That suggests it is just another serial number system change. But why brigades instead of regiments? Is it but a name? Or does brigadization hold an operational purpose?
I second this question.
That suggests it is just another serial number system change. But why brigades instead of regiments? Is it but a name? Or does brigadization hold an operational purpose?
Q-5 retirement
A pic appear some days ago but not sufficient for me not clear.
View attachment 37268
But now here ( i can' t provide translation ) confirmed the 7 Q-5 Rgts/Brigades with about 200 get retired soon main reason expensive to maintain and replaced by J-16 but not one by one coz more expensive.
One J-16 unit, Brigade or Rgt will have about 20 J-16 + 4 J-16D same number than J-11 units.
" withdrawn from use " can means temporarily don't have fightes bombers but the Rgt is not stand down/dissolved possible receive J-16s ?In 2017 the Q5s from 13th Regiment (serials 1xx6x) operating from Weifang were withdrawn from use
Scramble
A continuation of discussion from J20 thread.
Right now, we're looking at 80 something planes per year.
how did we get from 40 something j10 (both B,C and S) to 26? Why the large fluctuations? There was something like 38 different serials observed just for B variant within one year recently. Why would they increase the production for just one year before dropping it to smaller volumes again?
For J-10 production imposible to say maybe money for J-20 or for build ships ?? or eventualy transition production for D say Henri K ?
Plus there's H6K which i counted in my figures. Should be around 10 a year.
@Deino
According to multiple experienced PLAAF ORBAT-watchers, the 78AXA-series of PLAAF units work like this:
- 78AXA units do not follow the "78X - 611" scheme. That means there are no such things as the 170th-177th brigades. I think AMan's post about 788 - 722 is correct.