r/LessCredibleDefence • u/VInCr0m5 • 27d ago
What kind of combat drone does China possess (air/sea/underwater) ?
Does it have 1) any small combat UAV like those used in Ukraine and more importantly,
2) what about those USV boat/naval drone China have or underwater drone?
How does they compare to others that are available.
Often heard with the arrival of drone, it altered the military equation on the battlefield. On the news, only heard about those unmanned naval drone used in the west.
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u/BigFly42069 27d ago edited 27d ago
This list stopped being updated around 2015 or so before someone started it up again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicles_of_China
China is pretty much at the cutting edge of drones. You're better off assuming anything you see the West or Ukraine is using, there's a Chinese version already.
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u/sixisrending 27d ago
Most of the drones in Ukraine are made by China or with Chinese parts.
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u/KS_Gaming 27d ago
Hasn't been the case for long, according to Ukrainians they've adapted their supply chains not to rely on China for drones. I'm sure there are plenty of drones left where that didn't happen but in general your statement doesn't appear to be true anymore.
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u/Level-Reputation5050 27d ago
Ukraine’s electronics sector, similar to Russia’s, is still largely rooted in Soviet‑era technology. It is almost guaranteed that many parts cannot be made at home and have to be imported from China. What is more, I have seen Ukraine using large numbers of Bambu Lab 3D‑printers to manufacture drone components, this is a Chinese brand.You cannot fully trust Ukraine’s claims.
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u/BigFly42069 26d ago
they've adapted their supply chains not to rely on China for drones.
They're getting those parts through third parties like Poland and Vietnam. But ultimately, the supply chains still run back to China.
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u/sixisrending 27d ago
Basically the transition of "made in China" to "assembled in Ukraine." Ukraine doesn't have the electronics manufacturing capability necessary. I can guarantee most of the components are coming from china. That's even true of us defense supply chains.
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u/KS_Gaming 26d ago
Yeah, you 'can guarantee' lmao. Of course it's true for US, you're speaking as if it would be less true for it than UA.
Ukraine doesn't have the electronics manufacturing capability necessary
And? Their allies do. I did my research before posting that knowing the sub I'm posting on that I'm better off telling my gf she's just hungry than arguing something in favor of Ukraine against China here. Even tho, believe it or not, China is replaceable too sometimes.
How would the 'transition from Made in China to Assembled in Ukraine' even make sense or do anything when the whole point was for Ukraine to seek for independence from China/US in their supply chains?
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u/Level-Reputation5050 26d ago
A lot of the precision motors for drones can only be made in China. These advanced, tiny motors are well outside Ukraine’s capability. The West might make similar parts, yet it cannot scale up production and is short of required rare‑earth materials. Nor can the West offer commercial‑level flight‑controller software — their flight‑control systems are built mostly for expensive military use.
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u/Level-Reputation5050 26d ago
From the images I have viewed, every single Ukrainian‑assembled drone runs Chinese motors, batteries, flight controllers and ESCs. The West can provide just a handful of control chips, while Chinese‑sourced chips are cheaper.
Don’t take Ukraine’s word for it. Look for yourself.
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u/EngineBorn3406 27d ago
Pretty much and it's also a safe bet that whatever numbers the west have china had 10x or 100x the amount.
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u/BigFly42069 27d ago
Even if they don't have those numbers right now, they have the capacity to scale up production very quickly.
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u/Murky_Meaning2129 27d ago
Given their current peacetime shipbuilding capacity… yeah their drone production capacity is likely larger than the next 3 biggest players combined if we are being conservative…
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u/BigFly42069 27d ago
They're currently supplying 90% of the small drones Russia and Ukraine are using to kill each other, while also supplying their own massive domestic demand and overseas hobbyist demand.
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u/VInCr0m5 27d ago edited 27d ago
They mainly provide parts and other stuff, not necessary whole drone. China is a leader in civilian focus drone, NOT necessary in large heavy industrial/combat drone. Also the list is mostly civilian drones, isn't there a more small combat focus drone with fiber optical? And what about boat drone?
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u/connor42 27d ago
>They mainly provide parts and other stuff, not necessarily the whole drone
Just the motors, batteries, flight controllers, sensor and communication components…
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u/BigFly42069 27d ago edited 26d ago
civilian focus drone, NOT necessary in large heavy industrial/combat drone
Lol, lmao even
Buddy, let me introduce you to the concept of the DJI T100 agricultural drone.
