J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII

[latenlazy]

The J-20s will be performing distant offensive counter-air missions, so they can benefit from the additional range/performance of the WS-15 (27%? additional thrust). With that sort of difference, they should have designed the earlier J-20s to accommodate the WS-15.

And it just makes sense to replace the WS-10s early, so they still have enough service life to be used on a CCA which doesn't need to fly very often. Using a brand-new engine on a CCA is inefficient, as the engine will have a way longer lifespan than the CCA.

WS-10C2s were probably developed with WS-10C upgrades in mind. Don’t think the non A variant J-20s are getting WS-15s.

 

[plawolf]

That's too much, we know by early 2025 most if not all CAC production were J-20A hence it is likely J-20 production winded down sometime during 2024.

500 would be reasonable for total J-20/A/S count but J-20 likely only numbers in the low 400s or high 300s.

You honestly think CAC finally got to the ‘final form’ J20 and got annual production numbers up to triple digits just to built J20A for one year at that rate and then you expect them to just pull the plug on J20 production? Then what are they going to do? Kick rocks until J36 is ready for mass production?

Far more reasonable to estimate the number of years from now until LRIP for J36 and that’s how many hundred more J20As we are likely to see produced. There might be a ramp down in the proceeding year or two for retooling and retraining, but don’t try to shoehorn a number you think would be reasonable based on past trends. We are in uncharted waters and China is in effective war prep. Past peacetime procurement models are irrelevant these days.

 

[Gloire_bb]

The J-20s will be performing distant offensive counter-air missions, so they can benefit from the additional range/performance of the WS-15 (27%? additional thrust). With that sort of difference, they should have designed the earlier J-20s to accommodate the WS-15.

Not very obvious how additional thrust will help with range.
Tbh, I think all 4 respective subvariants will remain what they are.
Streamlining via upgrades may not be worth it with production line this powerful. Instead, older batches can go into reserve.

 

[SinoAmericanCW]

You honestly think CAC finally got to the ‘final form’ J20 and got annual production numbers up to triple digits just to built J20A for one year at that rate and then you expect them to just pull the plug on J20 production? Then what are they going to do? Kick rocks until J36 is ready for mass production?

Far more reasonable to estimate the number of years from now until LRIP for J36 and that’s how many hundred more J20As we are likely to see produced. There might be a ramp down in the proceeding year or two for retooling and retraining, but don’t try to shoehorn a number you think would be reasonable based on past trends. We are in uncharted waters and China is in effective war prep. Past peacetime procurement models are irrelevant these days.

I'm quite sure he means that *vanilla* J-20 production winded down in 2024, not that CAC is ending overall J-20 production.

 

[tamsen_ikard]

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"Eighteen air brigades are confirmed to have now received the aircraft, with each brigade typically fielding 28 fighters, for a total of 504 fighters. A further 40-60 fighters are estimated to be allocated for training operations. Deliveries to new air brigades are often only confirmed months or years after they occur, meaning that the figure could be closer to or over 600 fighters"


600 j-20 have been produced according to this article and 500 j-16.

 

[Blitzo]

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"Eighteen air brigades are confirmed to have now received the aircraft, with each brigade typically fielding 28 fighters, for a total of 504 fighters. A further 40-60 fighters are estimated to be allocated for training operations. Deliveries to new air brigades are often only confirmed months or years after they occur, meaning that the figure could be closer to or over 600 fighters"


600 j-20 have been produced according to this article and 500 j-16.

The number of J-20 family aircraft and J-16 family aircraft is not too far off (though the underlying premises made are not really consistent with our knowledge).

The problem is that military watch magazine is trash tier and draw upon things that we already know about -- in some cases it literally takes information that people on SDF have said (or written elsewhere, like Twitter), which then gets repeated by others and then "cited" by the likes of military watch magazine.

In short, outlets like this do not add anything, and shouldn't be treated as some sort of new insightful information or any sort of corroborating evidence for things that we already knew about.

 

[Deino]

The number of J-20 family aircraft and J-16 family aircraft is not too far off (though the underlying premises made are not really consistent with our knowledge).

The problem is that military watch magazine is trash tier and draw upon things that we already know about -- in some cases it literally takes information that people on SDF have said (or written elsewhere, like Twitter), which then gets repeated by others and then "cited" by the likes of military watch magazine.

In short, outlets like this do not add anything, and shouldn't be treated as some sort of new insightful information or any sort of corroborating evidence for things that we already knew about.

Well, I would say it's just BS... No one confirmed 18 Air Brigade and everyone knows it's „only“ 14!

And that's how the problem begins, things are inflated, simply lied, which then have to be discussed or clarified at length in the end.

It's just annoying.

 

[Blitzo]

Well, I would say it's just BS... No one confirmed 18 Air Brigade and everyone knows it's „only“ 14!

And that's how the problem begins, things are inflated, simply lied, which then have to be discussed or clarified at length in the end.

It's just annoying.

I suspect they based it on the idea that 172, 176 and 177 were also "equipped with J-20" and assumed they were full frontline brigades, adding on those to the 14 known, and then ultimately just miscounted the total (instead of 17, they thought it was 18).

I don't think there's even a need to dignify it by saying "it's just BS" --- just state that military watch magazine is not a useful outlet and should be actively ignored, and that our existing consensus for the total number of J-20/A/S remains similar and unchanged.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Extrapolating from this, if 500 is reasonable for total J-20/A/S of which 400 is J-20 vanilla, then there are 100 airframes of J-20A/S.

Given how J-20A WS-15 was only spotted flying out of CAC in 2026 and its currently mid-2026, then there should have been roughly 1 year production run (2025-2026) of J-20A/S WS-10C2. So we're looking at <100 airframes (probably ~66) of J-20A/S WS-10C2.

I know these are all very speculative "back of the envelope" calculations, but it should at least give us something to work with.

Does anyone know roughly how many vanilla J-20 AF-31F (+AF-31FM2?) airframes there were? This would be the LRIP batches from ~2016 to ~2020 before the full transition to WS-10C and full-rate production happened.

There are under 36 AL-31 J-20 if I recall correctly. Dingxin got them first and the only dedicated combat unit with them is Wuhu.