China to acquire Backfires?

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 18:02:07 GMT, Thomas J. Paladino Jr. wrote:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ina/tu-22m.htm

Two part question; first, do you think that China will actually succeed in
it's acquisition attempts regarding the Backfire, and if so, how many would
they end up with?

I guess they'd be expecting to buy about 10-30. If not, they could
always use a Flanker derivative as a long-range bomber.

Second, what does this mean to the the US? Backfires are a viable threat to
the carrier group, and with the F-14/Phoenix weapons systems getting phased
out with no real comparable replacement,

They could always use the Meteor, if NIH considerations don't
prevent that.

Although there is basically no chance for the F-14 to be brought back to
life, should we now possibly be concerned with developing a new long-range
missile system for the F-18 and JSF, or do these aircraft already have the
capability to defeat the long-range bomber using stealth and smaller, medium
range weapons?

A long range missile makes more sense for the F/A-18 than for the
F-35, because it will be big. This isn't an issue with the F/A-18,
becasue that carries weapons externally. But the F-35 uses an
internal weapons bay, for stealthing; giving it external missiles
would remove its stealth and make it more vulnerable. It may be that
lack of stealth isn't a problem for some missions the F-35 may have
to perform, but it think we can expect that a long-range missile
isn't going to be a routine part of its armament (as it probably
will for the European delta-canard fighters).

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