For now telegram posts, but there are simply no other candidates.
China Flanker Thread III (land based, exclude J-15)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Then I would dismiss is a faked propaganda, since that monster of a bomb is indeed much too large & heavy and all other sites I find mentioning it, say they are used by Tu-22M bombers.
I don't believe Tu-22s can survive in patriot a2ad regions.
Tu-22m3m didn't reach production, so they have neither modern EW nor capability to perform evasive maneuvers.
Whatever is the case - we'll see soon, there is little point to hide anything here.
Thats not how it works. There's a limit on how good an airframe, due to physics, and the airframes from 40 years ago are close to the limit.
In that scenario, I see no reason for even using J-16 instead of J-20.
The reason is the primary problem for PLAAF - training pipeline for pilots and ground crews. Militaries are groups of humans acting collectively and using tools - in that order - and wars are fought by units and not individuals. Once you understand that you see where the rationale comes from.
J-20 is a VLO airframe which really means it's a VLO in the horizontal plane, with emphasis on frontal aspect.
As with every VLO airframe you have to fly it in a very specific manner to minimise RCS and it requires relearning of all the flying habits and flying habits are trained to be instinctive so that pilots can perform in high stress and high g conditions. Flying must be like muscle memory or you can't do it in combat. Learning to fly a VLO fighter after flying a non-VLO fighter is like learning to talk again after a stroke. This is why it takes so long to introduce F-35 into active service. This is why for example when Poland ordered F-35s having already used F-16s for close to 20 years the US instructors told us to not even bother with sending young and promising F-16 pilots.
J-20 is also an unique design introduced into service only in the last decade which means the emphasis was on testing and development and not on mass introduction of ground crews.
J-16 has huge RCS so it doesn't matter how you fly and it is largely compatible with all the other Flankers in PLAAF service. With some 300 Su-27/30/35/J-11A/B in PLAAF service you gain a large pool of well understood aircraft with tactics - which involves cooperation with other Flanker pilots as well as other aircraft - that can be copied from one to the other. A J-16 is essentially a Su-30 with a more powerful radar. It is also simpler to retrain a technician with experience in servicing J-10s to service J-16s.
But training the units using J-20 and J-16 is one part of the story. Because J-20 is VLO and PLAAF is preparing for fight against enemy VLO fighters it will focus on developing both counter-VLO tactics for the entire air force, air defenses and the navy as well
as for developing collaborative tactics where J-20 works with other aircraft as part of a mixed composition.
There simply isn't enough J-20s available and won't be for the foreseeable future to completely disregard J-16 and make a leap from 4gen Flanker to 5gen J-20. Even USAF which had a 10+ year head-start with F-22s, and close to 20+ year head start with VLO in general is back-filling the gaps with upgrades to F-15s and F-16s.
People completely miscalculated how much of an organisational shift the transition from 4gen to 5gen would be and when the delays with F-35 began it effectively halted the intended introduction strategy. It's better to wait and train once on the intended configuration than constantly re-train while trying to force "concurrency".
Plots and technical ground crew are not the most intelligent people in society and they're being given some of the most sophisticated equipment currently in service. This is why AI-enabled unmanned systems are going to be such a quantum leap. It will turn the current dynamic which is constrained by human performance completely upside down.
But it doesn't mean that you can completely cut out the human element. EW is highly local. Intelligence even more so. If you have J-20s and twice as many UCAVs the disruption to decision nodes is easier than when you have twice as many decision nodes, even if some of them are not VLO. Relatively few missions in air warfare require VLO but all missions require intelligence.
In systems approach if you can isolate a combat or sensor node from its decision node you effectively neutralise it. Isolation i.e. disruption in communication e.g. with the use of EW is easier at longer range between nodes. If you have only the J-20s you can put your active assets only in so many places at so many times. If you add J-16s that number likely more than doubles, probably triples.
In the future neutralisation of decision nodes will be the primary aim of all air warfare because that's the primary aim of all warfare. So far air warfare was the exception because most of the time every aircraft was its own decision node to an extent. But if you look at ground warfare the dynamic is clear. Why waste resource on brute forcing the destruction of enemy combat potential when you can mission-kill it. That's how Battle of Atlantic was won - not by sinking German U-boots but by making them irrelevant as they had to stay in hiding.
J-16s are twin-seaters so they can manage greater numbers of UCAVs in defensive roles out of range of enemy EW disruption. "Intelligence victory" may be augmentation of a single pilot but also augmentation of a systems operator managing UAVs and UCAVs.
Mixing J-20s and other aircraft is hard. Mixing J-16 and other Flankers is easy. Which means that for many basic missions you can use J-16 as a lead fighter with other Flankers following. Sukhoi intended Su-30 in Russia's air defense force service with their "mini AWACS" system. Even on 1-1 basis with 200 datalinked J-11 and 200 J-16 you have in theory 200 pairs of aircraft more or less on J-16 level. If it's 1 J-16 with 3 J-11 then you can spare J-16 for other units as well.
PLAAF needs a reliable multirole workhorse with good ground strike capabilities and J-16 is just that. It's what Russia wishes it had because they're stuck with Su-35, Su-30SM and Su-34 instead of a single platform. Even USAF is choosing F-15E family as interim replacement of F-15Cs.
War is not a beauty contest.
Hopefully this clears your doubts.
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You're giving them more intelligence than they deserve.
Ironically, "Russian J-16" (Su-30SM) is probably the main disappointment of the campaign(hi India), and in no small degree this is the fault of exactly VKS&Russian industrial policy, which made the sub-platform with the most multirole potential - the most crippled one in actual practice.
In Chinese case, this contradiction between "best" and "good enough" was decided through better coordination and centralised control, or at least lack of split of interests between producers(all Russian flankers are produced by different factories - and protected by respective regional and industrial groups).
That led to a choice(and consistent development) of a single most optimal platform&suppression of unnecessary duplication.
The original Su-30 (1992) suffers from the limitations of the Russian technology base available back then. It was meant as a heavy fighter interceptor connected to the Russian ground radar network. Not as a multirole aircraft. It was only made multirole with the Su-30SM (2013) which had more advanced electronics.
India's Su-30MKI is an earlier aircraft than the Su-30SM which uses Western instead of Russian electronics. The Chinese Su-30MKK in comparison uses Russian electronics.
Russia has unique requirements for its bomber aircraft. The Su-34 was meant just not to replace the Su-24 but also partially replace the Tu-22M3 bomber fleet. For this the bomber configuration with side-by-side cockpit and toilet was added. It is meant for longer endurance missions than the Su-30 aircraft can do.
This always happens to a degree in every country. Otherwise why would China bother to make the J-16 instead of some land attack J-20 variant? It is to keep the Shenyang factory operational.
If it was important for Russia to unify the production models it would have been done. In the Soviet model there was always a degree of separation between factories and airplane designers although even there each designer had factories they typically used.
If the Russian government thought it was important to get all the factories making the same model that would have been done. To a degree this happened since Su-30, Su-34, and Su-35 are all based on the Flanker airframe.
We know what the mergers in the US MIC did to its capabilities to innovate and make products at a low cost. The Russians don't want to be stuck with a single source to prevent ossification of the industry.
Russia's choice of having multiple production sites spread all over the country is also due to their experiences in WW2 where factories had to be moved after the war started. This is supposed to increase resilience of the production facilities in case of conflict or invasion. China also has four main fighter aircraft construction sites. Chengdu and Xian are deep in the interior also to increase resilience in case of conflict.
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