Chinese UCAV/CCA/flying wing drones (ISR, A2A, A2G) thread

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
My personal speculation based on decades of PLA watching and wider world watching. PLAAF had every intention to field a strike focused UAV (GJ-11 aka Sharp Sword) and an air to air loyal wingman UAV (Dark Sword) before these two programs even made it to the light of public scrutiny. These two platforms were programs aimed to supplement the 5th generation fighter program as the emerging new tech route back in the early 2000s. All three were developed more or less concurrently (5th gen fighter, ground strike stealth UAV and loyal wingman UAV).

With the absolute explosion of technology in 2010s China, new features and capabilities were possible and added to the list of lets explore if not in the list of must haves. At some point the decision makers had to cap it and go with what's available, leaving the rest of exciting new tech for future generations of warplanes (which we see now). These produced the heavy loyal wingman and heavy strike unmanned platforms with the strike one revealed in 2019. The PLAAF may have never inducted whatever the Dark Sword program produced back then. It's possible this was due to limitations with communication and networking technologies available in that era (early 2010s) and possibly also to await a dedicated drone command fighter platform even if larger aircraft were able to fulfill this role, PLAAF may have preferred pairing loyal wingman with J-20 and the only way to do that to their satisfaction was with the J-20S.

Loyal wingman is not something the USAF has even managed to completely put into service yet. China has officially announced via its MoD that it already has more than 4 heavy "loyal wingman" platforms of various roles in service. The USAF is still exploring and testing a few small to medium sized loyal wingman of various roles. The networking, autonomy and control of these new aircraft can't be an easy problem to master. In this field, well China's computing tech, software tech and AI are all step and step, neck to neck equals to the US. There's just 10x the number of capable engineers in China working for 1/7 the cost. On communication and networking technology, China is far ahead of the US. Ignoring the latest tech development of 6G telecommunication hardware and software ecosystems becoming more realised by China, China beat the US in just about every other communication technology since the middle of the last decade.

The Cambrian explosion of Chinese heavy CCAs that are revealed to already be in service is a product of solving the problems of networking, limited autonomy (where applicable) and control (swarm, strategy, guidance and integrating with machine learning - network autonomy).

What China doesn't show is nearly always more strategically sensitive. If heavy CCAs are in service, small to medium ones of various roles ought not be far behind if behind at all. Drone swarms is nice but range and kinematic performance of small drones is an issue unless it's been solved. Medium CCAs are possibly just not worth it. They're never going to match heavy CCAs in speed, range, payload, electronic equipment and power generation if all factors are equal. PLAAF might have simply not bothered. Attrition is a thing but China will outproduce the US faster and spend less while doing it. China will produce these heavy CCAs faster than the US can produce small swarm drones (and even then the US relies on Chinese components and raw materials to produce their military equipment).

I recall a CCTV program with a PLA higher up mentioning the value of attritable units and how PLA has (has!) reformed from a strategy of applying a dual program strategy with one path developing assymetry against the conventional military might of the US and another in parallel to match the conventional strength of the US military. The assymetry was the mainstay since the 1990s to 2010s. The conventional match has delivered though and has become the mainstay. On the topic of attrition (leading on from that) was how there used to be limits to what PLA can do with funding implying either going to high end performance but low production rate and numbers or focusing on attrition strategy with high units but low performance. That was a thing of the past and the new PLA has both. Both high numbers and production rate paths and equipment covered AND the high end, high performance equipment covered. This was several years ago and the guy seemed on the verge of tears talking with emotion and confidence. This was the era of J-20 production hitting high 10s per year and 055 being relatively new.
 
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mack8

Junior Member
Something i wanted to ask, any sort of idea how many UCAVs such as GJ-11 would be in service by now, and how are they operated, are there independent units or are they attached to PLAAF regiments? Any guesstimate as to production rate? And is there some general info somewhere of how many UAV/UCAV of at least the most important/advanced types (from MALE/HALE to the likes of WZ-8) are in service?
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Something i wanted to ask, any sort of idea how many UCAVs such as GJ-11 would be in service by now, and how are they operated, are there independent units or are they attached to PLAAF regiments? Any guesstimate as to production rate? And is there some general info somewhere of how many UAV/UCAV of at least the most important/advanced types (from MALE/HALE to the likes of WZ-8) are in service?

Details like this wont be revealed until the platforms 2 generations ahead of GJ-11 are operational.

Only in these days do we get drops here and there with that level/detail of information on equipment and doctrine from the era of Type 59, J-7 and original DF-4 missiles. Not a chance GJ-11 numbers, how they operate and what regiments operate them would be revealed in parts until 2040s at the very minimum and this is adjusting for China's geometric rate of progress.
 

Blitzo

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Real and true

Can you avoid making this kind of short, "couple of words" sort of post which doesn't really add anything to a conversation?
It just ends up adding another post to a page, which for this forum only shows ten posts per page, thus taking up unnecessary space.


Something i wanted to ask, any sort of idea how many UCAVs such as GJ-11 would be in service by now, and how are they operated, are there independent units or are they attached to PLAAF regiments? Any guesstimate as to production rate? And is there some general info somewhere of how many UAV/UCAV of at least the most important/advanced types (from MALE/HALE to the likes of WZ-8) are in service?

PLAAF orbat tracking is difficult to begin with especially if it is up to date, and PLA UAV and UCAV tracking is even more difficult, so if you're wanting a good resource, such a resource doesn't exist.
 
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mack8

Junior Member
Details like this wont be revealed until the platforms 2 generations ahead of GJ-11 are operational.

Only in these days do we get drops here and there with that level/detail of information on equipment and doctrine from the era of Type 59, J-7 and original DF-4 missiles. Not a chance GJ-11 numbers, how they operate and what regiments operate them would be revealed in parts until 2040s at the very minimum and this is adjusting for China's geometric rate of progress.

Can you avid making this kind of short, "couple of words" sort of post which doesn't really add anything to a conversation?
It just ends up adding another post to a page, which for this forum only shows ten posts per page, thus taking up unnecessary space.




PLAAF orbat tracking is difficult to begin with especially if it is up to date, and PLA UAV and UCAV tracking is even more difficult, so if you're wanting a good resource, such a resource doesn't exist.
Just after writing the above i recalled Huitong's blog, so i had another look there. Probably the best source immediately available, at least we can have a rough idea about which/when various types are being deployed. I couldn't seem to find any mention of the CH-7 though. I guess the best we can infer for now is that very significant numbers (hundreds?) of HALE/MALE/ISR UAVs are fielded across the 3 main services, alongside numbers of high speed recce UAVs such as WZ-8 (tens?) and probably continuously increasing numbers (tens, possibly heading to hundreds in the fairly immediate future?) of strike UAVs such as GJ-11. This not even including the types unveiled recently (like the at least 5 CCA types) that might be at various stages of testing/induction, and others we might not even know about.
 

Maikeru

Major
Registered Member
Re: GJ-11/21J(?), all I will add is that Hongdu has a new and truly massive facility which surely cannot just be producing JL-10 variants.

Re: CH-7 I'm not sure this will even enter service with PLA, the design is not super-stealthy AFAIK and I'd think PLA would want something either a lot faster or a lot stealthier.
 
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