China Flanker Thread III (land based, exclude J-15)

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
All the legacy flankers will be the first to die when hostility breaks out. All of the ROC F-16s have been upgraded to V standard.

The legacy flankers won't be at the tip of the spear to begin with anymore than any remaining J-7s or J-8s will.

If things were to ever reach conflict, they'd be very much second or third echelon back in terms of equivalent. But in peacetime, an available legacy Flanker still has the range and ability to do a run of the mill interception/air policing duty.


Also, are you sure about the F-16V upgrades? My understanding was that the MLU for all existing ROCAF F-16s to F-16V would only happen by end of 2023.

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delta115

Junior Member
Registered Member
Why would PLAAF use non-upgraded J-11 and SU-30 on high intensity conflict like Taiwan? They already have plenty of J-10C, J-16 and J-20 in their stock.

F-16V is capable fighter jet, but it still a 4th gen. The gap are not that big. Also, in time of conflict those F-16V shouldn't even be able to take off in numbers unless PLA getting too soft.
 

drowingfish

Junior Member
Registered Member
no, because the F-16Vs would be destroyed on the ground by SRBMs, those that take off are blinded by AWAC and J-16D, then targeted for destruction by AWAC. Legacy flankers just need to launch missiles.
by legacy flankers you mean the old su-27? surprised that there are still any in service
 

PersianPrince

New Member
Registered Member
How many legacy Flanker airframes are still on the waiting list as of now? How quickly can China complete the retrofit and upgrade of all her legacy Flankers?
I don't think these old flankers will get any significant upgrade like an AESA. In fact, their Russian avionics are hard to upgrade. I still remember that Chinese engineers had to cheat Su-30's fire control system to make it compatible with Chinese missiles.
 

tonyget

Senior Member
Registered Member
China should sell those older SU-27 SU-30 J-11 back to Russia,then use the money to buy more J-20
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
They are stationed in Wuxishan and we’re a part of the show of force following August 2nd.

I think the point of that is to dunk on the RoCAF by showing them that even the PLAAF’s 3rd tier grandad flankers can still be useful against their top tier stuff.

With datalinks and co-operative engagement, there isn’t a desperate need for every jet to be packing top of the line AESA radars when they can just get sensor data downloads from friendly fighters and AWACS to get even better situational awareness and engagement range than they can with the best AESA radar can give them in isolation.
 
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