The LYC-48 Spider web 蜘蛛网
AN/TPQ-49 Lightweight Counter Mortar Radar (LCMR)
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Say hello to YLC-48 "Spider Web", Sino AN/TPQ-49 Lightweight Counter Mortar Radar (LCMR)
The Chinese YLC-48 LCMR is a latest member of the YLC family created by the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation No.14th Research Institute. Like its US counterpart, it utilizes L-Band operation frequency for counter-fire directing. It claims to have detection range of 15 km vs 6 km of its counterpart. It's "point of origin accuracy" is said to be "60m at 7km" vs "75m at 5km" of the AN/TPQ-49
Photos of the day: China's first nuclear weapons base
Including factory 221, home to China's first atomic bomb is now completely abandoned
http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2015/02/factory-221/
http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2015/02/factory-221/
In 1958, Dong Zhiyong, a 22-year-old member of the transportation
squadron, arrived at the military base on the Jinyintan Prairie, in
Qinghai Province, expecting to grow potatoes. There was little by way of
amenities at the ramshackle facility which stood at 3,300 meters above
sea level, save for the bamboo beds they had brought upon their trucks.
At the base, altitude sickness, extreme temperatures, and wild weather were the norm, but Dong and his comrades were there for the long haul. After all, assigning soldiers to guard and cultivate land in remote areas was nothing new. But before long they were assigned to build factories and railroads, and Dong went from transporting people, construction materials, and equipment to eventually hauling materials marked as hazardous.
On these occasions, Dong was given careful orders to travel at a speed of less than ten kilometers per hour; the truck itself was closely guarded by vehicles at the front and back throughout the journey. There was to be absolutely no bumping or friction, and extreme caution was paramount. Dong’s driving skills were put to the strictest tests, especially considering the rigors and whims of high altitude weather.
While Dong and other low-level officers and staff were left wondering about the mysterious task at hand, almost 2,000 kilometers to the west, on an even more remote base at the west edge of Lop Nur, a propaganda campaign was in progress at the regimental level and above.
In early 1964, all the officers were told that they were carrying out a “glorious task” while Chairman Mao Zedong’s quotes on the subject were being brandished around the nation: “The world has already entered the atomic era,” “The imperialist countries are self-glorifying their atomic weapons,” and “The atomic bomb is not large, but if we don’t have it, our words will never count.” That same year, the documentary Operation Crossroad, detailing the disastrous and cruel American tests in the Marshall Islands, was shown to high-level officers. At this point, the higher-ups were able to piece together the not-so-cryptic message—they were preparing for China’s very first atomic bomb.
Back at the Qinghai base, Dong and his comrades were busy working in what is now known as Factory 221. They were engaged in mysterious tasks including transportation, manufacturing, and assembly. They remained clueless about the greater task in which they were involved, and were equally unaware of the unimaginable scale on which national resources were secretly being mobilized.
China’s own “Manhattan Project” was officially commissioned in 1955 by Mao Zedong himself. At the time, the US, the Soviet Union, and the UK were the only three countries in the world possessing atomic weapons. While the former Soviet Union had agreed to help China with research, the agreement only lasted for just over a year before all foreign experts were withdrawn—all blueprints, plans, and data destroyed. Led by physicist Qian Sanqiang (钱三强), a group of Chinese scientists from the Modern Physics Research Institute of China Science Academy began to explore the subject on their own with out-of-date data processing tools such as mechanical calculators and abacuses—primitive, even by the standards of the time. To commemorate independence, the project was given the code “Project 596”. It was a reference to the date the former Soviet Union withdrew their experts: June, 1959. In the early years of the PRC, when the nation was still suffering from political unrest and famine, the project was given top priority. The concentrated uranium, a crucial element in building the bomb, involved the efforts of over 20 national departments and 900 factories across the nation. Factory 221 served as the final stop on the assembly line for the first and the next 15 atomic weapons, where they were transported in secrecy to experimental grounds deep in the Gobi desert of Lop Nur.
One of the innermost wastelands on planet Earth, where very little life can thrive, Lop Nur was ideal for the experiment: minimum precipitation, west winds sweeping the area year round, and not a single footprint to be found to the east for 400 kilometers. Finally, at 15:00 on October 16, 1964, China’s first atomic bomb went off. A few hours later, the nation was informed via news broadcast.
For the ordinary soldiers involved, life went on as before—except for the pride and honor they felt at completing such an important task of the nation. When their military service ended, they went back home, telling friends and family that they spent their years growing potatoes in the west. They had been told to take the secrets of that Qinghai plateau to their grave.
Dong Zhiyong is now 78 years old, living peacefully in retirement in Hefei, Anhui Province, along with 500 other veterans from Qinghai—others were settled in Hebei, Shandong, and other provinces. As for Factory 221, it was shut down in the 1980s.
