Newsflash: Italy Bombs the Turks!

The first decade of the Twenty Century saw the birth of the heavier than air machine, or aeroplane, as not only a transport vehicle but also as a military reconnaissance platform. In the years that followed the Wright Brother’s amazing feat at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December 1903; the aircraft evolved from a primitive looking machine, to a more efficient platform. By the end of 1909, advances in aircraft design had fermented a different military vision of the aircraft. Aviation pioneers frequently postulated possible uses for this new dimension of warfare. An obscure Italian Army officer named Giulio Douhet, who today is considered the father of the current strategic bombing concept, wrote in 1909 that: “At present we are fully conscious of the importance of the sea. In the near future, it will be no less vital to achieve the same kind of supremacy on the air”. Prophetic words that hold true today.

In 1910, a series of test were performed that seemed to confirm what Douhet had stated a year before. On the morning of January 19th, United States Army Lieutenant Paul Beck, dropped dummy bombs in the form of sandbags over a remote area of Los Angeles, CA from a rudimentary aircraft flown by Louis Paulhan. On June 30th, American aviation pioneer Glenn H. Curtiss dropped dummy bombs from an altitude of 50′ on a buoy silhouette in Lake Keuka. This exercise was followed on August 20th by another performed by US Army Lieutenant, Jacob E. Fickel, who fired a rifle round at a ground target while flying his aircraft near Sheepshead Bay, NY. These types of experiment made headlines around, not only the US but the rest of the world. They sparked the aviation community to tinker with devices aimed at dropping grenades or bombs from an aircraft. Again, another US Army officer took the lead when Lieutenant Myron Crissy, flying in San Francisco, CA; became the first man to drop a live ordinance from an airplane. All these experiments proved that the dropping of live bombs from an aircraft was feasible, but as it is the case with so many innovative ideas, perception, not reality, carried the early torch for the proponents of massive bombing campaigns.

Bomb dropping had been a constant topic among aviation pioneers and military leaders since early 1910. Even the respected Scientific American magazine ran cover stories about it. They all imagined cities reduced to rubble, fortifications destroyed, entire battle fleets sunk; all by the perceived power of this new dimension of warfare. They failed to notice, that while early test results were promising, they were conducted in a controlled environment. Their attack altitude was no more than three hundred feet. No gun was fired at them and their targets were stationary. Added to this was the fact that by the start of 1909, no armed force in the world possessed an operational airplane. The situation improved in 1910, when around fifty aircraft were operational in the entire world. But by mid 1911, the situation was different. The aircraft was used in combat for the first time. The occasion was a little known colonial dispute that erupted in a larger conflict pitting the Italians against the Ottoman Empire for the control of Libya. The Italians, aware of the fact that they would be fighting in territory the Turks considered a home area and in need of an edge, decided to deploy their infant air component. Their air assets consisted of nine of the early Taube airplanes and two observation balloons. The Taube was the brainchild of a brilliant Austrian engineer named Igo Etrich. The Taube, meaning Dove in German, was an all wooden, canvas covered aircraft. It had a fuselage length of 33′-5″ and a height of 10′-5″. Its wingspan covered 45.8 sq ft. Its air-form frame allowed the aircraft to become nearly invisible to the people on the ground when it flew at altitudes above 1,200′. The plane was powered by a primitive piston engine that gave it a top speed of just under 60 mph. Controlling the Taube was a relative easy task by those day’s standards. Control in flight was achieved by warping or twisting the wings and tail, very similar to what the Wright Brothers did with their Flyer airplane. The first Taube prototype flew in early July 1910, and by late that year, the German company Rumpler bought the license to manufacture the aircraft. The aircraft went on to serve in the Great War. One sample even flew over the French capital in late September 1914 dropping propaganda leaflets. On the Eastern Front, the Taube played an important role in the Battle of Tannenberg, providing German commanders with accurate information regarding the Russian army movements and troop dispositions. Badly outclassed when the War began, by early 1915, the plane was delegated to training duties. But in November, 1911; the Taube was destined to make history. On the early hours of November 1st, 1911, a lone Taube aircraft took-off from a desert strip en route to the main Turkish line. At the controls was Italian Army Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti. Passing at around three to four hundred feet, Gavotti made a fleeting impression on the Turks just below. After two passes, the Italian pilot commenced what we now call a bomb run. Once in position, Gavotti proceeded to drop four 4.5lb Cipelli grenades. He literally pulled their pins out with his teeth before lobbing them out of the plane’s rudimentary cockpit.