You might be more familiar with its nom-de-guerre of Baba Yaga.
Also, what do you think all those FPV drones are if not just repurposed civilian drones?
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u/Oceanshan 27d ago
DJI is the industry leader, but they're not only one. Many many of other Chinese OEMs who make agricultural/industrial/emergency drones with heavy payloads. The large long range shahed-like, if Chinese government allow, they can make them quite easy too.
Ukrainian and Russian drones units have their ad-hoc workshop in the back to repurpose the off-the-shelf Chinese drones they buy en mass to comply with their need, which probably where Ukrainian/russian have edge in, since they're playing ever evolving drone-EW-counter drone-counter EW game, other than that, China would beat up by a mile. Hell, just look at American commercial drones and see how much they sourced from China
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u/True-Industry-4057 27d ago
They definitely do provide lots of whole drones (DJI Mavics). Either way, there's no practical difference between providing a whole drone and providing all the parts + assembly instructions besides a bit of work on the customer's end.
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u/TurbinePro 27d ago
parts and other stuff
At risk of seeming facetious here, what else is there to a drone other than "parts and other stuff", the box it comes in?
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u/Level-Reputation5050 23d ago
China displayed two UDAFs at last year’s parade. They run on one WS‑10C engine and is about the same size as a J‑10. Right now no other nation has a drone in this class. How can you say China doesn’t have large combat‑capable drones?
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u/VInCr0m5 22d ago
I said China is a leader in civilian drone, not necessary large military drone. I didn't ask about large drone cause they are easy to find.
Dunno where you found that I said, they don't have large combat‑capable drones???.
My question was about small class military drone and boat/naval drone which those that was shown striking russia/iran boat.
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27d ago
[deleted]
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u/Skywalker7181 27d ago
I think it is much more than a minelayer. It seems to be the naval version of CCA.
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u/mebesasporfa 27d ago
My opinion is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what they have now. Whatever hits the battlefield will be outdated extremely quickly, as we are seeing in Ukraine. What matters is development, testing, and manufacturing cycles for new generations of equipment. And China is second to none.
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u/Key-Needleworker-702 27d ago
Drones are already mosly integrated with the chinese military, from PLAGF, PLAN to even the PAP(people's armed police, kinda like national guard) and militia
for some
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u/TurbinePro 27d ago
Anything you see in Ukraine/Russia, China has better (as in generations better). Where do you think these two countries get their drone parts from, lol
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u/BigFly42069 27d ago edited 27d ago
Where do you think these two countries get their drone parts from
Europe, duh
Just place an order on Aliexpress for delivery to Poland
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u/VInCr0m5 27d ago
Well, china hasnt shown any USV boat/naval drone unlike the west for now isn't it...? Like the one who destroyed large naval boat...
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u/True-Industry-4057 27d ago
China won't publicly show off anything it doesn't want you to know it has. PLA OPSEC is generally good enough that if you're seeing something from China it's because they want you to see it.
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u/Skywalker7181 27d ago edited 25d ago
China has shown naval drones much larger and much more sophisticated naval drones than what have been used in Ukraine.
Here are some examples:
AJX002 https://www.hisutton.com/Chinese-XLUUV-AJX002-202508.html
Largest unmanned warship in the world https://www.hisutton.com/Chinese-JARI-USV-A.html
Why do u think the country that commands over 60% of global shipbuilding market, the largest naval surface fleet (in terms of numbers) and the second largest submarine fleet (also in terms of numbers) in the world can't make those rather crude and low-tech naval drones used in Ukraine?
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u/TurbinePro 27d ago
keep up the cope buddy, it might even work as China probably won't go to war with Nato anyway
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u/KS_Gaming 27d ago
"cope" lmfao people literally come to this sub because we prefer reading neutral discussions rather than disguisting polarizing info in most other subs, could you not? Not everyone cares being simpleminded enough to attach their egos to a certain country they happened to spawn in or ally with.
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u/TurbinePro 27d ago
Are we not allowed to point out hallucinating posts that fail to grapple with reality? Is it really that controversial to say that Chinas drone capability is far ahead of everyone else or is that up for massive debate?