On July 29, 1996, China conducted its last nuclear test and decided to halt such experiments for the foreseeable future. But long forgotten were those who served at Factory 221 and the Lop Nur base. Despite their dedication to the country’s nuclear project, many walked away from it cursed—for the rest of their lives and even for the lives of their descendants. The opening of that nuclear Pandora’s box came at a great cost.
Many of the soldiers who served Project 596 died during their service due to radiation exposure. Those who made it out alive often suffered long-term skin and lung diseases, damage to the immune system, and cancer later in life. Perhaps the cruelest consequence was the effect on the veterans’ offspring who have very high rates—sometimes more than a thousand times higher—of developing leukemia, birth defects, and mental deficiencies. While the Bureau of Civil Affairs provides healthcare for the affected atomic veterans, their children are often left helpless.
In the end, when the country proudly declares its status as being the only nuclear weapon state to give unqualified security assurance to non-nuclear-weapon states, its policy has always been one of deterrence, to never strike first, but, perhaps, the first blow was struck decades ago without anyone noticing: the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people at various posts around the nation who paid for the price for creating these now world-ending weapons—knowingly or not.
At the base, altitude sickness, extreme temperatures, and wild weather were the norm, but Dong and his comrades were there for the long haul. After all, assigning soldiers to guard and cultivate land in remote areas was nothing new. But before long they were assigned to build factories and railroads, and Dong went from transporting people, construction materials, and equipment to eventually hauling materials marked as hazardous.
On these occasions, Dong was given careful orders to travel at a speed of less than ten kilometers per hour; the truck itself was closely guarded by vehicles at the front and back throughout the journey. There was to be absolutely no bumping or friction, and extreme caution was paramount. Dong’s driving skills were put to the strictest tests, especially considering the rigors and whims of high altitude weather.
While Dong and other low-level officers and staff were left wondering about the mysterious task at hand, almost 2,000 kilometers to the west, on an even more remote base at the west edge of Lop Nur, a propaganda campaign was in progress at the regimental level and above.
In early 1964, all the officers were told that they were carrying out a “glorious task” while Chairman Mao Zedong’s quotes on the subject were being brandished around the nation: “The world has already entered the atomic era,” “The imperialist countries are self-glorifying their atomic weapons,” and “The atomic bomb is not large, but if we don’t have it, our words will never count.” That same year, the documentary Operation Crossroad, detailing the disastrous and cruel American tests in the Marshall Islands, was shown to high-level officers. At this point, the higher-ups were able to piece together the not-so-cryptic message—they were preparing for China’s very first atomic bomb.
Back at the Qinghai base, Dong and his comrades were busy working in what is now known as Factory 221. They were engaged in mysterious tasks including transportation, manufacturing, and assembly. They remained clueless about the greater task in which they were involved, and were equally unaware of the unimaginable scale on which national resources were secretly being mobilized.
China’s own “Manhattan Project” was officially commissioned in 1955 by Mao Zedong himself. At the time, the US, the Soviet Union, and the UK were the only three countries in the world possessing atomic weapons. While the former Soviet Union had agreed to help China with research, the agreement only lasted for just over a year before all foreign experts were withdrawn—all blueprints, plans, and data destroyed. Led by physicist Qian Sanqiang (钱三强), a group of Chinese scientists from the Modern Physics Research Institute of China Science Academy began to explore the subject on their own with out-of-date data processing tools such as mechanical calculators and abacuses—primitive, even by the standards of the time. To commemorate independence, the project was given the code “Project 596”. It was a reference to the date the former Soviet Union withdrew their experts: June, 1959. In the early years of the PRC, when the nation was still suffering from political unrest and famine, the project was given top priority. The concentrated uranium, a crucial element in building the bomb, involved the efforts of over 20 national departments and 900 factories across the nation. Factory 221 served as the final stop on the assembly line for the first and the next 15 atomic weapons, where they were transported in secrecy to experimental grounds deep in the Gobi desert of Lop Nur.
One of the innermost wastelands on planet Earth, where very little life can thrive, Lop Nur was ideal for the experiment: minimum precipitation, west winds sweeping the area year round, and not a single footprint to be found to the east for 400 kilometers. Finally, at 15:00 on October 16, 1964, China’s first atomic bomb went off. A few hours later, the nation was informed via news broadcast.
For the ordinary soldiers involved, life went on as before—except for the pride and honor they felt at completing such an important task of the nation. When their military service ended, they went back home, telling friends and family that they spent their years growing potatoes in the west. They had been told to take the secrets of that Qinghai plateau to their grave.
Dong Zhiyong is now 78 years old, living peacefully in retirement in Hefei, Anhui Province, along with 500 other veterans from Qinghai—others were settled in Hebei, Shandong, and other provinces. As for Factory 221, it was shut down in the 1980s.
