Aircraft
China Heads Out To Sea
China’s Y-8, pictured here equipped with an airborne warning and control system, is being offered as a maritime patrol platform. The reworked airframe features a long magnetic anomaly detector boom and a weapons bay for anti-ship missiles.
China’s Y-8, pictured here equipped with an airborne warning and control system, is being offered as a maritime patrol platform. The reworked airframe features a long magnetic anomaly detector boom and a weapons bay for anti-ship missiles.

Since the late 1980s China has aggressively pursued a policy of modernizing its defense industries, with the aim of rivaling those of the West and Russia. Now the results of that policy are reaching the front line, allowing China’s forces to transition from a Cold War inventory that was dominated by huge quantities of unsophisticated equipment to a leaner force equipped with systems that are smarter and more competitive with those fielded by the West.

Loading…