So China bought Ekranoplan designs from Russia around 2015.
Ekranoplans hug the sea so they always travel below radar horizon, hard to detect by ships. Not to mention the sun's reflection on the sea surface helps the ship against AEW planes.
Ekranoplans are literally flying so that it is impervious to torpedoes not to mention the wake is so small it won't register on a submarine or a ship's sonar.
China, alongside Russia, is keen on developing freight ekranoplans that carry standardized containers that 'might' carry medical support, a mobile hospital unit, a squad of Special Forces and their assault crafts or a couple of anti ship/ anti surface missiles. It's like the Katyusha of the sea, literally travel from the Spratly base to near Taipei, fire missiles then go back home where there are SAM umbrellas and Taiwan can't fire back.
How game changing is this for China? Reminder that US wants Subic Bay again but with these units around, I doubt America wants to get tangled with the flip flopping flips again.
WiGEs don't like waves. That's why Soviet WiGEs were tested mostly in the Caspian.
Honestly, the worst thing that China could do with them would be to build a bunch and sell them all to Iran.
Juan Flores
>Ekranoplans hug the sea so they always travel below radar horizon, hard to detect by ships >Ships hug the sea so they always travel below radar horizon, hard to detect by ships You see why your conclusion is bullshit? "Flying" Ekranoplans are on the same level of detectability as a ship of the same size. >Not to mention the sun's reflection on the sea surface helps the ship against AEW planes Plain bullshit. By that logic regular ships should be hard to spot too. Fun fact: Go watch a YT Ekranoplan video and see the fuckhuge wake they produce even when no part is touching the water. It's literally visible from space by naval satellites
Luis Morris
Forgot to ad: I personally think Ekranoplans are a moronic idea in the first place. They got all the weight penalty of a plane but are limited to a ceiling high of a few feet. When we are talking about real fast attacking, spamming large missiles etc. modern shipbuilding has come a very long way so you can make ships that have the same capabilities but none of the downsides of the Ekarnoplan concept. They are novelties but nothing more.
Brody Miller
How viable are ekranoplans on rough sea? Wouldn’t they just crash?
Easton Murphy
>Ekranoplans hug the sea so they always travel below radar horizon, hard to detect by ships. Not to mention the sun's reflection on the sea surface helps the ship against AEW planes.
yeah if they paint it on chrome it will literally fry any plane passing by rice my ekranoride
>Ekranoplans are literally flying so that it is impervious to torpedoes not to mention the wake is so small it won't register on a submarine or a ship's sonar.
even if they werent flying the speed alone is enough to shit on torpedoes you think that any ship uses its sonar to detect surface ships?are you mad?
>on developing freight ekranoplans it will never happen civilian and military strategic lift plus anti ship platform is the only thing it can be
>Reminder that US wants Subic Bay thats literally baiting there is a reason why its a small outpost nowdays nobody will ever fucking develop again a big ass navy base there and just see it destroyed by pyroclastic flows and 20 meters of ash
nobody on their right mind will even think on getting there
Ian Ortiz
>WiGEs don't like waves Wouldn't that make them useless for invading Taiwan?
Christian Brown
>you can make ships that have zero hydrodynamic drag Yeah they are called Ekranoplans
Hunter Brooks
>How game changing is this for China? not very
Benjamin Hill
>will not register on sonar Yeah, because jet engines are so whisper quiet >Lun >below horizon This thing is about as tall as a frigate, unless you do some serious stealthiness optimisation, it will be visible on every radar around. Its main advantages are the speed and cargo capacity. Theoretically can fly over shallow water or even land, but generally not such a good idea.
Samuel Gutierrez
Launching ASCMS from ground effect altitude is not a good idea for reasons you should have already figured out.
Kayden Perez
You know the Russians aren't the only one this technology
Aiden Wilson
>the wake is so small it won't register on a submarine or a ship's sonar. user, I don’t know how to tell you this, but... Submarines can hear helicopters on sonar. They’d be able to hear this thing
Caleb Lopez
The entire point of ekranoplans was they could transport a lot of shit pretty fast. It was the military's boner with trying to force them into a combat role that killed the entire project to begin with.
As a cargo plane they're pretty good;however, their difficult to fly, and as far as combat goes have nearly zero options of escape upon detection. It's like suggestions we use C-130s for antiship operations, but tell the pilots they can't change altitude if they're engaged.
Elijah White
>it will be visible on every radar around. This.
Even back during WWII we had radar tech that was good enough to spot German submarines when they surfaced to charge batteries. A sub has a much smaller radar return than an Ekranoplan does. The Germans developed the "snorkel" to try and get around this problem. But it didn't take long before radar was good enough to spot the snorkel itself. That was many decades ago. And now you think for some reason that modern radar can't spot something that's thousands of times that size?
They're up about 20ft iirc. So really rough seas would be pretty hard. I recall reading the pilots had serious fatigue operating them due to constantly having to pay attention to their altitude and the water.
Anthony Rogers
It would be great for the U.S. though. Our quality chink shit would take a day shipping for practically the same cost of what used to be weeks!
Owen Cox
No one really takes ground-effect vehicles seriously for combat roles. They're way too vulnerable and limited. The US put out requests for design proposals back in the mid-90s, but determined they weren't really worth it. Iran supposedly has a GEV patrol vehicle, but pretty much everyone else uses them for sightseeing or commuting.
Brandon Allen
lol the gun thing can't go at a negative degree it's based on
Alexander Flores
Frankly, Soviet-style monster hovercraft would be more useful against Taiwan.
Because Ekranoplanes generate so much lift thanks to the ground effect, it allows them to be built to naval standards rather than aeronautical ones. The Caspian Sea Monster and the Lun were both made out of steel, rather than aluminum. Shooting one with a Gatling gun would have about the same effect as shooting an Arleigh Burke or most modern frigates.
the top one could supposedly fly like a normal plane and was supposed to have vtol capability as well. peak soviet insanity right there.
Jose Carter
Tbf modern computers will most likely massively ease the work needed to maintain plane at certain altitude
Noah Cooper
ekranoplans are some of the fastest and most energy efficient ways to travel. chinks will probably build a fleet of them for transportation. ekranoplan travel will be slower than planes, faster than ships and cheaper than both.
Asher Lee
Yes yes give yuan please we give you very effective technology we use many time yes
