It did happen multiple times but the missiles were indeed AIM-7, which in their last variants was as fast as the AIM-120
Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36) thread
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
@Jason_ had a graph of how the sixth gen fighters like J-36 and J-50 (carrier born) could hunt the B-21. Once the bombs are dropped and the B-21 exposed itself, a J-36, using its super cruise speed to catch the B-21, it then circle around the the possible area where the B-21 could be. searching for the B-21 using its side radar until it hits the angle of radar reflection for the B-21 and locates the B-21. I don't know how the B-21 can escape this sort of tactic. How do you use the B-21 under this environment?
To be honest, against a long endurance, high speed J-36, I don't see how a B-21 survives unless its accompanied by J-36/US aircrafts
I explicitly called J-36 a "B-21 hunter". The moment B-21 is detected, (onboard sensors, surface sensors, space-based sensors, detected after payload launch etc), a forward deployed with long loiter time, J-36 CAP would quickly rush onto it and hunt it down. Between superior super cruise, kinematics and EW, I don't give high chance for the B-21 to survive
Don't take me wrong, B-21 is a good design for what it was originally envisioned to do and definitely something that the PLA must seriously take into account, but imo the US really need something to fight off a J-36
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Speaking honestly, US can produce very well functioning aviation programs on par with anything China can make, F-35 production rate is ~ as J-20.
Price tag is just a tag, I've seen claims Chengdu gets 125 mil USD for each J-20. Most of that money will just be reinvested in R&D and growing operations.
So people have this perception that US is now lagging in affordability and scale, but imho maybe it's more just a perception than anything else.
US has a smaller economy than China. It's not going to be able to throw as much cash at the wall as Beijing can. But it's not as if US aviation is in a crisis of cost compared to other actors. In fact compared to Russia, Europe and even pre 2020s China, they're very efficient.
China would never use euro CNCs to begin with, China's own CNC is a cut above everyone else's.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I agree with the general consensus here in regards to the 'fighter' nomenclature. As technology matures in terms of sensor fusion, avionics, c4isr in the battlespace above ground, that line keeps getting blurrier. Many of us are at least subconcioulsy still equating fighter to close combat knife fights. Small nimble aircraft twisting and turning to get the perverbial fox 2 tone and lockon.
Knifefights are exciting and entitites like Hollywood do not help either with shows like Top Gun and dozens others. Even fantasy sci fi shows like Star Wars, Star Trek etc. with ridiculous close quarter battles in space burns into our collective psyche but it makes for exciting scenes!
6th Gen aircrafts like the J36 etc. have pushed the engagement envelope even further out than traditional BVR.
these jets are obviously designed to target bogies from the absolute limits of it's capablities. Most likely high value targets first like tankers, awacs etc but most certainly other smaller planes.
With current technology such feats is very achievable now where the F14 with it's Phoenix missiles did not do so well in the 80s. In today's battle space it would be impossible for a Tomcat/Phoenix combo to target and shoot down a 5th nevermind a 6th gen aircraft from 100+ miles out. It was designed to shoot Soviet TU95s etc. which was slow with humongous RCS!
But luckily that system was never really put into actual test.
The fact that PLAAF etc. keeps developing and improving their LR AAMs like the PL15s and PL17s should tell you us everthing we need to know.
Knifefights are exciting and entitites like Hollywood do not help either with shows like Top Gun and dozens others. Even fantasy sci fi shows like Star Wars, Star Trek etc. with ridiculous close quarter battles in space burns into our collective psyche but it makes for exciting scenes!
6th Gen aircrafts like the J36 etc. have pushed the engagement envelope even further out than traditional BVR.
these jets are obviously designed to target bogies from the absolute limits of it's capablities. Most likely high value targets first like tankers, awacs etc but most certainly other smaller planes.
With current technology such feats is very achievable now where the F14 with it's Phoenix missiles did not do so well in the 80s. In today's battle space it would be impossible for a Tomcat/Phoenix combo to target and shoot down a 5th nevermind a 6th gen aircraft from 100+ miles out. It was designed to shoot Soviet TU95s etc. which was slow with humongous RCS!
But luckily that system was never really put into actual test.
The fact that PLAAF etc. keeps developing and improving their LR AAMs like the PL15s and PL17s should tell you us everthing we need to know.
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That it can go so fast lets it impart a lot of energy on the weapons it uses, something a B-21 really can't. Not even F-35 does well at that. Plus whatever extra power generation hacks 5.5-6th gen in China's arsenal will have, since J-20S is 2 engine vs 1 on F-35.