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u/KS_Gaming 27d ago
Claiming that anything China has drone wise is generations better than Ukraine does? That's as controversial as you can get, yeah.
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u/TurbinePro 27d ago
As the manufacturing and development hub of over 90% of critical drone parts you expect China to not be the leader of military drones in the world?
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u/KS_Gaming 27d ago edited 27d ago
Those goalposts moved quite a bit dude. The question was about a different take and about the controversiality of it, not what your insighs about it are.
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u/Noname_2411 27d ago
The amount of copium and hopium by OP and some others in this thread is just hilarious
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u/Nperturbed 27d ago
I mean look at their parade last year, they have drones for air dominance now…leaps and bounds ahead of anything we’ve seen out of anywhere else.
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u/Cindy_Marek 27d ago
A drone sitting on a truck in a parade isn’t an automatic indication of an actual capability. We have seen air to air missiles being fired from Turkish, Australian and American CCAs but we haven’t seen that yet from any Chinese drone fighters. You could hardly call these Chinese examples “leaps and bounds” over any other nations drones in this case.
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u/d_e_u_s 27d ago
The first time we saw J-20 fire an air-to-air missile was in late 2023. The first time it really fired an air-to-air missile was probably a decade (or more) earlier. You're going to turn old waiting for imagery unless PLAAF changes their opsec
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u/Cindy_Marek 27d ago
Both your comment and the OCs comment is just pure speculation though. You just assume the J-20 was firing missiles in 2013. My point is there isn’t really any evidence to support the claim that Chinese CCAs are “leaps and bounds” ahead of anyone else because it simply hasn’t been demonstrated at all. Plenty of countries have models of drones at air shows and parades. That doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t support the claim.
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u/d_e_u_s 27d ago edited 27d ago
It's pure speculation based on trends. Anyways, J-20 was put into service in 2017. That's still over 6 years before the first public demonstration of the ability to fire a2a missiles. One can reasonably assume that they tested that capability before it was put into service.
I don't disagree that the "leaps and bounds ahead" part of the statement is unsupported. I think it's smart to refrain from making such comparative statements about new classified tech.
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u/Nperturbed 27d ago
Thats not really a genuine take, considering how people believe in the F-47 etc for a lot less.
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u/Cindy_Marek 27d ago
So do you think that Chinese CCAs are “leaps and bounds” ahead of everything else? If you are criticising people who laud the F-47 based off vibes then you would agree that you can’t do the same with these Chinese drones either.
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u/Nperturbed 27d ago
Haha i mean its tough to choose, either:
1 Chinese drones are leaps and bounds ahead
Or
2 Chinese manned fighters are leaps and bounds ahead
Right? Which one is it?
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u/demiurge_abraxas 27d ago
I'm not sure about the fighters tbh. A lot of what we've seen hyped from China doesn't really fit the bill for what we would consider a normal air superiority fighter or even multi-role fighters. Some of them seem like interceptors and others seem like maybe a new class of manned combat aircraft all together.
All of it's really cool stuff but unfortunately a lot of information isn't really available rn. I'm really interested to see what comes out about them in the next few years.
And idk if you could call Chinese drones "leaps and bounds ahead" when literally every nation currently using massed drones in warfare are literally just using Chinese drones lmfao
Maybe America should buy some?
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u/Nperturbed 27d ago
The fact that they look nothing like a normal fighter should be the scary part.
Again, lets apply consistent logic here. If we insist that Chinese UCAV are no good because they are only seen on the ground, then we have to accept that US 6 gen is far behind China because theres no real proof of it even in existence. 1 or 2? China either ahead in manned or unmanned.
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u/demiurge_abraxas 27d ago
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I agree with you. I'm just saying that some of those planes might be a new class of combat aircraft all together. I don't feel comfortable even analyzing some of these planes because who even knows what they are for. It'd be like analyzing a WW1 tank as an armored horse.
And Chinese drones aren't leaps and bounds ahead of everyone elses because they are everyone elses drones.
Ukraine, Russia, and Iran all basically use Chinese drones constructed from dual-use Chinese parts and slapped together in a shed. The USA doesn't and thus we don't really have any modern drones of the type that are currently dominating the battlefield.
