
China’s Giant Spy Drone Just Tailed a U.S. Navy Cruiser - jbegley
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china%E2%80%99s-giant-spy-drone-just-tailed-us-navy-cruiser-69881
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ajross
Worth pointing out that, as purely an exercise in military hardware
intelligence, the Navy surely learned far more about China's fancy new drone
than the People's Liberation Army did about the capabilities of a 30 year old
missile cruiser.

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branchan
Maybe China WANTED the US to know about their drone technology.

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ajross
What China WANTED was a press hit like this, making them look big and
important on the world stage. There was no need for surveillance here at all.
They knew exactly what that cruiser was doing, the whole point of that naval
mission was, after all, to say "Hey China! These waters aren't yours! Look at
our giant cruiser sailing around with impunity!".

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codyb
The only reason that might be true is if no one read the article (so,
depressingly plausible).

Quotes like “ The US has hundreds of comm satellites... China only has
dozens... hampers ability to stream high quality imagery... or even control
the uav

...a total of seven Xhialong have been seen at three sites...

China only recently deployed their Xhialong’s, while the US has had Global
Hawks in air since the 1990s

The Pentagon employs tens of thousands of UAV operators, it will take China a
long time to catch up

China has trouble producing military grade engines for helicopters, planes,
uavs... “

Didn’t really paint a great picture of China’s military capabilities to me.
And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

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krageon
It is of course always in the best interest of a country to make it seem as if
its military is much better organised and more well-equipped than its
adversaries. In other words, I'd take such statements with a grain of salt.

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mabbo
If one sets aside the issue of Taiwanese independence and whether China does
or does not control the straight of Taiwan (a large thing, sure), nothing
about this seems terribly surprising or aggressive on China's part.

The US sent a Navy cruiser through water China claims is theirs. China flew a
drone to keep watch. If it had been the other way around, the US would have
done the same, no doubt.

It's all games to look and sound very important and powerful.

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petre
As a matter of fact China and Russia did send a joint air mission a week ago,
which violated disputed South Korean/Japanese airspace which Seoul controls.
Of course Russia claimed it was passing through international airspace and
Japan blamed SK for taking action.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-russia-
aircraf...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-russia-
aircraft/first-russian-chinese-air-patrol-in-asia-pacific-draws-shots-from-
south-korea-idUSKCN1UI072)

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nindalf
> Japan blamed SK for taking action.

According to the article you linked Japan blamed China and Russia, not SK

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petre
"Separately, Japan, which said it had also scrambled fighter aircraft to
intercept the Russian and Chinese planes, lodged a complaint with both South
Korea and Russia over the incident, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga
said."

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openasocket
I have a question about the political purposes of some of these responses. The
article notes that China sortied J-11 multiple times. But the J-11 (which is
just a licensed Su-27) doesn't carry anti-ship missiles, or even laser-guided
bombs. Why use that aircraft against a cruiser? I suppose it would be a threat
to the Seahawks, but in a real conflict the cruiser would be more than capable
of defending them. I mean I get that this isn't a real military conflict so
that doesn't matter, but is that communicating some sort of message? Maybe
that the PLA isn't able to produce lots of ASuW sorties on demand, or maybe
the PLA is trying to demonstrate they aren't really concerned about a cruiser?
I feel like the actions in these sorts of maneuvers speak volumes, but I'm
just not able to pick up the meaning.

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22c
The J-11 sorties seemed to be mainly concerned with making sure the Seahawks
stayed on their side of the fence.

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neom
Pictures / more details on the drone (2016): [https://www.popsci.com/soar-
eagle-chinas-coolest-looking-dro...](https://www.popsci.com/soar-eagle-chinas-
coolest-looking-drone-enters-production/)

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yay_cloud2
Jarring to see pics of such an advanced-looking drone being pulled around the
tarmac by what looks like a berry picker truck.

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nexuist
That's part of the charm. You can probably pull this thing by hand, no special
hardware required. That means, with enough fuel, it can take to the skies from
almost anywhere on the globe, as opposed to fighter jets that generally
require modern infrastructure to be combat ready.

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thekid314
Interesting article, but the comments are a special kind of ignorant.

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avs733
This website has been popping up all over my recommends in the last six
months. The articles do just enough work to not seem clickbaity but they
really are. They are barely researched, overly long, repetitive,
fearmongering, and really not complete. But they are heavily disseminated via
recommends. And given the content - Exactly the type of article to generate
bad comments.

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tropo
Look at the wings.

Somebody finally did it, a low swept wing connected to a high forward-swept
wing. In this case the connection isn't quite at the tips, with the forward-
swept wing being smaller, so it isn't quite the same as a rhombic closed wing.
The forward-swept wing is a little bit like part of a tail.

This was more expected on aircraft with highly variable center of gravity,
such as passenger and cargo planes. It's seen on some concept plane sketches
from Boeing. Putting these wings on a drone is a little odd. We can wonder if
there are internal bays that sometimes contain reconfigurable heavy things,
such as surveillance equipment or bombs.

The choice may be just to experiment with the concept. Perhaps it helps with
short takeoff.

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walrus01
Building something functionally equivalent to a Global Hawk doesn't seem like
a huge technological stretch, or a surprise, considering the global hawk first
flew in I think 2001 or 2002.

Eventually all jet turbine powered HALE (high altitude, long endurance) fixed
wing platforms tend to converge on a similar type of design.

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drinane
Looks like a clone of those CIA birds

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branchan
Looks like a copy of the NG global hawk.

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BubRoss
If it is a spy drone, why is it giant?