On July 29, 1996, China conducted its last nuclear test and decided to halt such experiments for the foreseeable future. But long forgotten were those who served at Factory 221 and the Lop Nur base. Despite their dedication to the country’s nuclear project, many walked away from it cursed—for the rest of their lives and even for the lives of their descendants. The opening of that nuclear Pandora’s box came at a great cost.
Many of the soldiers who served Project 596 died during their service due to radiation exposure. Those who made it out alive often suffered long-term skin and lung diseases, damage to the immune system, and cancer later in life. Perhaps the cruelest consequence was the effect on the veterans’ offspring who have very high rates—sometimes more than a thousand times higher—of developing leukemia, birth defects, and mental deficiencies. While the Bureau of Civil Affairs provides healthcare for the affected atomic veterans, their children are often left helpless.
In the end, when the country proudly declares its status as being the only nuclear weapon state to give unqualified security assurance to non-nuclear-weapon states, its policy has always been one of deterrence, to never strike first, but, perhaps, the first blow was struck decades ago without anyone noticing: the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people at various posts around the nation who paid for the price for creating these now world-ending weapons—knowingly or not.
China Coast Guard Commission of the Day: 3rd Type 878 Cutter (Type 054A JIANGKAI Class FFG Civilian Variant), 46303
In Guangzhou, the first pair bear the serial number of 46301 and 46302
Photo credit goes to HSH's amian510
The second Type054 hull is sporting the pennant number of 46302.
And why not, since the Type054 is a proven design with 24 hulls already
in service and an extensive record of overseas deployments by the
PLAN. By sharing the common hull with the PLAN, the Coast Guard is
applying the economy-of-scale of the per unit cost in addition to
reductions in logistics support and maintenance costs.
The Coast Guard is also sharing the same hull with Type056 so this is not unprecedented.
Photo credit goes to HSH's amian510
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Additional Coast Guard Type054 and Type056 cutters launched in Guangzhou.
The 76mm autocannon on the first hull is now visible
Two sisters
Sunday, May 29, 2016
China's Coast Guard getting their own Type054 based hull
The Coast Guard is also sharing the same hull with Type056 so this is not unprecedented.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Rare historical photos of the day: Battle of Yijiangshan Islands 63 years ago
This PLA victory over the KMT occurred on January 20th, 1955. The battle was considered a showcase of PRC's modern joint amphibious operation with 182 aircraft, 137 naval vessels, (including more than 70 landing vessels, and more than 40 escort vessels).5000 troops and 30,000 supporting civilians took part.
There is a wiki entry on this battle as well as Kevin McCauley's PLA Yijiangshan Joint Amphibious Operation: Past is Prologue Published (here) Better yet, go check out Xioabing Li's PLA Attacks and Amphibious Operations During the Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954-55 and 1958 in Chinese Warfighting -- The PLA Experience Since 1949 edited by Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt.(here)
There is a wiki entry on this battle as well as Kevin McCauley's PLA Yijiangshan Joint Amphibious Operation: Past is Prologue Published (here) Better yet, go check out Xioabing Li's PLA Attacks and Amphibious Operations During the Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954-55 and 1958 in Chinese Warfighting -- The PLA Experience Since 1949 edited by Mark A. Ryan, David M. Finkelstein, and Michael A. McDevitt.(here)
Huangpu Class FAG (Type 53A) providing naval fire support
Landing craft Dadui, 5th Fleet, Huadong MD
Type066 and Type363A 100-ton landing crafts
Tupolev Tu-2 providing air support
Captured KMT POW
Monday, January 22, 2018
H6G's EW subvariant - is here with the China Naval Aviation
PLA Navy deploys ‘new type of electronic warfare aircraft’
Source
Global Times
Editor
Huang Panyue
Time
2018-01-22
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's South China Sea Fleet deployed a "new type of electronic warfare aircraft" in its recent combat maneuvers, a move to greatly enhance the navy's capabilities in modern warfare to safeguard the country's sea rights, said Chinese military experts.
The new aircraft is the H-6G bomber developed for 10 years with the Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) pods being equipped underneath its wings. It was the first time the bomber played "a supporting role in the electronic warfare," according to Military Time, a China Central Television CCTV military program on Saturday.
The modified H-6G fitted with ECM pods can engage in combat missions using electronic jamming, suppression, and anti-radiation, the program said.
"The main role of the electronic fighters is to obstruct the enemies' electronic jamming devices - for example, radar, to temporarily or permanently, if powerful enough, cover the surveillance devices and to hide our combat platforms' track," Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times.
Song added that "the H-6G electronic warfare aircraft boasts of high electronic jamming power and can cover relatively bigger combat areas such as the South China Sea and East China Sea."
China has developed advanced and standardized ECM pods to modify multiple types of fighter jets for such combat requirements, such as the J-15 type fighter jets. Using the ECM pods in fighters is the most efficient and effective way, Song noted.