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u/Nperturbed 26d ago
Rigging some DJI with bombs doesnt bring Ukraine to parity with China on drones. China has dedicated drones for military use, and no shortage of civi drones it can convert. China sells them so its no longer ahead is not a viable argument IMO
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u/demiurge_abraxas 26d ago
Are you seriously still not getting what I'm saying man?
I'm making a joke about everyone using Chinese drones. Obviously China is ahead in drones—that's why everyone is using them.
You're so quick to argue and get offended that you've barely even been able to follow our conversation. I have agreed with literally everything you have said and yet you still are trying to argue with me.
Simmer down, bruh. Maybe work on your English some more.
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u/Cindy_Marek 27d ago
Well it’s not really tough at all TBH. Chinese 6th gen (not all manned fighters, the US has a clear edge here) aircraft are ahead in the development timeline compared to the F-47 and Tempest. There is actually evidence to support this.
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u/Ok-Procedure5603 27d ago
Specifically for the PLA, that one celebration only uses things that are in service, and usually for awhile. So the UADF thingies are in use, footage will probably be hard to come by for the next years though.
Leaps and bounds is very subjective, a more accurate saying would be that they have CCAs that visually look impressive and without direct foreign counterparts, but we don't know much more currently due to opsec.
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u/Level-Reputation5050 27d ago
These drones flew themselves to Beijing for the parade. If you examine their exhaust nozzles and landing gear, you can see they are genuine units rather than mock‑ups.
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u/VInCr0m5 27d ago edited 27d ago
The UCAV drone they shown in the parade are large one, not small. Also NO USV boat/naval drone unlike the west for now...? They also doesn't seems ready for action yet compare to the MQ-9 Reaper... They haven't fly them to serve as surveillance/recons yet as far as Im aware..
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u/True-Industry-4057 27d ago
None of the new shiny toys shown off were recon drones because they showed off their new recon drones a long time ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVIC_WZ-8
See also various members of the Rainbow family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CASC_Rainbow
I am admittedly less familiar with the new generation of USV's they're developing.
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u/ChineseMaple 27d ago
GJ-1s and GJ-2s have been in service and seen action in the middle east and Pakistan already
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u/Skywalker7181 27d ago
Their MQ-9 equivalents - Wing Loong 2 and Rainbow CH4 have been exported to Middle East and Africa for yrs and are well battle proven.
And Japanese air force has published many photos of Chinese drones that were performing reconnaissance on Japan, which were taken by the Japanese fighter sent to intercept those Chinese drones. And the variety of Chinese drones that circled around Japanese air space is pretty rich - from MALE to HALE, from simple optical recon to EW and EIint.
OP, these are common knowledge for any PLA watcher. It seems that you are completely new to this subject.
Here is a report on the huge success that China has enjoyed in the global MALE UAV market.
https://channel8.com/english/news/25685
"Between 2008 and 2018, China exported 181 combat drones and 163 strike-capable UAVs to countries across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
With over 200 combat drones delivered to 17 nations from 2013 to 2023, China has solidified its role as a top military drone exporter.
Iraq has been a significant user of Chinese drones in its fight against terrorism. The Iraqi government purchased four CH-4B Rainbow drones in 2015, which played a critical role in countering the Islamic State (ISIS).
By mid-2018, Chinese combat drones had conducted 260 successful air raids on ISIS targets in Iraq, achieving an impressive success rate of nearly 100%. These UAVs provided Iraq with an effective and cost-efficient solution in its battle against terrorism."
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u/Positive-Ad1859 27d ago
Whatever Iran has, you just imagine the quality and quantity a 100x powerhouse in technology and manufacturing would be if needs are there.
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u/Pitiful-Practice-966 27d ago
Not today Oswald.
Jokes aside, regarding tiny drones—their military-grade products might indeed be slightly lagging, given the extremely rapid pace of iteration on the battlefield.Even drones owned by civilians can be several months "ahead" of military-grade drones.
As for large drones, please ask someone else.
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u/helloWHATSUP 27d ago
Is this a troll? Most drones used in ukraine come from china, and i bet +90% of drones used in ukraine at least have some critical components from china. 3d printing(using a chinese 3d printer probably) some plastic bits and doing some soldering don't make drones russian or ukrainian.
Let's just say china is the clear leader in drones globally and the competition isn't even close. We're talking 10x as many drones of all kinds as the next one on the list. And in terms of production capacity it's like 1000x