China Flanker Thread III (land based, exclude J-15)

[Heliox]

Most aircraft never even get to "true" combat. Peacetime interactions(including their outflows into real combat) aren't unimportant.

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Here is wast majority of modern air to air combat. Pay attention to vector, range and altitude.

Is the above indicative of an engagement with HOBS and LOAL missile against a peer adversary fighter jet?
My understanding is that the above is from a F-16 engagement of a drone/cruise missile with a AIM-9M?

If the above missile is not capable of HOBS LOAL engagement, then how is this indicative of what a merge with modern WVR missiles will be like?

If the target is not even a peer adversary fighter jet, then how is it indicative of what modern air-to-air combat is?

Unless you wish to say that modern A2A engagements are primarily against drones/cruise missiles ... in which case, even more so maneuverability to get on a boey's six is even less a factor than before?

 

[Gloire_bb]

Is the above indicative of an engagement with HOBS and LOAL missile against a peer adversary fighter jet?
My understanding is that the above is from a F-16 engagement of a drone/cruise missile with a AIM-9M?

It's indicative of actual practice. And especially vector, because it shows that normal offbore targeting struggled to lock the (right) target, and drone is engaged instead using AMRAAM's own seeker in reserve mode (which is directly ahead).

Like, what's the point of waiting for True Daylight battlefleet engagement like Italian navy in ww2, when actual practice was midnight teeth and nails, point blank?

If the target is not even a peer adversary fighter jet, then how is it indicative of what modern air-to-air combat is?

Through practice. One of basic traits of peer long range combat appears that it's indecisive, and decisive action role increasingly gets transferred to those who can.
Threat posed by current AAMs is such that only very unpeer engagements with long range engagements are decisive.
Otherwise, sides exchange blows, maybe lose a few aircraft if they overestimate themselves, and that's it.

Unless you wish to say that modern A2A engagements are primarily against drones/cruise missiles ... in which case, even more so maneuverability to get on a boey's six is even less a factor than before?

You need to take firing position from a vector conductive to successful engagement, against slow target flying very low, often hiding in local terrain, trees, buildings and so on.
One may say, that Ukrainians and Americans aren't using best sensors and seekers possible. Counterargument is that shahed isn't even close to the level of mass produced stealth drone modern dark factory can manage.
Imagine hunting waves of cooled electric jet flying wings with return of around -70dB.
Offbore targeting in this situation will mostly kill local infrastructure rather than targets. Which, by the way, already happened with Dutch F-35 against a foam drone over Poland.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Not necessarily totally cope.

My view is that peacetime intercepts are a really bad read on capabilities. If DACTs are to be taken with a pinch of salt due to lopsided scenarios and asymmetric ROEs, then peacetime intercepts need to taken with a whole bag of salt.

A sub tails a ship for days. A pilot gets to within stone throw distance of a OPFOR plane. A soldier stands nose to nose with the "enemy" across a LOC ... all these scenarios can only possibly occur during peacetime and only because one or more parties are simply told to ease off and not respond/retaliate.

I've been involved in opposed Exercises as light infantry. Just like DACT, even these come with some form of scripting to enable the exercise to achieve set objectives. Soldiers being soldiers, men being men, no one likes to roll over and play dead. So everybody plays fast and loose and pushes the ROE and exercise parameters as far as we can. Sure as night follows days, this builds frustration and ultimately results in actual coming to blows when Blue force comes within clubbing distance of Red forces. Now imagine this where parties are not even on the same side and are armed with live shots. Scary.

Infantry exercise may not be quite the same as air intercepts but you can imagine the potential for an international incident if one side does not back off and both sides does not want to "lose" face/bragging rights.
(though I wouldn't mind a F-35/22 being forced to land on Hainan and being sent back to the US in cut segments, preferably with no loss of life like the P-8 incident)

Ultimately, the ability of of a J-11 to outmaneuver a 5th gen F series means zero given the nature of modern Air-to-Air combat. BVR abilities means you are unlikely to merge. Even if you do merge, HOB LOAL abilities means that WVR combat is also less about getting on someone's six.

I wouldn't read too much into this other than for some internet bragging rights.

We all know that, and PLAAF wouldn’t have centered the doctrine around PL-15/16/17 if it didn’t value it.

I just find it extra funny since a lot of the YouTube pilots love bragging how they’ll be able to shoot down J-36 in dogfight and/or Chinese pilots are no good because they fly conservatively in airshows.

 

[Blitzo]

Through practice. One of basic traits of peer long range combat appears that it's indecisive, and decisive action role increasingly gets transferred to those who can.
Threat posed by current AAMs is such that only very unpeer engagements with long range engagements are decisive.
Otherwise, sides exchange blows, maybe lose a few aircraft if they overestimate themselves, and that's it.

I wouldn't say peer long range combat is indecisive.

We have yet to see what a true peer large scale air war looks like where both sides have the will and the fleet size to suffer casualties in pursuit of strategic objectives.

Arguably the greatest evidence of what a modern peer air war would look like is the PAF-IAF clash earlier this year, and despite the engagement only lasting for less than a night, it was fairly tactically decisive. The only reason it wasn't operationally or strategically decisive is because neither side had the fleet size and the will/rationale to continue putting their aircraft in harm's way of the other side's aircraft, arguably because the initial round of losses was too devastating.

But for a true high intensity conflict where each side wants to gain air superiority and have the resolve and fleet size to push into theater, I expect true large scale peer air war will be devastating and decisive, and it will be determined by the ability to generate high quality sorties capable of out BVR-ing the other side (as the most desirable set of traits inclusive of weapons, sensors, networking, stealth, sufficient kinematics to leverage BVR) en masse, which will prove the highest yield force.


All of which is to say, Heliox is right to say that the these sort of WVR peacetime intercepts and tactical cat and mouse games are not that useful in factoring in the most important ways in which a true large scale peer air war would look... however Siege is also correct in that for the purposes of trying to "dunk" on one side or another, that "WVR/dogfight/cat-mouse game" outcomes is instructive to the common denominator and your pedestrian drive-by person who knows nothing about the PLA.

My question is more why those people's "copes" had to be "dunked" on to begin with.

We all know that, and PLAAF wouldn’t have centered the doctrine around PL-15/16/17 if it didn’t value it.

I just find it extra funny since a lot of the YouTube pilots love bragging how they’ll be able to shoot down J-36 in dogfight and/or Chinese pilots are no good because they fly conservatively in airshows.

I agree with that, but I also feel like even bringing up the matter of said "cope" to "dunk" on them is detrimental to these flagship threads.

I've written many times about why posting those youtube videos and articles or NAFO equivalents is a waste of time for us, because it just ends up mocking their cope and saying why they are stupid for having poor opinions.
Do we really need to reference them when talking about this news, when we all know that PLA pilots have quite good flight hours and are perfectly competent at BFM? IMO actively using effort to avoid/ignore their opinions is more beneficial to us.