China's JH-7 fighter bomber was also seen carrying such ECM pods in previous PLA Air Force military practices, according to CCTV.
China's PLA Navy deploys such EMC pods carrying aircraft together with its warships and other combat vessels for electronic combat missions and to enhance combat capabilities, Song said.
PR photos of the day: PAP, China's other ground force.
It would be unwise to ignore such an important element in any China related war scenario, especally they are now part of the CMC just like their Army counterpart.
From SCMP (here)
As part of the 19th CCP Party Congress deliverables, the CMC is
downsizing fourteen Armed Police Mobile Divisions 武警机动师 to just four
divisions. The PAP is under the command of both the Ministry of Public
Security (Civilian) and the Central Military Commission (Military).
After the downsizing is completed by end of 2018, the four reformed Mobile Divisions will lose all its supporting organizations, keeping only four training academies. Its engineering school, political college, logistics support, Military Police units, Art-and-Entertainment troupes, hospitals and medical units, retirement homes, etc will be merged into Ministry of Public Security HQ or decommissioned altogether. (here) Its existing "Corp Level Grade" will be changed to "Division Level Grade", making it much less powerful within the Chinese bureaucracy.
PAP mobile divisions are not your everyday "police with guns". They were ex-PLA divisions partly transferred to the Ministry of Public Security in 1996 to be deployed regularly to civilian trouble spots within China on short notice. Noticeable examples are the 2009 Xinjiang riot in which a total of 15,000 PAP reinforcements were deployed to that region. They were deployed to Tibet during the 2008 Tibetan unrest.
They were one of the first responders to natural distastes such as the 2008 earthquake. As recent as July 2016, four mobile divisions (~35,000 troops) were deployed to fight the East China flood (here)
From "The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century"
By Dennis J. Blasko, here is a list of 14 PAP mobile divisions and their former PLA division numbers:
The PAP mobile division HQ commands their own organic helicopter units, light artillery and IFV, very much a paramilitary organization. It will be interesting to learn more about their mandate of this smaller PAP organization when it becomes available.
Hey, the 90s called and they want their infantry fire support weapons back. Joking aside, PAP mobile divisions can still operate as light infantry today. Not sure that will be the case after the downsizing -- they could be specializing into an anti-terror centric organization, becoming smaller and more capable of responding to home-grown attacks. This will free up PLA's SpOps units to focus more on war-fighting. Time will tell.
From SCMP (here)
China brings People’s Armed Police under control of top military chiefs. Paramilitary force will answer to body headed by President Xi Jinping
China will bring its paramilitary police force, the People’s Armed Police, under the direct control of the Central Military Commission, which controls the country’s armed forces, state media reported on Wednesday.
The 1.5 million-strong paramilitary police force previously came under a dual command structure of the CMC and the State Council, or cabinet, via the Ministry of Public Security. It serves as a backup for the military in times of war, and domestically has a role in putting down protests and counterterrorism – particularly in areas such as the restive far western Xinjiang region – as well as border defence and firefighting.
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Say goodbye to the 14 Armed Police Mobile Divisions 武警机动师
After the downsizing is completed by end of 2018, the four reformed Mobile Divisions will lose all its supporting organizations, keeping only four training academies. Its engineering school, political college, logistics support, Military Police units, Art-and-Entertainment troupes, hospitals and medical units, retirement homes, etc will be merged into Ministry of Public Security HQ or decommissioned altogether. (here) Its existing "Corp Level Grade" will be changed to "Division Level Grade", making it much less powerful within the Chinese bureaucracy.
PAP mobile divisions are not your everyday "police with guns". They were ex-PLA divisions partly transferred to the Ministry of Public Security in 1996 to be deployed regularly to civilian trouble spots within China on short notice. Noticeable examples are the 2009 Xinjiang riot in which a total of 15,000 PAP reinforcements were deployed to that region. They were deployed to Tibet during the 2008 Tibetan unrest.
They were one of the first responders to natural distastes such as the 2008 earthquake. As recent as July 2016, four mobile divisions (~35,000 troops) were deployed to fight the East China flood (here)
From "The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century"
By Dennis J. Blasko, here is a list of 14 PAP mobile divisions and their former PLA division numbers:
The PAP mobile division HQ commands their own organic helicopter units, light artillery and IFV, very much a paramilitary organization. It will be interesting to learn more about their mandate of this smaller PAP organization when it becomes available.
Hey, the 90s called and they want their infantry fire support weapons back. Joking aside, PAP mobile divisions can still operate as light infantry today. Not sure that will be the case after the downsizing -- they could be specializing into an anti-terror centric organization, becoming smaller and more capable of responding to home-grown attacks. This will free up PLA's SpOps units to focus more on war-fighting. Time will tell.
PAP with Civilian Police (GongAn)
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