Aviator Lt. Gavotti Throws Bomb on Enemy Camp. Terrorized Turks Scatter upon Unexpected Celestial Assault was the headline on all the wire services. A tremendous exaggeration to put it mildly. But an exaggeration that would in the future hold true. The astonish Turks response to the world’s first aerial raid was even more exaggerated. They claimed that the Italian’s bombs had hit a civilian hospital outside the contested area and that the damage had caused “great lost of life”. A fact that was vigorously denied by the Italian government. A post-conflict inquiry found that an artillery shell was the culprit for the hospital’s damage and that no civilian or military personnel were injured in the attack. In the aftermath of the raid, with both sides claiming major damages resulting from the use of this new kind of “indiscriminate” attack, outside observers were brought in by the governments of Great Britain, France, Germany, Imperial Russia, and even the United States. After carefully analyzing the data collected, many of them subscribed to the idea that the raid was less positive than originally reported. Many of the Italian grenades failed to detonate at all, the ones that did exploded harmlessly over the vast desert sand. But the most significant find was that of the attitude of the Turks to the raid. Contrary to common belief, the Turks had not been scared by the small Italian raid. On the other hand, when the first Italian Taube appeared in the sky, Turkish ground forces tried to zero in on it with their machine guns. A tactic they had perfected while targeting the slow moving Italian balloons that flew once in a while over the battlefield.

Again, the reality was different from perception, and once again, perception gathered the biggest press. Time and time again, newspapers across Europe would report the exploits of this obscure Italian army officer and proclaimed the death of the navy and army, while ascending the aircraft to almost mythical levels.

References:

1 Air Power, Stephen Budiansky, Penguin Books 2004
2 World War I, HP Willmott, Covent Gardens Books 2003
3 The Myth of The Great War: A New Military History of WW I, John Mosier, Perennial 2001
4 The Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft, Edt Paul Eden, Amber Books 2007

- Raul Colon

Four Aircraft that Changed
the way Mail was Delivered

Once upon a time, the world moved at a slower pace than it does today. No mass media, no 24-7 news channels, and no next-day mail delivery service were available. But with the advent of the aircraft as a functional operational machine, the world changed completely in an instant. In the past, mail was delivered on horses, trains, boats and even primitive automobiles and/or four-wheeled trucks, these methods of delivery took days, weeks or even months in some instances; but with the invention and development of the airplane, mail delivery reached a new dimension. Thus the airplane had a direct effect on how people could communicate throughout great expanses of territory. They shortened, not the distance between sender and receiver, but the time the mail took from getting from the originating party to the end user. In the course of the early aircraft-supplied mail delivery system, four very distinct aircraft stood out from the pack. These four represented the epitome of air cargo delivery in an age of constant development and improvements.

In the spring of 1911, an early sample of the Wiseman-Cooke airplane was the first flying machine to deliver mail in the United States, when pilot and aviation pioneer Fred Wiseman carried a pack of letters from Petaluma to Santa Rosa in California. The complete eighteen-and-a-half mile trip was covered by Wiseman in two full days. Many mechanical difficulties, common on those early flying machines, delayed his trip. When he was airborne, the Wiseman-Cooke plane could only muster speeds just short of seventy mile per hour. Slightly built and very similar in airframe construction to the famous Wright Brother’s Flyer, the Cooke was powered by a Hall-Scott V8 engine modified to give the 670 lbs airframe enough speed to clear the ground. The next generation of mail delivery airplanes instituted a big move forward with the inception of the Curtiss JN-4, also called the Jenny. The Jenny was an advanced version of an early Curtiss JN model used mainly as a training aircraft during the Great War by the British Royal Flying Corps. Introduced in mid 1915, the JN-4 had a fuselage of 27′-4″ in length with a height of 9′-10.5″. Total wing area for the Jenny was 352 sq ft. A Curtiss designed OX5 in-line piston engine, capable of generating nearly seventy miles per hour, powered the JN-4. After the War ended in August 1918, the United States Postal Office adopted the Jenny as it’s first official air mail carrier plane. But the Jenny’s relatively small operational range, (it could operate only about one hundred and seventy five miles without refueling and maintenance); made it ill-suited for long-range mail delivery. It also did not help that the Jenny’s payload capacity was only three hundred pounds. Soon after its incorporation into the US Mail System, the Jenny was retired from front line service in less than a year.

When the US Postal Service bought the JN-4s, they also acquired a small group of de Havilland DH-4 airplanes from the US Army Signal Corp supply depot. The Airco, (or de Havilland), DH-4 was a two-seater daylight medium bomber produced in Great Britain. The DH-4 had an airframe 30′-8″ in length and a height of 10′-5″. When in combat, the DH-4 was armed with a single 7.7 mm Vickers machine gun mounted on the front of the cockpit, and another Vickers gun placed in the back of the fuselage for defensive cover – features removed for civilian operations. The DH-4 could carry up to 460 lbs of bombs internally, making the cargo payload a more manageable one. The plane was powered by one Roll-Royce Eagle VIII Vee piston engine capable of providing the aircraft with top speeds of just under 143 mph. The de Havilland’s operational range was an improvement over the other aircraft examples utilized by the Postal Service; it could operate at a range of 435 miles without any stops. As soon as they arrived, and after re-fitting, the DH-4 entered front-line service with the Postal Office. This plane was exactly what the mail service was looking for. It could carry a relatively large payload for long distances. But, as with all of the aircraft of the time, it fell victim to the newer, improved and less expensive aircraft coming along.

