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

[plawolf]

It’s kinda funny watching the mental aerobics at play here to do anything but face the undeniable fact that there is an obvious massive training issue if two F22 pilots somehow managed to get themselves locked by the same J16, at the same time. The qualities of both aircraft types are well known, and on paper, the J16 would have done well to lock one Raptor. To get two is as much down to the F22 pilots messing up as it is about the J16s outdoing themselves.

I think some people really need to check their assumptions, because the unshakable underlying assumption is that USAF pilot training is top notch. But that’s not something you can take to the bank these days. Especially in the case of the F22, a disconnected, aging bird with a very modest and dwindling fleet size that is also the pride of the UASF and thus burdened with a disproportionately high load in terms of both peacetime flag waving display flights as well as top-end combat cover for actual combat operations or threat of force displays to cow opfor in simmering regions.

Aging fleet and irreplaceable planes easily lead to babying of planes in training. That’s just human nature. Heavy operational deployment demands also eat into available hours for training, just as how USN carrier pilots need to spend months building back up lost competency after returning to shore post combat deployments in past wars.

That’s an opportunity cost that western analysts and commentators never bring up about the west’s much vaunted real world combat experience. When all you are doing is fighting against hopelessly outmatched third world opponents, that combat experience is actually a net detriment to a combat pilots overall skill set. Especially in terms of near peer high intensity combat operations. Just like how sending soldiers in riot gear to crack protestor skulls doesn’t make your soldiers better in a near peer mechanised war.

It’s not only possible that US raptor pilots are loosing their edge, it’s practical inevitable for that to happen given the insurmountable issues they have with their aging and irreplaceable fleet and the overly heavy operational demands placed on the fleet that confers near zero skill honing opportunities.

 

[Blitzo]

It’s kinda funny watching the mental aerobics at play here to do anything but face the undeniable fact that there is an obvious massive training issue if two F22 pilots somehow managed to get themselves locked by the same J16, at the same time. The qualities of both aircraft types are well known, and on paper, the J16 would have done well to lock one Raptor. To get two is as much down to the F22 pilots messing up as it is about the J16s outdoing themselves.

I think some people really need to check their assumptions, because the unshakable underlying assumption is that USAF pilot training is top notch. But that’s not something you can take to the bank these days. Especially in the case of the F22, a disconnected, aging bird with a very modest and dwindling fleet size that is also the pride of the UASF and thus burdened with a disproportionately high load in terms of both peacetime flag waving display flights as well as top-end combat cover for actual combat operations or threat of force displays to cow opfor in simmering regions.

Aging fleet and irreplaceable planes easily lead to babying of planes in training. That’s just human nature. Heavy operational deployment demands also eat into available hours for training, just as how USN carrier pilots need to spend months building back up lost competency after returning to shore post combat deployments in past wars.

That’s an opportunity cost that western analysts and commentators never bring up about the west’s much vaunted real world combat experience. When all you are doing is fighting against hopelessly outmatched third world opponents, that combat experience is actually a net detriment to a combat pilots overall skill set. Especially in terms of near peer high intensity combat operations. Just like how sending soldiers in riot gear to crack protestor skulls doesn’t make your soldiers better in a near peer mechanised war.

It’s not only possible that US raptor pilots are loosing their edge, it’s practical inevitable for that to happen given the insurmountable issues they have with their aging and irreplaceable fleet and the overly heavy operational demands placed on the fleet that confers near zero skill honing opportunities.

It's not mental acrobatics... it's just putting this event (if it occurred as it did) in perspective.

First, we can all acknowledge that if the event did occur as described (2 J-16s against 2 F-22s, and where 1 of the J-16s managed to get themselves into a position for a lock for 2 of the opposing aircraft) is somewhat "significant" from a situational BFM point of view.

However, the extrapolation that can be made is limited by:
- we don't know if this event is reflective of the consistent pattern of PLA and US tacair encounters (i.e.: was this an exception where the J-16s got the upper hand, or is the running tally more like 50/50, or is it even usually more in the US favour)
- it is ultimately true that a large scale modern air war would occur at BVR ranges so this specific WVR encounter is far from reflective of how a more realistic wartime encounter would occur
- ultimately it was two Chinese aircraft; so it wasn't like a single J-16 against 2 F-22s; the J-16 driver in question did have support from his wingman


So sure, this is an encounter which is worth noting and tallying up for interest purposes, but beyond that I think it is logical and prudent to be cautious about what they take away from it.

Putting it another way, if this outcome of this encounter were reversed and if it were two J-20s against two F-15s, and the two J-20s got the worse end of the stick, I suspect people here would be singing a different tune as to how much can be extrapolated.

