Nothing to worry about. Steaming at only 1/2 power with your left turn blinker on for the whole Pacific Run kind of defeats the concept of stealth. We'll see these coming like a Jerry Springer bodyguard tracking a 300lb biker floppy-mama on stage with her estranged drunk husband screwing the teen Coke-princess.

Uh, yeah, what Laurence said.

Dean's comment in the previous post's comments section is pivitol to this post. He said: "You must inculcate a philosophy of preventive maintenance, of valuing the support personnel".

You can have the best toys that money can buy but if you don't have a professional NCO corps to maintain them, they go derelict sooner rather than later...just ask the Sarge. Same problem the Russians had...conscript maintainers just can't handle the job.

On that note, Russian equipment (or equipment built w/ Russian philosophies, which includes Yugoslav, North Korean, and Chinese equipment) does not EXPECT regular maintenance, and certainly not high-quality stuff. When Belenko's MiG-25 landed in Japan, US and Japanese experts were stunned at the low-level of general quality; and startled at Russian work-arounds for just a handful of key areas, so that even ill-trained support people could take care of those.

The interesting problem for Russian equipment is that it could only go so far (and that was about 1988 or so). Now, the Su-27s, Su-30s, etc., require more in the way of Western design/maintenance philosophy.

Now, overlay on that the fact that the Chinese are (militaro-culturally) still about 1970, and you begin to see where problems are emerging.

I'd note, however, that at least some of those Chinese Su-27s are presumably in overhaul, and have not been damaged per se. Taiwanese press coverage of China is about as accurate as South Korean press coverage of North Korea---interesting tid-bits and insights, coupled with outright propaganda lies, even now.

Also factor in that their best fighter pilots can't get out of the way of an EP-3. If they can't dodge a large clunky prop plane, what're they gonna do when the Tomcats come a knockin?

Uh, I'd REALLY have to disagree w/ you about the EP-3 incident. That's like arguing that if the Folgore Tricoleur (sp?---the Italian air show team, presumably comprised of the best pilots of the Italian Air Force) screw up and plow several of themselves into a field, then the Italian air force is incompetent. Or if the Blue Angels fail to bring something off, then they're incompetent.

What you had was a hot-dogging pilot (which, IN AND OF ITSELF says that the PLA is changing---now they've got guys who wanna strut their stuff and think they're hot s***), who misjudged his distance, precisely BECAUSE it was a lumbering turbo-prop.

Keep in mind, AFAWK, this was a pilot who'd done the same thing before w/ other recon flights. That'd suggest that this was no trainee, but somebody who'd logged a few hours. And, bad luck (turbulence, misjudgement, sweat in the eye) can kill ya just as dead as deliberate action.

Also, within the next few years, there won't be too many F-14s left in the inventory (and most are pullin' bomber duty, anyway), so I might just drop dead of a heart-attack if one actually came a-knockin'! ;-)

Must be that kinda day. I just put up a longish post about China over at my site.

I'd have to echo some agreement with people in the previous post's comments that China as a serious military threat vis a vis the US isn't the major issue at stake. To me the important point here is the posturing on China's part that this seems to imply. A strident, entrenched notion that China needs to build up even a massively defensive army belies a certain mind set that places China in opposition to the US (and a lot of the world).

Threatening Taiwan is one major issue in their attempt to bring the island into line with the mainland, and for this they thought they had Russian support, but I wouldn't be surprised if recent Russian coziness with the ideological "west" is making them uneasy. Add to that the porous western border of China that allows a flourishing black market economy.

China has also show an interest in non-standard military weapons like anti-satellite technology that seems like a direct reposne to NMD and relaxed missile talk with Russia. (The point would be to offer a weapon that couldn't necessarily be hit by a NMD and would target something like communications satellites.) Threatening the US directly would be silly. The war would be awful, but we would win.

It could be that China likes to define itself by the enemies it has. And there isn't a bigger one than the US. I don't think it would necessarily be an armed conflict, but there is a chance when Taiwan is considered. (The US would have to face the question of allowing a communist country to forceably take more "democratic" one. That is if we continue to press for the "One China, Two Systems" idea.)

But I do readily argee withe everyone that has commented about the strained structure of China's military.