These two above mentioned aircraft represented a leap forward in aviation design. They were basically a tubular frame covered by sheets of canvas. The first departure from this design concept adopted by the Service was an impressive, albeit, dangerous one. The first US Postal Service all-metal aircraft was Germany’s Junkers JL-6 plane. First developed for military use in March 1917; the aircraft never saw significant combat in the Great War. A civilian version was introduced in the spring of 1919. It were to be the world’s first all metal monoplane use to ferry civilian passengers, doing so from the mid 1920 onward. But the JL-6 was a flawed design. Its electrical wire system was not properly insulated causing the plane to catch fire on mid-air. Many attempts were made to correct the problem, and all were unsuccessful, this fact lead the Postal Service to retire the JL-6 from front line service in the summer of 1921.

Today, the United States Postal Service utilized the latest commercial aircraft available and the best that technology can offer, this with the sole purpose of providing the customer with the best delivery capability the Service can offer. But in pioneer days of aviation, the Service needed to adapt promptly to new technology, new operational system, and by trial and error; they did. These four distinct planes, each of one served the Service in its own capability, proved that the aircraft was indeed, a practical and affordable mean of mail transportation, and on those days, this was a leap forward.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Fad to Fundamewntal: Airmail in America
Wiseman-Cooke

Early Development of the United States
Defensive Missile System

As the tactical integration of the continental defenses in the United States in the later stages of World War II evolved, the airplane emerged as the main offensive weapon platform. It had demonstrated that its strategic advantage was un-rivalled at the time. The airplane, especially the bomber, was capable of delivering a heavy bomb payload to far and away locations with devastating effects. This concept was proven over the skies of Spain during that country’s civil war and then over the first two years of World War II. But the action that really made the bomber a weapon of fear was the bombing of Dresden, a major German city, in the later part of the war. The city’s destruction in just one day is widely recognized as the starting point for the development of the strategic annihilation of a city-wide target. As these developments were taking place overseas, the United States began to develop and deploy Interceptor Commands Units all around their coastal areas in late 1941. These units were a combination of two major assets that were to be re-arranged in order to provide a more reliable anti-aircraft system. The first, were the attachment of units of Army Air Forces to Interceptor Command and their deployment near major coastal cities in America. Also, on March 1942, the United States Army constituted the Army Anti-aircraft Command (AA). The newly created command would have control over all Costal Artillery Anti-aircraft Army Units as well as that of the Army’s Interceptor Commands. During the next months, the United States Army developed more advanced anti-aircraft weapon systems. At this time, rockets were staring to appear as accepted weapon systems. Radar, developed in Britain before the war, was rapidly becoming a serious method of detecting and tracking incoming targets. When the war ended in Japan on August 1945, the United States had over 331 active AAs battalions world-wide, with around 246,000 troops at their disposal.

On June 1945, Bell Labs, acting on a request from the Army, commenced the development the first integrated defensive missile system. The Army’s first surface-to-air missile system program was based on an internal Army memo suggesting that the United States must not waste any more time in the development, and ultimately, deployment of an advanced radio-controlled anti-aircraft rocket system that could protect major cities in America against bombing from the air. The new program was code-named Project Nike, after the winged goddess in the Greek mythology. Three months later, with the surrender of Imperial Japan, the U.S. Army started its massive de-mobilization. Most of the active AA units in Europe and the Far East were de-activated and shipped home along with their equipment, the same holds true for the AA battalions in Continental America. The majority of them were de-activated within weeks of the armistice. But the situation would change dramatically in three years. By 1948, the Cold War had broken out in Europe – countries on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain were engulfed by the Soviet Union, and a new age of terror had arrived. America began a prompt process of re-arming and re-organizing its coastal defenses and the U.S. Army re-started its missile development programs that had been shutdown after the war. At the beginning it was anticipated by high ranking officials in the newly created United States Air Force, that high flying interceptor fighters would be the main layer of defense against massive Soviet bomber formations and first generation Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) coming inbound from Soviet mainland bases. U.S. Air Force Strategic bombers as well as the Navy carrier-based attack planes would also participate in the defense of the continent, but it was clear early on, that a new mechanism for dealing with the bomber and, more importantly, with the offensive ballistic missile, was needed. A missile defense system that could replace the outmoded conventional Anti-Aircraft-Artillery guns was imperative to the defense of America. The three services, Navy, Army and the Air Force, revamped their respective missile development programs with the idea of fielding a continent-wide defense missile platform as quickly as possible. In the end, the Navy dropped out of the running, but the Air Force and the Army would fight for the next two decades over control of the missile systems and its funding. A fight that would make a possible deployment of a workable defense missile system a long and tedious process. The main responsibility for the defense of the United States against bomber attacks was assumed by the Air Force in the early 1950s. The Air Force went on to develop the Defense in Depth Strategy that would form the backbone of the U.S. Cold War continental defenses. The new strategy called for the use of high-frequency early warning radar stations along with ‘ready for take-off’ interceptor fighters and long-range anti-aircraft missiles positioned around the perimeter of the U.S. If this defense system was breached by a Soviet force, the U.S. Army would activate its own batteries of anti-aircraft missile systems located around key U.S. industrial and military sites.

