Air Division, Regiments, ... Bases, Brigades, etc

SunlitZelkova said:

Is it possible that all Air Brigades are expanding from the standard 24 in three flight groups of 8 organization to 30 in three flight groups of 10? This would track with some attempted estimates about J-20 brigade size over in that plane's thread several months ago, when it was found the known number of brigades does not align with the known production estimates (assuming each brigade has 24 aircraft).

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Nah, it's not plausible that ALL brigades are expanding to 30. Some? Sure. J-20 and J-16 units would be prime candidates I guess.

But known Su-35 and Su-30 numbers don't mesh well with that reorganization. J-11B either, unless there have been 260+ of those made. Which there have not been, to my knowledge.

It is possible training units with the J-10A are much bigger than a normal combat air brigade. In the 1960s, the average Soviet Fighter Aviation Regiment with MiG-17 had 60 some airframes, but some training formations with the MiG-15 (more or less similar aircraft) had up to 100 airframes. Making a statement that this is the case would be speculation, of course.

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This is absolutely possible. Not just with J-10A training units. It's something I wrote myself in an earlier post here. I wish we had some actual photographic indication of such large training units.

Also, if used for training, perhaps some early J-11 and J-10A airframes may be used for the training of maintenance personnel. In this case, perhaps it is possible they would be stored almost exclusively inside hangars and may not be considered as part of a training unit's flight worthy complement (if part of a flying brigade at all).

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Possible but I don't think those would amount to a meaningful number of said airframe types.

I think it's much more likely that there simply isn't a neat organization. Rather, some units are larger and others are smaller, depending on the requirements of a geographical command. Sometimes even within units operating the same type of plane.

From what I’ve read and heard, a PLAAF Air Regiment usually has about 24-36 aircraft, depending on the type—fighters, bombers, etc. An Air Division typically includes three regiments, so that’s around 70-100 aircraft total, give or take. PLAN aviation is kind of similar but seems a bit smaller in size. It’s not exactly like the US setup, but the regiments are probably the closest equivalent to a squadron. I don’t have firsthand experience, but that’s the general breakdown I’ve come across.

Onys said:

From what I’ve read and heard, a PLAAF Air Regiment usually has about 24-36 aircraft, depending on the type—fighters, bombers, etc. An Air Division typically includes three regiments, so that’s around 70-100 aircraft total, give or take. PLAN aviation is kind of similar but seems a bit smaller in size. It’s not exactly like the US setup, but the regiments are probably the closest equivalent to a squadron. I don’t have firsthand experience, but that’s the general breakdown I’ve come across.

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Yeah, fighter units are pretty much all Brigades rather than Regiments now. Please read up a bit before posting.

Onys said:

From what I’ve read and heard, a PLAAF Air Regiment usually has about 24-36 aircraft, depending on the type—fighters, bombers, etc. An Air Division typically includes three regiments, so that’s around 70-100 aircraft total, give or take. PLAN aviation is kind of similar but seems a bit smaller in size. It’s not exactly like the US setup, but the regiments are probably the closest equivalent to a squadron. I don’t have firsthand experience, but that’s the general breakdown I’ve come across.

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To add on to what Maikeru said, the responsibilities of the Air Division have been more or less replaced by the "Base." For example, in the Eastern Theater Command, all fighter air brigades are controlled by either Shanghai Base or Fuzhou Base.

My understanding is that the Base fulfills administrative duties, and that actual operational control lies directly with the Theater Command Air Force commander.

Nice comparison about PLAAF current plane strength. 111 sqadron equivalent with 18 per is 1998 modern 4th gen or newer planes.

That's a big boost from 2019 numbers posted here which was 1173 modern planes.

SinoAmericanCW said:

Every manned fighter that isn't a J-15DT/16D, J-20A/S, J-35/A or J-36/XDS registers as a J-7G to me now.

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Jokes aside, this is something we should fight with.

