Chengdu next gen combat aircraft (?J-36) thread

gongolongo

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Nah, there isn't a way a F-16 can see it to begin with. Not just due to stealth but also EW.

Plus I wouldn't count out J-36 maneuverability just because it's large. It has what, estimated thrust to weight 1.2. And TVC.

J-36 might be in disadvantage to a very optimized air superiority 5th gen in a knife distance dog fight. And it would almost guaranteed be dismantled in a cqc fight by J-XS. But saying a comparative relic like J-10C or F-16V can stand a chance at any range is pushing it very far.

Yaaaa i bet the Chinese are eager to dogfight B21 in their J10s too
Don't blame these two guys. Their perspective is how do we fight with the aircraft we have (and the F-16's they flew). They didn't talk down about the design. It was a pretty non biased video and very analytical even if it was inaccurate.
 

tphuang

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Excellent read. Are you going to do a similar analysis on SAC's J-50?
Right now we don’t have enough high quality images/videos to tell much.
Yes, I need more details on this. The photo quality and size of J-36 is far more prevalent than J-XX.

Also, I'm not really sure how much J-XX provides over J-20S in terms of additional capability. It will basically to me be a more enhanced version of that.

This also isn’t 1940s Japan. And yes Australia would be a much more difficult nut to crack but if in a fight with the US the US is constrained to taking potshots from Australia China has basically all but won.
It's about 4000 km from Hainan to Darwin and 3200 km from Spratleys.

Depending on what they want to do but H-20 would be better for that mission.

I could see an argument where you send in J-36 accompanying H-20 so that it can clear out defending F-35s and other defensive assets so that H-20 can get close enough to Darwin to drop large quantity of gliding bombs vs having to fire from stand-off range.

If it uses tile architecture they could fit 4000 modules in just 1m2 or 5000 modules in 1.25m2. The Turks managed to get down to 2.5cm2 for every TRM in their F-16 AESA: Turkey Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
That's not the right way to think about this. It's about power density per cm2. China is the leader in GaN tech. Innoscience is far and away the largest GaN producer in the world. So they can produce smaller GaN MMIC If they want to.

But can they minimize GaO-on-Diamond or GaN-on-Diamond as much as GaN-on-Si? Even if the former two hasn't developed as much as the last one, you still want to use the Diamond substrate, because the power density you get with it is so much greater.

GalliumOxideThermalConductivitySubstrate.png

Remember, the thermal conductivity of GaO on Diamond is > 10x higher than on regular Silicon substrate

But fitting in a large radome of 1.25m^2 in there should be no problem.
 

tphuang

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One thing I would like to know is just what this means from freedom of operation for other Chinese aircraft. If a fleet of J-36 and CCAs can maintain air superiority up to 3000 km from mainland after initial strikes to weaken defenses along the second Island Chain, then you can essentially fly bomber type of aircraft much closer to Guam to launch follow up attacks.

For example, H-20 can safely fly over Guam to drop a whole bunch of glide bombs, H-6K can operate freely up to 1500 km off shore and something like Jiutian drone can fly over Guam and drop a whole bunch of FPVs.

There are so many "bomb truck" type of aircraft that would be well served when given full protection.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
It's both. Huge landmass with difficult landscape of all kinds, plus endless islands with countless marine traffic.

For example, JSM is 500kg class weapon; prsm is even lighter. Realistically, any small fishing craft or good SUV can carry them, like it happens in Ukraine - or in gulf(USMC inspiration).
Only boots can root out the problem, and it'll require a coordinated air/naval offensive away from inner reaches of mainland China a2ad to achieve.
500 kg munitions stationed around the Pacific Islands has neither the range nor explosive power to really threaten China on its doorstep, and if that’s all you can muster to defend your positions out in the 2IC that’s going to get eroded eventually. One of the challenges with islands is that they are easy to choke off logistically. Not the case with contiguous land.
 

no_name

Colonel
I think j36 will be used for theater wide decapitation strikes, targeting critical nodes and commande centre's.

It can but will probably not coordinate UAVs by itself, that may be left to shenyangs plane.

This one is a new assassins mace, for deep insertions then back. Possible not going to be many in production numbers compared to the likes of j20.

Imagine you had a general inside a tent. Some invisible man comes in and kills him. You try to replace the general, the guy comes back to kill his replacements again and again. He doesn't even waste time on your guards and sentries or your lower rank officers fighting at the front.