In the mid 1960s, the United Stated Air Force was ready to deploy its first advance surface-to-air missile defense system, the Bomarc. The Bomarc was to have a 440 mile range of operation, but constant problems with their guided system limited the deployment of the system from nation-wide, integrated system to a more regional basis. On the other hand, the U.S. Army had fielded its own missile defense system since 1953, the Nike. The initially deployed surface-to-air Nike system used the Nike-Ajax liquid fueled missile with an operational range of thirty miles as it’s main interceptor asset. By the late 1958, there were over two hundred Nike missile batteries in the U.S., primarily defending nuclear research facilities and depots. On December of 1958, the Army began the process of supplanting its Nike-Ajax missile with the more advance Nike-Hercules. The Hercules was a leap forward in the development of a surface-to-air missile. It was propelled by solid-fuel which gave the missile an operational range in excess of seventy five miles. The Hercules was also the first interceptor missile with a nuclear warhead capability. About one hundred Nike sites were upgraded with the Hercules. Of these facilities, around fifty were redeployed to defend the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command bomber bases. The Air Command was the United States primary source for massive nuclear retaliation after a Soviet attack. The key component of the Nike system was an advanced early-warning radar. The U.S. Defense Department was committed from the beginning to building a series of interlocking radar stations that would allow the Army to monitor the perimeter and selected interior parts of the North American continent. The goal of the system was to provide the Air Force and Army with up to five hours of warning to respond in case of a Soviet bomber attack. The U.S. Air Force took the lead in the design, development and deployment of radar systems. The first significant anti-aircraft radar platform was the LASH-Up system. It was designed by the Air Force to cover America’s costal centers and major nuclear production facilities. In 1949, LASH-Up radar stations numbered just seven, but by the end of 1951, the system grew to fifty stations. The LASH-Up system was eventually replaced by the PERMANENT system, which was to number seventy-four radar locations by mid 1952. The U.S. early warning radar system was supplemented by the thirty four stations of the PINETREE LINE system located across the vast Canadian territory, which in theory could provide the Air Force with two additional hours of warning in a case of a surprise attack.

In the summer of 1957, the U.S. Department of Defense approved the production of its more ambitious early detection radar system, the Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar line and the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air defense control system. The DEW consisted of a series of radar stations fifty miles part, stretching along the northern boundary of the North American continent, several miles north of the Artic Circle. In 1962, the system was upgraded to include an imaginary line from Midway Island to Scotland. The DEW radar line was the outmost line of early warning and it was assisted by the Mid-Canadian Line, the PINETREE Line, the PERMANENT radar system and the Gap Filler Radar System. By the mid 1960s, the U.S. Navy had joined the club with its ship and air-borne radar picket units. With all of these layers of protection, America was still susceptible to one weapon platform, the intercontinental ballistic missile. The SAGE system incorporated the latest in computer technology to support the estimated fifty Air Force Combat Direction Centers it was schedule to defend. The Combat Direction Center was the predecessor of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD. Its main function was to coordinate all aspects – radar, sensors, the interceptor aircraft squadrons and the anti-aircraft missile batteries – of the continental air defense system. SAGE became partial operational in 1958 and was fully deployable in early 1961. Each of the massive 275 ton SAGE tracking and targeting computers were housed in four-story windowless buildings. Because of their immense size and the fact that they needed to be located above ground, they were extremely vulnerable to any air attack. Still, SAGE was the first truly integrated tactical command system in the United States. It linked the Air Force’s Air Defense, Tactical Air and Strategic Command with the Army Air Defense Command and ARADCOM’s Nike missile system. This capability gave NORAD the necessary resources to detect and track and inbound aircraft coming to the North American continent.

