going. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack. One nuclear armed missile and your surface fleet become submariners. The purpose of the Navy is not to fight but to project power, and destabilise regions. But I guess it will be nice for all the expenise highly skilled personel who are all sitting in one place to remember that they will be in the most expenisive coffins ever built if a fight ever actually breaks out.

Ballistic missiles target static land targets, not nuclear powered targets moving at 40 mph.

[I Push Buttons]

Dong Feng 21. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.

Also this is not accurate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_...Defense_System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIM-16...dard_Missile_3

[Kellhound]

Dong Feng 21. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.

The DF-21 is a MRBM, which places it firmly within the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense systems realm of intercept capability (which covers SRBMs to IRBMs, or if you prefer, 0-5500km range missiles). It takes an ICBM to exceed the ability of the ABMD to intercept.

[Akainakali]

Why do people think carriers are out there all alone.

Drone looks like the time Iran said they cloned a US drone. Im sure China could do better than that. Its not like they dont build all if quadcopters

Yeah, quadcopters don't operate out on the high seas and in bad weather, a few hundred kilometers from shore, for days at a time. Nor do they generally carry around a radar and communications system capable of providing targeting information.

Not to mention carrying around a high powered radar isn't exactly a good way to blend in and be steathy.

A high seas navy that gets close enough to shore for something like that to be useful is a very stupid one.

[PACOX]

Yeah, quadcopters don't operate out on the high seas and in bad weather, a few hundred kilometers from shore, for days at a time. Nor do they generally carry around a radar and communications system capable of providing targeting information.

Not to mention carrying around a high powered radar isn't exactly a good way to blend in and be steathy.

A high seas navy that gets close enough to shore for something like that to be useful is a very stupid one.

The whole quadcopter statement was me joking. I realize the difference.

[Akainakali]

Ballistic missiles target static land targets, not nuclear powered targets moving at 40 mph.

The DF-21 he's referencing do exist and MIGHT have the capabilities he's describing, but it is far from proven that they work and even if they do it's far from clear how well they work. That's without getting into the whole difficulty of getting targeting data on a carrier to begin with. In any case, they aren't advertising and if the US knows anything, we aren't saying anything either.

There are credible reports of a carrier style/sized target in inner China seen in satellite photos, that has several craters which might be the result of tests of the system, but that's about the only hard evidence I've seen mentioned in the open press.

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The whole quadcopter statement was me joking. I realize the difference.

Sorry, Poe's law and all that.

[zenkai]

It looks kinda weird, but then again so do most military drones.
It's rumoured to be some sort of high velocity carrier killer that is armed with torpedoes.

What do you think?



https://mil.sina.cn/sd/2017-05-04/de...l?vt=4&HTTPS=1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ary-drone.html

I was hoping it was mine I was flying my DJI and I hit the "home" button and it flew back to China...

[caervek]

The Firebee drone's first flight was 1955.

The Chinese one looks more like the 70's Tupolov IMO

[tylenol]

My guess is that if major powers like USA, China and Russia end up in a war - all aircraft carriers are at the bottom of the sea after the first day of war.

Aircraft carriers are great if you are fighting against shepherds or farmers. But not so great if the other side can actually shoot back.

They worked great against the Japanese, other countries had aircraft carriers early on but after WW2 they were considered one of the most important ships in a modern fleet

They also don't float in the middle of an ocean alone so about them being on the bottom of the ocean on day 1?...

A carrier strike group[1] (CSG) is an operational formation of the United States Navy. It is composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a destroyer squadron of at least two destroyers or frigates,[2] and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also, on occasion, includes submarines, attached logistics ships and a supply ship. The carrier strike group commander operationally reports to the commander of the numbered fleet, who is operationally responsible for the area of waters in which the carrier strike group is operating.

Carrier strike groups comprise a principal element of U.S. power projection capability. Previously referred to as Carrier Battle Groups (a term still used by other nations), they are often referred to by the carrier they are associated with (e.g., Enterprise Strike Group). As of March 2016 there were 10 carrier strike groups.

Do the math, the only thing reliably getting through is a nuke but at that point everyone on the planet dies

Edit, that is also 1 country, the US wouldn't be fighting China alone so....more everything

[Kellhound]

The Chinese one looks more like the 70's Tupolov IMO

The Tupolov looks like an inverted AGM-28 Hound Dog.

[Rafoel]

Looks like flying bobsleigh sled.

[Moadar]

It has a major fatal flaw: made in China

[Alydael]

My guess is that if major powers like USA, China and Russia end up in a war - all aircraft carriers are at the bottom of the sea after the first day of war.

Aircraft carriers are great if you are fighting against shepherds or farmers. But not so great if the other side can actually shoot back.

I think if China, Russia and USA got to war, you don't need to worry about the carriers. There are enough nuclear missles between those three to destroy the world many times over........

I don't envision a carrier war.

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It has a major fatal flaw: made in China

Ha ha, made of cheap plastic and will only last 2-3 months......

[Magical Mudcrab]

My guess is that if major powers like USA, China and Russia end up in a war - all aircraft carriers are at the bottom of the sea after the first day of war.

Aircraft carriers are great if you are fighting against shepherds or farmers. But not so great if the other side can actually shoot back.

Are you kidding? The US has more aircraft carriers than the next three nations, combined. Moreover, the US aircraft carriers are significantly larger than their counterparts owned by other nations.

It should also be said, aircraft carriers are not meant to be in firefights with other ships, that's not what they were meant to do. That's the reason why they usually come with their own battle groups. They are meant to act as support, allowing for the quick deployment of large numbers of troops and jets within the region they are situated, instead of requiring lengthy deployments from a remote base.