America got royally screwed by the meta. If they had made B-21 as US version F-36, it might have flown before China's, and would have been a game changer the way US hoped B-21 would be. And China would be stuck only getting air parity after the J-36 drops. Instead they're now stuck with something that is basically a 5.5th gen only which will be hard to upgrade since it's a compact design with only 2 engines.
When your enemy doesn't have an all aspect broadband stealth flyer but you do, you get massive advantages. But if your enemy has a supercruising a2b2 stealth vs your subsonic, the massive advantages tilt back to the opponent.
> but a H-20 is not necessarily stealthier or less vulnerable than a J-36.
That's to be seen when the H-20 breaks cover. But I think we can all agree that a subsonic flying wing will be less likely to be detected than the supersonic tri-engine deltawing. Especially in the infrared range, while the J-36 will most likely take reduction of the IR signature into account, these are 3 engines that will need to be able to accelerate than chonky aircraft to supersonic speeds, as well as being able to run with an afterburner. I simply see no way how three afterburning engines (yes, supercruise is a thing, I know) right next to each other in a distinct cluster would not give off a significantly higher infrared signature than 2-4 engines spaces apart in two nacelles with a very wide nozzle each to get rid of that heat.
> Moreover, if minimizing reaction time is the goal here, wouldn't it be more optimal to hit naval targets with HGV armed DF-17 and DF-27 missiles cued by airborne and orbital ISR assets?
I don't see why there wouldn't be a way to let the H-20 launch hypersonic cruise and ballistic missiles, possibly even with HGVs. Not to mention that such an airborne carrier would be all in all more survivable than ground based assets.
lol, you are going to wait for B-21 to drop before hunting it down?
What if B-21 hits you from 1000 km out with like 10 JASSMs? Then, how are you going to find it?
The best way to take it out is by attacking its air base. That's why having something like J-36 is important. You are not reliant on a few DF-26/27s to try to take out hardened air shelters. You are going to bring a much larger force to control the air, have ballistic missiles overwhelm the defense, while you apply maximal EW pressure, launch stand off missiles, ARMs & other munitions do more damage against air base. It still won't be easy anytime you have to deal with refueling thousands of km away from your border. That just adds complexity to your mission.
The other way that I can think of is like the approach to hunt advanced submarines.
Your satellites detect when it leaves its airport. You have a good sense of how long it will take and what path it will take (approximately) to get to your air base. you have a network of drones and controlling J-36 or J-XX out there to patrol. And try to use sensor fusion of different radar scanning data on different frequency from different directions to get a sense of incoming aircraft and then if you detect something, narrow beam in that direction to see if you can obtain better tracking data.
B-21 is basically what you get taking a revolutionary design in B-2 and modernized + shrunk it. It was always meant to be a cheaper, lower risk platform.
So from that aspect, it has made the job of PLA hunting it down a little easier.
If they went with a real 4-engine monster that had 6000 km combat radius, it would've taken the attack air base option out of the way. Now, they can both attack the air base or wait for it come.
Well, DF-17 is range limited and DF-27s are in stock in limited numbers. And they will be facing strong counter measures from adversary to cause them to miss target. Hitting moving ships with strong counter measures while traveling at mach10 isn't easy.
Having J-36 and H-20 + CCAs around will make things significantly more difficult for defensive force. Since you are dealing with better targeting (provided by your high end platforms that are not too far away), more EW pressure on defense, additional type of missiles and directions where defense will have to figure out how to defend. Variety, directions and breadth of attack make a huge difference in hit probability.
That's why I expect J-36 to be testing for a while. Being able to severely disrupt adversarial naval radar system is a huge difference maker.
> If they had made B-21 as US version F-36, it might have flown before China's, and would have been a game changer the way US hoped B-21 would be.
That's not the role of the B-21. The B-21 is a supporting asset. The B-21 and the NGAD are more or less completely seperate, even though the B-21 is expected to work in tandem with the PCA fighter component of NGAD and the Navy NGAD (F/A-XX).
I highly doubt the US doctrine sees the Raider go over mainland China and dropping dumb bombs. Rather it will be the launch platform for whatever system comes out of the USAFs efforts to field a hypersonic ALCM. Which gives it significant stand off range and doesn't make it necessary to leave the friendly AD umbrella provided by naval assets and aviation.
I also don't really know how the J-36 would engage a B-21 which is stealthy and puts heavy emphasis on electronic countermeasures. Unless there is a super missile that negates stealth somehow.
The concept of hunting B-2s, B-21s or H-20s down like that just because the aircraft that's being vectored in has speed and AAMs isn't really realistic at this point. Especially when the next generation of figters like the J-36 and NGAD will mostly rely on CCAs to do the frontline fighting.