- Raul Colon

More information:
wikipedia: Bomarc Missile
The Pinetree Line
SAGE Air Defense

A Brief Look at China’s
Current Military Capabilities

In the past few years, The People’s Republic of China’s growing military capability has attracted a great deal of interest, but major details regarding China’s near-future military strength have been hard to combine. At this very moment, China is spending massive amounts of financial resources in order to improve its overall military capability. This spike of budgetary expenses by China is setup in the background of the country’s need to upgrade its low-tech armed forces. At this time, reports have placed the number of deployable nuclear weapons China possesses at four hundred. Of these, around twenty are deployed in the Intercontinental ballistic missile configuration. Nearly two hundred and twenty are reported to be deployed in various delivery platforms such as aircraft, submarines and short-to-medium range missile systems. All of these weapons are of tactical capability. The remainder weapons are held in tactical reserves for short range missiles, low yield attacks and demolition purposes. The Central Military Commission, headed by the Chinese President, is the sole administrator of the country’s nuclear arsenal. China’s current Intercontinental ballistic missile force of twenty units is mainly used as a deterrence force. The main component of the system is the Dong-Feng 5 liquid-fuelled missile, with an estimated range of 13,000 km and can carry a single use, multi-megaton warhead. The Dong-Feng 5 was first deployed in the summer of 1981 and has remained the backbone of China’s ICBM force for the past two decades. Twenty frontline Feng 5′s are believed to be stationed in full alert somewhere in Central China. The Feng 5 was a drastic change from the early versions of China’s ballistic missiles. Those early missiles were mainly stored in caves and were rolled-out for launch. The Feng 5 can be launched from vertical silos after just a few hours of the order being received by their launch crews. The Feng 5 operational range gave China the ability to launch a small nuclear attack against most of Europe, Asia and some parts of the United States, mainly the southeast part of the country. Today, two additional missile platforms are deployed or being tested for possible deployment by China. They are the medium range DF 31′s, which entered first-line operation in 2005, and its long range variant, the DF 31A, formerly called the DF-41; which is expected to be fielded by late 2010. Both missiles are going to be propelled by solid fuel cells and based on mobile launchers. China is expected to attempt producing a multiple re-entry vehicle (MVRs) for their new missile systems. An attempt to produce the more technical challenge multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) is underway.

China also deploys intermediate range ballistic missiles and medium range ballistic missile systems. These weapon platforms are capable of threatening the security of many countries in Asia, including India, but its effects on the overall strategic security of Russia are minimal. China’s intermediate missile systems are also capable of hitting targets on Japan’s coastal cities and United States base stations in South Korea and Japan. The oldest missile platform deployed by China is the near stationary DF 3A missile system. This missile platform is being phased-out in favor of the more modern DF 4 and DF 21 systems. The DF 4, with a maximum operating range of 4,750 km, is still the backbone of China’s regional deterrence force. The DF 4 is a liquid fueled system that operates mainly now out of fixed launch sites. With the deployment of the DF 21 in 1986, China’s regional ballistic missile capabilities increased twofold. The operational DF 21 has an estimated range of 1,800km and is carried in mobile launchers for security reasons. The DF 21 is also the base of China’s sea-launch ballistic missile systems. The older, liquid fueled missiles can carry a single nuclear warhead of an estimate 3.3mt yield. The newest missiles also carry a single warhead with maximum yields in the hundreds kilotons range. China also possesses a limited number of short-range ballistic missile batteries. The DF 11/M 11, with an operational range of 300km, and the DF 15/M 9, with a range of 600km, are the backbone of China’s tactical force. Is believed that most of this missile platforms are configured to carry only a small nuclear or conventional warhead.

China’s bomber force is based on the local production of Russian made aircraft first deployed in the 1950s. With the overdue retirement of the Ilyushin IL-28 bomber from front-line, nuclear delivery role, the Tu-16 Badger assumes the role of a medium range, nuclear strike bomber. Being a product of the 1950s technology, the Tu-16 could only carry two or three nuclear bombs over a range of 1,5,00 to 3,100km. China is believed to have over 130 of these vintage planes in operational conditions. The Chinese Navy also operated the Tu-16 in a reserve role primarily. Although the Chinese Air Force possesses a great number of other possible nuclear carrying aircraft, such as the venerable MiG-21, the Russian supplied Su-27, and the newly designed JH-7s; they are not believed to be used for such a role. The Chinese Air Force also has a large inventory of strike and fighter aircraft at their disposal. It is estimated that by 2004 China has a total aircraft inventory of around 4,200 operational aircraft of many types. This inventory includes all the variants of the J-6 or MiG-19 fighter, J-7 or MiG-21, Su-27, IL-28 and Tu 16 bombers. Of these aircraft, the vast majority entered service with the Chinese air force before 1970. The tactical airlift aspect of the air force is at a diminishing capability. Over the last two decades, Chinese leaders have stressed the development of a localized aerospace industry sector capable of designing and developing advanced avionics needed for military aircraft. Despite the investment of large amounts of budgetary and human resources, the Chinese had not shown the ability to promptly design, develop and mass produce an indigenous combat aircraft. The recently revealed J-7, and the J-8, both of which took so long in their developmental stages that by the time they were ready to enter front-line services they were already obsolete by Western standards, showed China the need for more investment in financial and human resources as well as the training of experienced technicians to work in all aspects of the technical design of a combat aircraft. The same holds true of the most vaunted of China’s aircraft developments, the J-10.

