Future PLAAF fleet procurement and composition

[lcloo]

I am sure by the time US and China tensions reach high enough levels that War seems imminent, US will vastly increase its budget to not only produce spare parts for those aging fighters, but it could also bring vast number of decommissioned F-16, F-15 out of the bone yards. That's another reserve of fighters that US has that China doesn't have.

War between US and China will be a war of productions, budgets, state capacities, political resilience. US has a huge reserve of former fighter pilots, civil pilots and 4th gen planes that are in storage. China will need to massively out produce US for many years to catch up to those numbers

China does not have to fight a fighter jet with another fighter jet, or deploy a pilot against another pilot. SAMs downed more fighter jets than AAMs. Classic example is Vietnam War.

China can make more missiles in shorter time than the number of recommissioned fighter jets from boneyards. Also bear in mind China's present aircraft production is at peace time rate, while US is producing at a rate that is much closer to war time rate.

Military budget of China is small as a percentage of its GDP at present. If US will to increase its military budget because of tension with China, and if China in return will to match it with the same GDP percentage for military, their fighter jet roll out rates will be several fold higher than current rates.

 

[gelgoog]

You really cannot compare the manufacture rate of a single engine aircraft like the F-35 with the F-22 or the J-20.
Which is why I think until a Chinese single engine stealth aircraft comes into service we won't see Chinese fighter aircraft come close to those US production numbers. Already the Russians decided to make their own single engine aircraft. And given the size of territory they have the twin engine aircraft makes more sense. The single engine in Russia's case only makes sense in case of confrontation with NATO near European Russia. In China's case they have little military opposition in the sparse interior areas of the country and the shape of the country means you need less range in the first place. The twin engine is less necessary for air defense of Chinese airspace but more for power projection into the first island chain and beyond.

 

[davidau]

You really cannot compare the manufacture rate of a single engine aircraft like the F-35 with the F-22 or the J-20.
Which is why I think until a Chinese single engine stealth aircraft comes into service we won't see Chinese fighter aircraft come close to those US production numbers. Already the Russians decided to make their own single engine aircraft. And given the size of territory they have the twin engine aircraft makes more sense. The single engine in Russia's case only makes sense in case of confrontation with NATO near European Russia. In China's case they have little military opposition in the sparse interior areas of the country and the shape of the country means you need less range in the first place. The twin engine is less necessary for air defense of Chinese airspace but more for power projection into the first island chain and beyond.

I believe a twin engined fighter provides a safety factor compared with a single engine fighter, although it weights more. Cost/benefit analysis is required.

 

[gongolongo]

China does not have to fight a fighter jet with another fighter jet, or deploy a pilot against another pilot. SAMs downed more fighter jets than AAMs. Classic example is Vietnam War.

China can make more missiles in shorter time than the number of recommissioned fighter jets from boneyards. Also bear in mind China's present aircraft production is at peace time rate, while US is producing at a rate that is much closer to war time rate.

Military budget of China is small as a percentage of its GDP at present. If US will to increase its military budget because of tension with China, and if China in return will to match it with the same GDP percentage for military, their fighter jet roll out rates will be several fold higher than current rates.

Vietnam War was a long time ago though.

 

[tphuang]

You will never see a single engine fighter jet for plaaf again in my opinion. It sounds like they find even fc31 to be too small.

 

[siegecrossbow]

You will never see a single engine fighter jet for plaaf again in my opinion. It sounds like they find even fc31 to be too small.

Darksword is single engine.

 

[tphuang]

Darksword is single engine.

Maybe manned fighter jet would be the appropriate term here.

 

[AndrewS]

I don't know why these people think PLAAF needs to induct 130 more 4th generation aircraft a year. I also don't see evidence that PLAAF added 170 4th gen aircraft in 2023 and another 120 in 2024? Seems like J-10C induction stopped and J-16 is stopping at this point.

Yeah, I don't see much utility in continuing to add lots of 4th gen fighters.
And I thought 4th gen production rates reached a maximum of 40 J-10C plus 40 Flanker airframes annually.

 

[SlothmanAllen]

Even if that video is wrong about the total number of fighters in service by 2029, the most important aspect is that China is growing its production capacity. So even if they retire a bunch of 4th generation fighter aircraft, they are still going to be producing a large number of 5th and 6th generation fighters keeping the average airframe life young and the aircraft modern.

 

[AndrewS]

Good catch!

Probably what I deserve for experimenting with a LLM for once, but since we're at it 一不做二不休 . . .

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The 5th gen production numbers (from 2025-2030) equates to 154 fighters annually.
I'd call this the bare minimum estimate, given that F-35 production is planned at 156+ annually.

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And in the past year, the USA has gone into Empire mode (where might makes right) and given up even the pretence of a "rules-based-order".
(We saw this realisation and rupture publicly at Davos, where interestingly, the Chinese were the ones trying to salvage multilaterialism)

So I've now increased my estimate of Chinese 5th gen fighter production to at least 200+ annually.


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Also, the PLANAF numbers just look wrong. It's 300 additional fighters by 2030.
But where are the Chinese aircraft carriers for all these fighters?

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Overall, I see 4th gen fighter production dropping rapidly, given that 5th gens are ramping up.

Also, the UADFs (Type-A and Type-B) are arguably 6th gen single-engine fighters which happen to be unmanned. So they'll be ramping up in the next 5 years as well.