The nature of sixth gen combat is that 6th gen platforms are unlikely to be able to chance upon and fight each other.
The nature of its operation and limited windows of that means they are also likely very hard to be intercepted via ground based methods.

When war starts the airport and production, support facility will be targeted until degradation of ability to fight with 6th gen is complete by one side, then it's massacre of lower gen of one side by the side with higher gen.
 
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abenomics12345

Junior Member
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Yankee's latest piece on CHAD:

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Apparently he has been lurking here lately and taking notes on what people said:

View attachment 142098

He likes the warship reference and considers whoever made the above post a "fast thinker" (可见还是有反应足够快的洋人的)

He included the latest update to this meme that added the tricycles for the poor PLAGF?

View attachment 142097
Has anyone seen Yankee and @ACuriousPLAFan in the same room together?
 

AndrewS

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I think j36 will be used for theater wide decapitation strikes, targeting critical nodes and commande centre's.

It can but will probably not coordinate UAVs by itself, that may be left to shenyangs plane.

This one is a new assassins mace, for deep insertions then back. Possible not going to be many in production numbers compared to the likes of j20.

Imagine you had a general inside a tent. Some invisible man comes it and kills him. You try to replace the general, the guy comes back to kill his replacement again and again. He doesn't even waste time on your guards and sentries or your lower rank officers fighting at the front.

The nature of sixth gen combat is that 6th gen platforms are unlikely to be able to chance upon and fight each other.
Wthe nature of operation and limited windows of it means they are also likely very hard to be intercepted via ground based methods.

When war starts the airport and production facility will be targeted until degradation of ability to fight with 6th gen is complete by one side, then it's massacre of lower gen of one side by the side with higher gen.

Within the 1IC, yes, the J-36 will be used sparingly as there are a lot of other aircraft available.

But if we're talking about distances to the 2IC, the J-36 will have to do a lot more
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
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I think it is pretty simple. Similar to when triple engine airliners used to be commonplace, the third engine is used to both increase maximum takeoff weight, and as a cruise engine. During cruise you need less thrust and you can disable the outer two engines. Possibly also close down the bottom air intakes for reduced RCS.

The Sukhoi T-60S bomber prototype from the late Cold War was also supposed to use upper engine intakes in order to reduce engine RCS against ground based radars.
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I think the main reason for the triple engine configuration is also that it enables the higher takeoff weight necessary for a fighter bomber aircraft capable of striking targets in the second island chain without mid air refuel.
 

no_name

Colonel
Within the 1IC, yes, the J-36 will be used sparingly as there are a lot of other aircraft available.

But if we're talking about distances to the 2IC, the J-36 will have to do a lot more
My feeling is that the j-36 is designed with the assumption that it expects to often not get the network/system supports that say a j20 or shenyang 6th gen might get, due to the nature of the mission or the range at which it will be conducted.

It is designed with the acknowledgement that it will be a lone wolf when it has to.

As such survivability will be quite high on the design requirements, and even though shenyangs is also considered sixth gen they are not at the same level.
 
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AndrewS

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I think it is pretty simple. Similar to when triple engine airliners used to be commonplace, the third engine is used to both increase maximum takeoff weight, and as a cruise engine. During cruise you need less thrust and you can disable the outer two engines. Possibly also close down the bottom air intakes for reduced RCS.

I think the highest thrust requirement is when it goes supersonic.
Consider the possible operating conditions for the J-36 engines:

1. Takeoff
2. Cruise speed to area of operations
3. Loiter
4. Supercruise (3 Engines on Dry Thurst)
5. Maximum thrust (3 Engines on Afterburner)

I'd say 4+5 makes the most demands on the engines, as you want to be as fast as possible because these are combat conditions.

For 3, they should be able to use just one engine for loitering

For 2, I reckon they would need two engines for high subsonic/supercruise?
But maybe just 1 engine if they accept a slower speed. Incidentally, that would solve the coordination issue if the J-36 is accompanied by slow subsonic CCAs

(Note that in a two engine setup like the USAF NGAD, you can't voluntarily shut down an engine to become more fuel-efficient)

---

But ideally, you would still have airflow and the engine fans running on the non-combusting engines.
So the fans continue to push airflow out of the engine and generate additional thrust.
In effect, you end up with a higher airflow bypass-ratio and therefore efficiency.
So it's another way to achieve a variable cycle engine?

But I expect this would be a future development.
 
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