 

[Engineer]

This was a real life version of that famous PLAAF lecture slide.

Trainer: Why did you enter WVR engagement?
Cadet: Because I have super-maneuverability!
Trainer: Wrong, because you are a moron!

 

[Gloire_bb]

That's why I said the first night was decisive, but it was only indecisive because neither side had the resolve or fleet size to commit their aircraft.
Putting it another way, the fact that neither side went to continue their sorties is an example of how lethal and decisive a modern BVR air war can be.

"Can".
1930s were full of decisive maneuvers by great navies (famously, RN in mediterranean, some of more crazy fleet problems in US; japanese preparations). Everything was to be solved in a great decisive battle; cruisers "torpedoed" whole battle divisions, destroyers performed daring charges, everyone was having fun for public money. Until it wasn't.

Very early in mediterranean war, Pakistani J-10CWarspite gets effective gunnery in july 1940 on Cesare off Calabria, showing that long range gunfire is potentially effective. Italians get bloodied, lose couple dozen men, disengage.
There's effectively no further battleship gunnery duels on theater till the very end of the war. Italians carefully chose their engagements, don't let their heavy units to stray out at night (especially after losing whole heavy cruiser division to it), and throw submarines and planes at problems. It isn't like sides are absolutely protective of their heavy units: they still seek out each other. Just carefully and with 90 considerations. Until conditions for Great Decisive Engagement are met, however, sides throw planes and stuff at each other.
And as we know, whole war gets decided by attritable planes, submarines and light forces. Mathematically, and many years later.

After few encounters here and there(germans play really boldly despite Spee, and for a while get away with it), in 1941 Bismarck destroys Hood in few minutes of gunfire. Couple days later, gets lost itself, completely irreplaceable. Then naval war will continue for 4 more years, as neither brits really want to end up on the receiving end, nor germans want to lose their units decisively. They eventually will get Sharnhortst to re-learn the lesson, but it'll take years of careful in-and-out under attritable bombers, submarines and special forces.

Pacific war is even more striking, but such a short summary for it is just impossible. I think you know how it went on without me anyway.

What you are describing is all writing in support of the lethality and decisiveness of a modern air war, not detracting from it.

The reason why nations might be more reluctant to participate in a large scale modern BVR air war isn't because that style of war itself is indecisive, but rather it is because it is too decisive, therefore nations and air forces prefer to conserve as much of their forces as practically possible and lose them gradually with more conservative ROEs than to use them in a large scale standing match.

If something is so dangerous as to result in doubts and qualm, it is the very definition of indecisiveness.
Machine gun is one hell of effective and decisive weapon, killing rows of attacking infantry with just a couple of men. But it results in a stalemate - even with absolutely replaceable ww1 men.
Even at Chinese peacetime speed - you can't sustain decisive campaign, losing a dozen planes per day, for long. You can do it for one campaign, sure - but so can your opponent, and what comes next? Even more, what to do when, say, american aircraft production is mostly out of interference reach, but Shenyang, Xi'an and Chengdu are disruptable. What to do when force regeneration may not in fact reach desired speeds?

Next comes throwing things that can be produced, thrown out at will, and production of which can not be disrupted. Planes use comes down to a replenishable tempo. This doesn't mean they can't be used - it's just that modern aircraft production tempo is more like ww2 light surface vessel production (corvettes, frigates/DEs, submarines, destroyers at most). You can risk them, but you try not to lose more than you get. Gambling is done by reckless nations, who are certain that they don't have production capacity to play longer and safer. Sometimes with great success - but overall, all decisive gamblers historically failed.

I am saying that once committed, a modern BVR peer air war itself is likely to be very very decisive.

But experience, again, says otherwise. Sides just don't get into ranges where they can't survive.
And again - Indopakistani brawl was anything but decisive. Exactly because only one side even tried to commit, failed, and then both went to throw things at each other. It didn't lose nowhere near enough airframes to have operational impact - it isn't WW2 carrier battle where sides don't retreat, attack regardless of circumstances, and pilots are taught to treat themselves as disposables.
Because it doesn't really matter whether they live or not, what matters is whether carrier does. If it will - someone maybe will pick you up. If it won't - even if you bail into sea, sharks will still get their meal.
But this is a rare historical exception.

When both sides commit to what I described, it leads to one side rapidly losing their forces (because one side will inevitably have the totality in advantage of sensors, networking, weapons, fleet size) and non-graceful degradation of their sortie generating capabilities while the other side's sortie generating capability (i.e.: air frame losses) are kept at a minimum.

