China Flanker Thread II

[siegecrossbow]

If Jane's could report KLJ-7A as a replacement radar for the J-20, its credibility is not too high.

 

[Franklin]

J-11Bs in DACT with F-7PGs

Oh man... I wish there was a translation for this

4 J-7's against 2 Flankers ? Ridiculous! Its just target practise for the Flankers. The F-16 block 52 might be a better match, but the constraint put on Pakistan's use of those planes makes it impossible to use them in training excersizes with China.

Lol, I cannot believe the Pakistanis really gave the PLAAF J11s a call sign of ‘thug’.

The documentary gave a surprising amount of detail about the exercise.

Some stand out points for me.

1) The PAF pilots managed to very accurately assess the radar characteristics of the PLAAF J11Bs, so when they approached, they employed a very tight formation such that the 4 F7PGs were only showing up as a single target on the Chinese radars.

In the exercise, this meant the PLAAF Flankers could only engage one of the 4 in BVR. The PLAAF pilots also guessed that the PAF were using close formation.

This is an interesting target denial tactic to mitigate the F7’s lack of BVR. Although I have some reservations about just how effective this would be in real combat.

Would the F7s still maintain their close formation once their RWR start screaming radar lock? If they break too early, they give the game away and allow the enemy to target them all at BVR. But break too late and a single enemy BVRAAM might take out the whole flight.

I am not sure if the programme edited out some steps and/or got things jumbled up, because going by it’s narrative, the PLAAF Flankers didn’t take a BVR shot (no reason given as to why). Also, the commentary sometimes didn’t really fit with the flight display at times. My guess is that they edited out/censored a lot of the tactically relevant parts for opsec, and stitched what they were allowed to broadcast into a story good enough for the average casual viewer.

Others can give a true translation of how the programme narrated the encounter, but below is my own take based mostly on the flight display and common sense.

The PLAAF pilots guessed the PAF planes were employing close formation, so the PLAAF lead pushed ahead to trigger the break while his wingman hung back.

The plan was most likely for lead to break the pack and immediately double back before anyone could engage them (by taking advantage of both the Flankers superior fuel load and the F7s lack of BVR); this would then allow for the wingman to lock onto and engage multiple targets at once at BVR after the PAF birds broke formation.

The first part of the plan seemed to have worked, but after the PAF F7s broke formation, they split wildly to deny multiple simultaneous BVR shots, thereby presenting a ‘targeting dilemma’ for the PLAAF wingman.

The PLAAF wingman only managed to get one missile off at <40 km (no word on if that achieved a ‘kill’ or not) before he get engaged by the F7(s).

But by then, the PLAAF lead had re-engaged, and killed a PAF F7 threatening his wingman. At which point the exercise timed out as a draw.

2) Both sides were on the same radio frequency in case of emergencies. The Chinese ground controllers were mostly only observing, but the PAF pilots were getting and giving a lot of messages from their ground controllers to the point where the Chinese pilots couldn’t hear each other for a time (the part with the garbled static noise was probably an extract recording of what the radio waves were like).

Although that is hardly surprising given the vast capabilities difference before the J11B and the F7.

The J11B had the radar and avionics to allow their pilots to get a good enough tactical view to make their own, informed decisions. The F7’s radar and avionics could not come close to offering the same level of situational awareness, so their needed more ground support until they can get to WVR.

4 J-7's against 2 Flankers ? Ridiculous! Its just target practise for the Flankers. The F-16 block 52 might be a better match, but the constraint put on Pakistan's use of those planes makes it impossible to use them in training exercises with China.

 

[plawolf]

4 J-7's against 2 Flankers ? Ridiculous! Its just target practise for the Flankers. The F-16 block 52 might be a better match, but the constraint put on Pakistan's use of those planes makes it impossible to use them in training excersizes with China.

Not necessarily. Remember, there was a widely reported story of how a PLAAF opfor instructor pilot flew a J7 and kicked the butts of two frontline PLAAF pilots in Su27s in 2v1 no less.

Indian Mig21Bisons also gave USAF F15 pilots some embarrassment during red flag.

The biggest advantages of the Flanker against F/J7s are radar/avionics and fuel load.

The superior radar and avionics of the Flanker means the J11B pilots were able to operate essentially fully autonomously; whereas the F7s needed near constant GCI updates to know where the J11s were to plan their attack.

In addition, the F7s needed to use close formation, ROE limitations, and raw skill to allow them to mitigate the J11’s BVR to allow them to get with visual range to have a crack.

Now, while the heavy reliance on GCI is indeed a potential weakness, in real life, even western air forces make extensive use of offboard sensors and controllers. So the PAF’s reliance on GCI is little different from western reliance on AWACS support.

In terms of mitigating BVR, while close formation flying alone is unlikely to be enough in a real shooting war, as I have already touch upon in my last post; in a real conflict, the F7s would also reply heavily on jamming and EW, much like how the IAF Bisons operates against USAF Eagles at red flag. Hell, they may well have done just that in this exercise, but that information may have been censored on opsec grounds.

Indeed, I strongly suspect there was EW/jamming involved, or else the J11s would not have waited until the F7s got within 40km before taking a BVR shot.

In a real life combat scenario, if you can get 3-4 F/J7s into WVR combat with two Flankers, as the PAF managed to do, the odds are no longer with the Flankers.

That’s precisely the kind of position the PAF wants to get into against the likes of the MKI and Rafales of the IAF; and they are using these exchanges with the PLAAF to test and fine tune these tactics.