China is not alone in this area, other countries had tried in the past to design and mass-produce indigenous aircraft systems, most notable Israel, South Africa, India, Taiwan and south Korea; all abandoned their programs in favor of purchasing existing and proved aircraft types from the five largest weapons producers: the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France and Germany. The main reason is the fact that the economic resources needed, not only to design a generation-leaping aircraft, but to be mass produced for local consume, are so massive that developing countries with a small industrial base simply can not afford to spend the necessary resources for a long period of time. This also holds true of large economies with a small gross national product output such as Russia, which is lagging far behind the Western countries in military technology designs. As a direct result of their failure to establish a permanent industrial base capable of producing front-line aircraft, China has renewed its imports of combat airplanes from Russia.

China also had the distinction of having one of the largest conventional military force in the world. The shear mass of numbers is enough to make a potential enemy think twice about provoking China. The truth is that, although the numbers of weapons are impressive, most of China’s military hardware is obsolete, both physically and technologically. Most of the weapon platforms utilized by China today, entered service in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and still serve the country in front-line units. Although the systems varied in age of development and deployment, the technologies used to create them are sorely based on Soviet blueprints of the 1950s. As a result, while older systems are being phased-out, the overall size of China’s conventional weapon force would be reducing. As of late 2001, estimates reported the size of China’s military force as 2.5 men under arms, of which, roughly 1.8 serve the People’s Liberation Army (China’s ground forces). They are divided into 27 military districts through the country. Within these districts lie 20 army groups, each containing around 60,000 men. They are subdivided into 44 infantry, 5 artillery, and 10 armored divisions. There are also brigade-sized groups in these army units. There are also three airborne divisions under the direct command of the Chinese Air Force. The reserve units are mostly compromised of infantry, artillery and anti-aircraft divisions. These forces are estimated to be composed of 1.1 million personnel. There are also the People of China Para-military units. The Armed Police, Border Defense Force and the Forces of the Ministry of Defense compromise a large sector in China’s strategic reserves. They counted a total of forty four divisions. These reserve formations are expected to increase in size as China moves forward with its major modernization and re-organization plans that emphasize the movement of active troop formations to the strategic reserve roles. The Army’s equipment is also being phased-out as new models were introduced to the force. China’s main battle tank platform, the Soviet designed T-54/55, also a product of the 1950s technologies, is no longer the main tank platform. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, China designed, with Soviet cooperation, and produced various tanks systems, but although their designs were more recently than that of the T-54, its overall capabilities are about the same. All of this changed in the summer of 1988, when China unveiled its newest battle tank, the Type 80. The 80 represents China’s first attempt at breaking with Soviet design concepts for a battle tank. The 80 had a formidable set of systems, some of them are: fire and control computerized? system, a laser range finder, a gun control system and night fighting capability. This tank breakthrough was followed by the Type 85, introduced in the mid 1990s as follow-up development of the 80. China’s latest main battle tank system, the massive T-90II, first revealed in 1991, is still not completely operational with the PLA. This new tank resembles in more than one way, the mainstay of Russian tank formations, and the T-72 heavy tank. China also possesses a force of around 2,100 light tanks, which as it is with much of their weapon systems, are based on Soviets designs from the 1950s. It is estimated that China’s tank strength is between 9,000 to 11,000 units. This number is deceiving; the majority of tanks in China’s front-line services are systems with over forty years of service life. Most of them could not function properly and a great number of them could not function at all. The most interesting part of the situation is that China, which, like the former Soviet Union, tends to value numbers more than any other matters, thus service maintenance of existing systems is poor. The same maintenance problem applies to the new weapons platform entering service today. Thus a major gap exists today in main battle tank design between China and the Western countries, the Chinese are in the processes of designing a new tank system that could compare with that of the Europeans; also they would like to emphasize quality over quantity. With these developments and the expected reduction in its tank force, China expects to be able to support its main battle tank systems with more efficiency in the future.