This isn't numbers game. There is saturation point, when sensory/killchain network is dense enough to force enough costs on risk takers. After that saturation point, everything else turns into force deployment game - move them closer/further to reach desired loss rate.

Attempts to pursue advantage in this case all turn into gambles - i.e. attacker first commits to taking heavy losses, which maybe will bring heavier rewards.
And every bad attempt gets immediate political/internal pushback.

If there is any hope for decisiveness - it's really that new generation of planes will break information environment, making it inefficient enough to decisively collapse it without taking unacceptable risks. Which is in essense commiting to USAF(aka strongest air force in the world), together with parasitic partner air forces(all from rich and technologically developed nations, with clue on what's going on) being absolutely paralized for years to come. This is just unlikely.
What's more likely, however, is when great sides miss shift, like it happened in 1940 in Ardennes - because learning from Spain and Khalkin Gol was beyond true powers and best armed forces. After that, irony wasn't even in what happened in France. Irony was that it happened again, a whole year later, in exact same disastrous manner, against weak Japan(Khalkin Gol again), in Malaya. Because someone was too white to learn.

TLDR: i don't think ubiqutous information space is anything good for decisiveness, unless there is a reliable way to collapse it down, or there's a way to make long range weapons ineffective.
Long range engagement in transparent battlefield are an epytome of indecisiveness. Not because they're ineffective - but because when they are, sides move out even further, and dug in.
The way to break stalemate is already emerging - and it's emerging "underneath" advanced fighters, mostly because the task isn't seen as knightly enough. But it doesn't matter fi it's knightly or not - as both high and low air can bring effects of air superiority. At best. they cancel out each other. In most cases, low air appears to be the priority one, because for all its weakness(coming from relative novelty), it brings effects cheaper.

 

[Blitzo]

"Can".
1930s were full of decisive maneuvers by great navies (famously, RN in mediterranean, some of more crazy fleet problems in US; japanese preparations). Everything was to be solved in a great decisive battle; cruisers "torpedoed" whole battle divisions, destroyers performed daring charges, everyone was having fun for public money. Until it wasn't.

Very early in mediterranean war, Pakistani J-10CWarspite gets effective gunnery in july 1940 on Cesare off Calabria, showing that long range gunfire is potentially effective. Italians get bloodied, lose couple dozen men, disengage.
There's effectively no further battleship gunnery duels on theater till the very end of the war. Italians carefully chose their engagements, don't let their heavy units to stray out at night (especially after losing whole heavy cruiser division to it), and throw submarines and planes at problems. It isn't like sides are absolutely protective of their heavy units: they still seek out each other. Just carefully and with 90 considerations. Until conditions for Great Decisive Engagement are met, however, sides throw planes and stuff at each other.
And as we know, whole war gets decided by attritable planes, submarines and light forces. Mathematically, and many years later.

After few encounters here and there(germans play really boldly despite Spee, and for a while get away with it), in 1941 Bismarck destroys Hood in few minutes of gunfire. Couple days later, gets lost itself, completely irreplaceable. Then naval war will continue for 4 more years, as neither brits really want to end up on the receiving end, nor germans want to lose their units decisively. They eventually will get Sharnhortst to re-learn the lesson, but it'll take years of careful in-and-out under attritable bombers, submarines and special forces.

Pacific war is even more striking, but such a short summary for it is just impossible. I think you know how it went on without me anyway.


If something is so dangerous as to result in doubts and qualm, it is the very definition of indecisiveness.
Machine gun is one hell of effective and decisive weapon, killing rows of attacking infantry with just a couple of men. But it results in a stalemate - even with absolutely replaceable ww1 men.
Even at Chinese peacetime speed - you can't sustain decisive campaign, losing a dozen planes per day, for long. You can do it for one campaign, sure - but so can your opponent, and what comes next? Even more, what to do when, say, american aircraft production is mostly out of interference reach, but Shenyang, Xi'an and Chengdu are disruptable. What to do when force regeneration may not in fact reach desired speeds?

Next comes throwing things that can be produced, thrown out at will, and production of which can not be disrupted. Planes use comes down to a replenishable tempo. This doesn't mean they can't be used - it's just that modern aircraft production tempo is more like ww2 light surface vessel production (corvettes, frigates/DEs, submarines, destroyers at most). You can risk them, but you try not to lose more than you get. Gambling is done by reckless nations, who are certain that they don't have production capacity to play longer and safer. Sometimes with great success - but overall, all decisive gamblers historically failed.