"Bulk" PLAAF capability are J-20(linchpin), followed J-16, J-10C, H-6K/N. Rear, but still very highly important - J-11B(s).
It will take at least a couple of years to change that. This is assuming J-20a/s will have no significant ramp up time (which appears to be the goal), and J-35A will have it fast (as it is reason d'etre for this aircraft).

As with US/West/NATO - when we think of them, nowadays we first think of F-35. But rank and file western aircraft are variants of MLU F-16&F-15E.

And it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Air force too modern is often a rather inflexible small air force, often plagued with immaturity.

Gloire_bb said:

Jokes aside, this is something we should fight with.

"Bulk" PLAAF capability are J-20(linchpin), followed J-16, J-10C, H-6K/N. Rear, but still very highly important - J-11B(s).
It will take at least a couple of years to change that. This is assuming J-20a/s will have no significant ramp up time (which appears to be the goal), and J-35A will have it fast (as it is reason d'etre for this aircraft).

As with US/West/NATO - when we think of them, nowadays we first think of F-35. But rank and file western aircraft are variants of MLU F-16&F-15E.

And it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Air force too modern is often a rather inflexible small air force, often plagued with immaturity.

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China has 2500 total fighters. Out of that only 350 of them are J-11Bs. So, even in terms of numbers they are not that important.

Whether its air-superiority or ground missions, 400+ J-16 is obviously superior. 250 J-10C is probably close behind in terms superior tech as well.

I don't know how capable of an upgrade J-11BG is. If its just the radar upgrade then probably not much. But if its a comprehensive upgrade to make J-11Bs comparable to J-16 in terms of Radar, Data link, Sensor fusion and weapons capability, then it might still have some AA combat relevance.

It's more like 2000ish fighters (maybe a bit less even see post) which is roughly evenly split between modern 4.5 and 5 gen fighters (J-20, J-35A, J-10C, J-16) and older legacy fighters such as J-10A/B, J-11, Russian imports, and such. So while the J-11 platform in specific might not be too important, the older legacy fighters are still very important right now as they're about half the fleet. If production rates remain stable with what we believe the production rate is now, that will change by 2030 where the older platforms are much less relevant but for now those platforms are still very important to PLAAF.

tamsen_ikard said:

I don't know how capable of an upgrade J-11BG is. If its just the radar upgrade then probably not much. But if its a comprehensive upgrade to make J-11Bs comparable to J-16 in terms of Radar, Data link, Sensor fusion and weapons capability, then it might still have some AA combat relevance.

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They upgraded radar and such but I believe one of the major reasons they want to retire J-10A/B is that even with overhaul it's hard to match performance of plane designed from the beginning for data link and such planes are going to be increasingly less viable as data link becomes ever more important. This would also be true for J-11.

Just posting it here as a repost just to keep track of numbers on this thread.




Here is my current estimate based on IISS 2025 numbers and guesses about newer fighter jet count.

J-10A 236
J-10S 77
J-10B 55
J-10C 240
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Total J-10: 608 (This is probably the peak count of J-10 as they will not add any new J-10)


Older Flankers:

Su-27UBK 32
SU-30MKK 97
SU-35 24
J-11A 100
J-11B/BH 345
--
Total older flankers: 598

Even older
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J-8F/H 40
JZ-8 48
-
J-8 total: 88

JH-7 : 200


Total so far - 1494


Now comes my own guess part augmented from IISS:

J-16 - 400 (300 according to IISS but SomePLAOSInt guesses it passed 400)
J-20 - 400 - 450 (As we have been discussing here for sometime)
--

Ultra top Tier: 850 ish


Naval
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J-15: 100 (J-15 and J-15T)


J-7 - 150 (289 according to IISS, I am actually reducing it down by a lot)

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Final count - 1494+850+100+150 = 2594

So its actually almost 2600 fighters.

Are Su-30MKKs and original Su-27s still in active service?I heard some people say that most if not all of those have been transfered to flight schools and training brigades. Also I think there is only a single J-11A brigade left.