For most of its history, the People’s Army Liberation Navy submarine fleet has consisted of a small number of coastal vessels. The mainstay of their coastal fleet was the domestic produced version of Russia’s Romeo class submarine. It’s estimated that between 20 to 30 Romeos are still operational with the PALN. In the early 1970s, China decided to start a submarine development and production program aimed to build a local submarine in five years. It succeeded; the first indigenous submarine developed by China is the Ming Class. Although they are not better than the Romeos, they do represent China’s first attempt at self-sufficiency in designing weapon platforms. The next Chinese submarine class, the Song, entered service with the PALN in late 1999. In addition to these subs, China has purchased or is in the process of acquiring, more samples of the Russian-made Kilo Class submarines. In the nuclear-powered submarine field, China’s first attempt to produce a local system produced disappointing results for the PALN. The Han Class first entered service in 1974. Major power plant problems plagued the lead ship of this class. So much so, that the next commissioning of a Han Class sub was not made until mid 1980. China is also believed to be developing, with considerable assistance from Russia, a follow-on nuclear attack submarine, very similar to the Russian’s Victor III Class. China’s SSBN force consists of the Xia Class submarine, which is fitted to launch twelve Ju Lang-1 missiles with a single warhead of 200-300kt and an operational range of 1,700km. In part to its technical difficulties, the Xia Class is never deployed beyond regional waters. The newer submarine class, codename Type 094, would have better reactors and a quieter signature than its predecessors. This new class would be able to deploy 16 JL-2 missile, each capable of carrying up to six nuclear warheads. China’s surface fleet has been growing in size since the 1970s. The Chinese posses a number of Soviet-build Sovremenny destroyers as its main surface fleet weapon platform. They are equipped to carry the advanced SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic, anti-shipping missile system. The Chinese are also building its own class of destroyers, the Luhai Class which displaces 6,000 tons. The lead ship of this class entered service in late 1999. The largest class of destroyers China operates is the Luda Class. China operates about sixteen of these ships. The remaining force is compromised of 37 frigates. As in the case of destroyers, China’s frigate force is mostly used as an air-defense force. China’s amphibious assault fleet is the Achilles heels of the PALN. China possessed around 49 amphibious assault vessels with full displacement of 1,000 tons. Many of these vessels are vintage WW II systems. Most of them, being United States Navy’s LST used in assaults around the South Pacific. China is planning to deploy an aircraft carrier. They are looking at buying a platform, most likely from Russia. The carrier probably needs to be conventional on take-off and landing aircraft since China does not posses vertical, short take-off and landing aircraft capability. Since China would probably would like to supply the air wings of the carrier with its J-10 fighters and Su-27 fighter-bombers, they would probably would need a carrier platform that could displace around 50,000 tons, which would put China in the need to acquire a carrier like the Russian Kuznetsov or the French Charles de Gaulle. China’s need to acquire a carrier capability is probably more for internal promotion that to actually being a first attempt by them to deploy a Blue Water navy.

The small size of China’s amphibious fleet excludes the Chinese of taking control of Taiwan by means of an amphibious assault. In the past, Chinese leaders had threatened to take action against Taiwan if the island, which China considered a renegade province, decided to declare its independence. The reality is that even if China decided to use force, it lacked the necessary military resources needed to complete the operation. An amphibious assault, which is the only mean China could take control of Taiwan’s territory, is out of the equation. First, China can only transport one armored division across the Straits, and even this would be hard to accomplish. Second, any amphibious landing would need complete control over the skies in the Strait, which the Chinese air force probably could not accomplish. Finally, both Taiwan and the United States could see the signs of pending military offensive months before the actual event. What China could do is to attack Taiwan with a barrage of missiles, the DF 15 and the DF 11. These missile systems are not accurate enough to destroy strategic targets such as airfields, radar stations and transport facilities; their only use would be as terror weapons, such as the V-2 or the Scud. If they are not fitted with nuclear warheads, the damage they could cause would be similar to a natural disaster. China also possesses a limited number of these missiles and any missile siege would be limited in duration. A naval blockade of the island is possible, but due to the strong U.S. statement regarding any attack on Taiwan and the notion of a powerful U.S. fleet coming to relive the besieged island, China would be hard pressed to perform any naval operation in the area.

The reality is that China is investing massive amounts of money to modernize its armed forces, but the current force structure is so old, that the rate of retirement will surpass the rate of acquisition in all major weapon platform systems. This fact means that China overall military force would decrease in size. Aircraft, missile systems and ground combat systems would decrease in numbers, the only possible exception could be China’s surface ship fleet. Also, the modernization process is slow due to the massive investment needed to accomplish it. China is also adding a small number of new technology weapon systems to its overall arsenal. New weapon platforms are purchased in small quantities, which can not dramatically alter the balance of power. China current acquisitions of Russian systems are not as impressive as they might look. Those systems are not comparable to the ones fielded by the United States or Japan. The main problem of China’s militarization might be their inability to produce a continuous indigenous weapon industry to produce next-generation military technology. Which could be used on their existing or newest systems? The recent reversal of policy from the Chinese government, from developing its own weapon systems to purchasing systems, mainly from Russia and Israel; has left the government in Peking without control over the military they so desperately desire. For the foreseeable future, China’s potential military action, mainly against Taiwan, is limited, let alone branching out of the regional setting they are now. Overall, the balance of power in East Asia would remain the same for the next decade.

1 John W. Lewis and Hua di, China’s Ballistic Missile Programs: Technologies, Strategies, Goals, International Security, Original: July 1997 – Updated December 2006.
2 Jeffrey Lewis, The Ambiguous Arsenal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, May-June 2003.
3 Bill Gertz, China Advances Missile Program, Washington Times, June 22, 2005.
4 NTI and The Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, China Profile: Nuclear Capabilities, Nuclear Treaty Initiative, Fall 2003.