I think one factor that the PAF pilots would struggle to mitigate against would be the Flanker’s massive fuel load.

This is significant because while on paper there isn’t a huge difference between the top speeds of a J7 and J11; in practice, a J11 has the fuel reserves to punch into full reheat far more often and for longer periods than a J7. And that is precisely the advantage the PLAAF pilots used to counter the PAF in this exchange.

Thug lead pushed close enough to trigger the PAF break, but not close enough for them to be able to launch any weapons; and then abruptly did a 180 and pushed into full reheat to deny the PAF a chance to get into WVR combat.

Lacking BVR to take a shot and the fuel to chase down the J11, all the PAF F7s could do was split wildly to deny Thug two a BVR shot at more than one of them at the same time, and then swing back to try and engage Thug 2 as soon as he made a shot.

They did just that, but by then Thug 1 had doubled back once more and splashed the F7 trying to get engage Thug 2.

So that was 1-2 F7s down for no loss; and personally I believe time was called on the exercise because the F7s were nearing bingo fuel at that point. But the J11s likely could have just punched into reheat and opened up the distance to make more BVR shots several more times, so in real life, the J11s could have just rinsed and repeated until the F7s either literally ran out of fuel and flamed out; or taken leisurely BVR shots at the F7s as they were forced to turn back due to fuel limits.

One or more F7s would have had to stay behind to keep the J11s occupied to prevent that, but that would be another 1-2 F7s lost irrespective of the outcome to the rest of the fight, with the only saving grace being if those F7s could have made a kill before they ran out of fuel or were shot down.

That’s a very big disadvantage to overcome, with the odds very much not in the F7’s favour.

Again, judging from the expressions and mannerisms of the pilots, I think both sides knew who had the advantage even though the official result was a drew.

I think the PAF would have had far more joy had they mixed in some JF17s with the F7s.

The JF17s would be able to compete with the J11s in BVR, and also significantly limit their ability to exploit their fuel reserves to make repeated slash and dash attacks, as its one thing to expose your tail to F7s at just beyond WVR and another to do so against a BVR capable foe who could not be more happy to send a BVRAAM after you if you did that.

 

[Mohsin77]

I think one factor that the PAF pilots would struggle to mitigate against would be the Flanker’s massive fuel load.

This is significant because while on paper there isn’t a huge difference between the top speeds of a J7 and J11; in practice, a J11 has the fuel reserves to punch into full reheat far more often and for longer periods than a J7. And that is precisely the advantage the PLAAF pilots used to counter the PAF in this exchange.

Thug lead pushed close enough to trigger the PAF break, but not close enough for them to be able to launch any weapons; and then abruptly did a 180 and pushed into full reheat to deny the PAF a chance to get into WVR combat.

Lacking BVR to take a shot and the fuel to chase down the J11, all the PAF F7s could do was split wildly to deny Thug two a BVR shot at more than one of them at the same time, and then swing back to try and engage Thug 2 as soon as he made a shot.

They did just that, but by then Thug 1 had doubled back once more and splashed the F7 trying to get engage Thug 2.

I think we need to put this in context. Now, barring the absolute worst-case nightmare for the PAF (where we have nothing left in our inventory except F-7), this above outcome might still mean that the F-7 did its job well.

Here's a real world scenario: The PAF gets completely surprised and is forced to vector in a hapless CAP flight of four F-7s to engage a couple of Flankers. Concurrently, it scrambles Thunders/Vipers, but they are X miles away when the engagement starts. If the scenario played out as it did in the joint exercise, by the time the two F-7s were splashed, the PAF's BVR platforms would be in position for the second round, and this time with a serious advantage in energy and position. So the challenge for the Flankers, in the real world, would be be to finish off the F-7s immediately. Hanging around sparring with F-7s would put the Flankers at a massive disadvantage against their actual threat, which would no doubt be closing in at high mach, gathering energy and getting into position.

Of course this what leads to training for that second round of this scenario, with all-BVR platforms now engaged. I'm sure the PLAAF and PAF would've already continued this chess game in the follow up exercises. As I said, these bilateral exercises tend to get more and more complex with every iteration. And once we start seeing AESA platforms on both sides, that's when things are gonna get seriously interesting, to super classified proportions lolz.

p.s. Thanks again for the more detailed translation of the video.

 

[by78]

On the tarmac waiting to take off...

(2048 x 1536)

 

[siegecrossbow]

On the tarmac waiting to take off...

(2048 x 1536)

J-16 elephant walk.

 

[MastanKhan]

I’d be curious to know if that kind of tight formation defensive strategy would work against AESAs with much higher resolutions...

Hi,

I doubt it very much---. I believe that the AESA can count the number of blades on the engine fan---determines what engine it is---thus determining the type of aircraft flying---.

Read this in an article over 10 years ago---. Never saved it---tried to look for it---have not found it---.

Reader may acknowledge if such is the case---.

 

[Tirdent]

That technique is not exclusive to AESA radars, but is viable if the engine fan is easily visible to the radar. Not sure if that's the case on the MiG-21/F-7 though, due to the intake center body.

 

[Deino]

It was indeed quite a spectacular day today: The first operational Z-20s, the first clear image of the Type 075 LHD and now even this.
A first clear image of that strange J-16 with a light-grey radome. Allegedly now not destined to the PLA Naval Aviation, I actually don't know, why this new colour is introduced.

image via LKJ86/PDF

 

[Totoro]

It's just a different color. I wouldn't look too much into it until we get some additional indications that hardware might have been changed as well.