But experience, again, says otherwise. Sides just don't get into ranges where they can't survive.
And again - Indopakistani brawl was anything but decisive. Exactly because only one side even tried to commit, failed, and then both went to throw things at each other. It didn't lose nowhere near enough airframes to have operational impact - it isn't WW2 carrier battle where sides don't retreat, attack regardless of circumstances, and pilots are taught to treat themselves as disposables.
Because it doesn't really matter whether they live or not, what matters is whether carrier does. If it will - someone maybe will pick you up. If it won't - even if you bail into sea, sharks will still get their meal.
But this is a rare historical exception.

This isn't numbers game. There is saturation point, when sensory/killchain network is dense enough to force enough costs on risk takers. After that saturation point, everything else turns into force deployment game - move them closer/further to reach desired loss rate.

Attempts to pursue advantage in this case all turn into gambles - i.e. attacker first commits to taking heavy losses, which maybe will bring heavier rewards.
And every bad attempt gets immediate political/internal pushback.

If there is any hope for decisiveness - it's really that new generation of planes will break information environment, making it inefficient enough to decisively collapse it without taking unacceptable risks. Which is in essense commiting to USAF(aka strongest air force in the world), together with parasitic partner air forces(all from rich and technologically developed nations, with clue on what's going on) being absolutely paralized for years to come. This is just unlikely.
What's more likely, however, is when great sides miss shift, like it happened in 1940 in Ardennes - because learning from Spain and Khalkin Gol was beyond true powers and best armed forces. After that, irony wasn't even in what happened in France. Irony was that it happened again, a whole year later, in exact same disastrous manner, against weak Japan(Khalkin Gol again), in Malaya. Because someone was too white to learn.

TLDR: i don't think ubiqutous information space is anything good for decisiveness, unless there is a reliable way to collapse it down, or there's a way to make long range weapons ineffective.
Long range engagement in transparent battlefield are an epytome of indecisiveness. Not because they're ineffective - but because when they are, sides move out even further, and dug in.
The way to break stalemate is already emerging - and it's emerging "underneath" advanced fighters, mostly because the task isn't seen as knightly enough. But it doesn't matter fi it's knightly or not - as both high and low air can bring effects of air superiority. At best. they cancel out each other. In most cases, low air appears to be the priority one, because for all its weakness(coming from relative novelty), it brings effects cheaper.

Everything you've written here is simply describing strategic and political level decisions for why battle was not chosen or avoided using other means rather than to risk assets in potentially force-destroying battles if a battle did not go in their favour.

You wrote in #1540 "Here is wast majority of modern air to air combat. Pay attention to vector, range and altitude" as if it was an example of a peer level modern BVR air war (which it was not), and in #1542 followed it up by saying the more outrageous statement "One of basic traits of peer long range combat appears that it's indecisive, and decisive action role increasingly gets transferred to those who can."


This is fundamentally incorrect. Modern BVR combat (as well as various examples of past forms of battle which you listed) is very devastatingly decisive -- the problem is not in the form of combat itself, but rather the strategic and political level willingness of air forces to fight in such a battle which is so decisive in nature where they may risk losing large parts of their force.



The indecisiveness you are talking about is at the strategic and political levels of decision making where nations will seek to achieve their goals by other, less risky means to preserve as much of their (air) force as possible.
The fact they seek to preserve their air force in that way is by very nature supportive of the devastating and decisive nature of modern BVR air war, because all it takes is a few days of persistent air war where one side has a worse exchange ratio, and then the losing side will essentially fully cede the ability to contest the air due to loss of airframes.

In context of the conflict scenarios we are interested in (high end westpac conflict which is basically the only scenario where a high end peer BVR air war could properly occur at scale), the question shouldn't be "is modern BVR air war decisive" -- because the answer is yes.
Rather the question should be "is there a permutation/scenario of a high end westpac conflict where modern BVR air war can be avoided by the participants in context of the likely strategic and political objectives".

Or to sum up -- if a high end BVR peer air war constitutes an "unacceptable risk" then that by definition means that a high end BVR peer air wars are decisive.


Edit: finally, this discussion about BVR combat emerged out of the original topic about the role of WVR BFM in modern contests for air superiority, where others rightfully made the argument that WVR BFM in peacetime is not reflective of how a modern peer air war would occur as such a contest would be done in BVR.

To be honest your posts in this thread criticising the decisiveness of modern BVR doesn't even seem to be in relation to WVR or even about peer air forces, instead you are coming in with some strange argument that almost seems to be suggesting that contests for air superiority between tactical fighter aircraft is not a reflection of how modern air combat will be, but instead are reflected in interception missions against cruise missiles and low end suicide drones???

I am truly confused as to how your topic is relevant at all to what was discussed prior.