- Raul Colon

Japan’s World War II Tailless Aircraft

During the early days of World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army’s Air Forces had minimal interest in the development of a tailless configuration airplane. This dramatically contrasted with the view held by their main ally, Nazi Germany, who had experimented with tailless aircraft for several years. The lack of effort by the Japanese Navy, the one service viewed by most observers as the forerunner in military aviation in Japan, did not imply that the Army would follow them. Indeed, the Army quickly started a crash design program in late 1939. Because of the lateness of their start, the Japanese Army top brass knew that they needed to set up a program that could achieve in a short time, and with a dwindling financial resource base, maximum results.

The HK1 with a rudder but no tailplane. (photo, via author)

Efforts by the Imperial Japanese Army concentrated on the glider designs of the Kayaba Works Corporation, as well as the Mitsubishi Company’s tailless aircraft designs, which copied the German Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket fighter concept. The Kayaba designs were first conceived to collect data on tailless airplane configurations. Many designs were submitted by engineers inside Kayaba and outside consultants. The most promising design program was the HK1. The HK1 was the brainchild of a brilliant, albeit, obscure Japanese engineer, Dr. Hidemasa Kimura. He based his design on the concept of Kumazo Hino, the pioneer aviator who was the first person in Japan to fly a plane – performing the feat in the spring of 1910. Initial tests on the HK1 design were promising and lead the Japanese Army to sponsor an aircraft concept program – the first step in establishing a development and production program for a military aircraft. Working closely with Kayaba’s Chief Developing Designer, Dr. Shigeki Naito, Kimura designed and constructed a tailless test model aircraft. The model, designated the KU2, was extensively tested between early November 1940 and May 1941.

The KU2 with wingtip rudders. (photo, via author)

After the test phase of the KU2 was over, Dr. Kimura, with the assistance of another brilliant Japanese engineer, Joji Washimi, began to work on a more advance design in the spring of 1941: the KU3 was born. The KU3 was a two-system experimental model, it had no vertical control surfaces and the edges of its wings were cranked, incorporating sections of different angles of sweepback. The KU3 had three-control surfaces arrayed along the trailing edge of each wing. The KU3 made 65 test flights before the only built model crash landed in late 1941.

The KU3, showing it’s cranked wing. (photo, via author)

Kimura wasn’t done with tailless aircraft. He took the data recollected on the KU3 program and used it to built the first Japanese powered tailless aircraft, the KU4. At this moment time was running out for Japan and Kayaba had not shown sufficient concrete results to merit further investment of resources. Japan’s limited resources were needed in other areas. The tide of war had turned against the Empire. The KU4 program was terminated by the Army as soon as the drawings were on the table. This marked the end of any official Japanese-funded research on a tailless aircraft design. Then in 1944, the appearance of America’s massive B-29 bombers in the skies over Japan’s Home Island changed the equation. The Japanese Army, now with the complete support of the Navy, re-started the tailless aircraft program. The need for a high flying interceptor plane to take out the B-29s became imperative. The Army knew time was running out, and so turned to the Germans for help. They knew that any aircraft development program would take years to produce a serviceable plane, and in the case of a radical design such as a tailless aircraft, the development process could take at least a decade. With this situation on their minds, the Japanese Navy leadership decided that the only route available to them was to copy the only successfully operational tailless design program in the world, Germany’s Me 163 Komet rocket fighter. The Mitsubishi Company, using German supplied Me 163 Operational Manuals as well as a Walter HWK 109-509 rocket engine, was selected for the job of interpreting the data given by the Germans. They promptly went to work on a design for the new tailless airplane. In a matter of only months, thanks to the assistance of German engineers, Mitsubishi produced a test version of what they thought would be the next great Japanese plane. The J8M-1 Shusui (Swinging Sword) was unveiled in late December 1944. Mitsubishi built first a glider version for data collection purposes. It first took to the air around mid January 1945 and was subsequently placed in full prototype production mode. Two prototypes models were designated for the two services, the previously mentioned J8M-1 for the Navy and the Army’s Ki-200.

Two MXY-8 training gliders. (photo, via author)

Pilots started taxi-run practices with the J8M-1 gliders at Kashima Air Base in the spring of 1945. Rigorous testing and practice runs were made at Kashima by Navy pilots in preparation for the day when the Walter rocket engines would be fitted on the J8M-1 and the aircraft could take-off under their own power. The first powered J8M-1, fitted with the Walter engine, first took to the air on the morning of June 7th, 1945. A catastrophic engine failure shortly after takeoff resulted in a massive crash and subsequent explosion. The test pilot was killed instantly. This crash and the end of the war just two months after, spelled the end of the minimal Japanese attempt of acquiring a tailless fighter. The J8M-1 never entered assembly line production status, and the next generation Ki-202 advanced fighter never made it off the drawing board. When the Allies entered Japan in August 1945, they discovered, to their relief, a crude tailless program, a program that was doomed before it could takeoff.

- Raul Colon

More information:
wikipedia: Kayaba tailless gliders
The Mitsubishi J8M Shusui
wikipedia: Mitsubishi J8M