Let's look at it this way, the americans build the F-15EX because they don't have any other choice. China has though, the J-20S in the immediate term (not even bringing the J-36 here), i think it's safe to assume that J-20S can pretty much do anything the J-16 can, but being a generation newer all-around, LO, more future-proof, supercruising etc. They could theoretically still use it as a bombtruck by putting weapons under the wings, after the stand-off release of which it can revert to it's LO based tactics/capabilities. So from this angle ending J-16 production is not surprising.
China Flanker Thread III (land based, exclude J-15)
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
If supported by sufficient other assets, a group of J-16s would be competitive in air combat scenarios So, I wouldn't write off Its usefulness even 5 or 10 years from now.
yeah, I think that is something to be cognizant of. Just how much of the strike tasks will get replaced by unmanned aircraft. Although, I think J-16s will still be quite relevant for a while in the stand off role.
I think the key metric to watch for is maintainability for J-16 compared with fifth gen/UCAV. If cost/maintenance per hour for J-20S is competitive with that of the J-16, there is no reason the former couldn’t fulfill the same role with external carry.
Expecting maintainability as advantage for flanker IMHO is a tall order. Flanker is forever bound to be a ladder queen.
J-16 ultimately was produced for a decade together with J-20, whatever it does over J-20 can't be explained just by Shenyang pork, nor by need to fill numbers at any cost(J-10c was cut on relative merits).
Furthermore, we still have situation where J-15T/D are still in production, and will be for many years to come.
Immediate tuning down of J-16 production corresponds to 3 events:
(1)J-16 intended fleet is probably more or less complete;
(2)J-20A, J-35A and LWs enter mass production, weight of effort is directed elsewhere;
(3)J-36/XDS entered trials, i.e. starting with their introduction some ~5-7 yrs down the line, one or both these models will likely start replacing, among others, early J-16s themselves.
J-16 is >10 years old and it's ultimately a flanker; they shouldn't have that much airframe hrs, and we know they were flown damn a lot. First batches are likely getting close to big refurbishments and second part of their life.
Now, what can J-16 do over J-20? 2nd pilot with great station flexibility, probably range without drop tanks(huge low density airframe without internal ducts and bay), more pod and oversized payload options (J-20 is ultimately limited to 4). Plus, of course, ease of adding them in numbers and desired combinations down the line.
We can combine it with apparently significant J-20 bay depth restrictions (not conclusive, but after recent J-35A thread, it really looks this way if you look at bay bulkheads closer), and the picture paints itself.
I think the Pentagon report is credible.
Dissect the statement:
“The PLAN aims to produce six aircraft carriers by 2035 for a total of nine”
1. The statement comprises two elements: [produce six aircraft carriers by 2035] for a [total of nine]. The author wanted to be crystal clear on this, so they repeated it twice, in 2 different ways.
2. This is a huge statement ie. China is tripling the number of aircraft carriers from 3 to 9. This should have been picked up immediately by any halfway competent reviewer, and remember they had to take the classified version and make an unclassified version.
3. The only way the Pentagon can know what the PLAN "aims" to build is through espionage. We shouldn't expect the unclassified public facing report to go into more detail. In contrast, the classified version probably does.
4. Why would they decide to release this statement? If China has 9 carriers, the implication is that China can deploy more carriers in the Western Pacific than the US. Therefore it is a public warning to sort out US naval construction.
You're all correct; the USAF count won't exceed 400 units if the current order for the EXs doesn't get expanded. I take my statement back.
It still stands true that, until the J-36 or J-XX is introduced, the J-16 will remain - kinematically-speaking - the most capable A2G platform the PLAAF has. I'm not certain how the J-35A or J-20A would be able to fulfill that capability gap.
As others have mentioned, the "capability gap" for fixed wing strike platforms is not just about the total payload or unitary payload size that an aircraft can carry, but also about its signature reduction, sensing and EW and command capabilities, etc, and platforms may not be one to one replacements.
J-20/A/S and J-35A have the ability to external carry payloads which will be able to offer likely non-inferior payload capacity to J-16, and will be complemented by GJ-11, and other likely larger strike platforms in future (GJ-X, H-0/X etc).
Given the year we are in, 400-450 vanilla J-16s produced in a total production run seems quite adequate for their multirole capabilities in context of emergent platforms.
And that same DoD report claimed that China is still importing GT25000 engines from Ukraine for their 052D and 055 DDGs, and that China has less ballistic missiles than even Iran. So what's your point?
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Both J-20 and J-35 have 4 heavy duty external pylons (we aren't sure on J-35, but it's most probable). Yes, J-20(and very likely J-35) can match/exceed flankers in MRAAM department, but not in big stores.
J-16 has 7. This is pretty straightforward. Furthermore, outside of these 7, flanker takes EW pod(s), which is the only way to increase self defense capability of a bloated signature of a weapons carrier.
None of this interferes with full fuel load either, as drop tank is imbedded into flankers as is.
Finally, flanker pylons are staged both horizontally and vertically: you can relatively easily achieve 360 coverage with line of sight payloads (EW, but also targeting and direct energy).
P.s.and killing blow: damn sure J-16 can use rockets. ;p
Which in context of LUCAS/Chien Hsiang isn't exactly zero...
The only problem here is that normal flankers don't take truly heavy ammunitions well, but by and large existing Chinese tactical aviation armament doesn't even touch their limit.
Overall, if J-16 niche was so narrow, I'd think it'd be long since gone from production. J-10, which is in fact very limited in payload agility, is indeed gone.
To clarify, when I talk about payload capacity I'm not saying that the external payload total capacity of J-20 family and J-35 family are the same as J-16, I'm talking about how the maximum individual pylon payload capacity is likely similar to that of J-16's maximum individual pylon payload capacity. (I.e. the "outsize payloads" that J-16 can carry should be able to be accommodated by J-20 family and J-35 family as well, even if it isn't in the same exact number)
4 stations compared to 7 is close enough and the fact that J-16 has more payloads/stations is of course a benefit in its favour... but at that point we are comparing the differences between aircraft one on one.
Therefore we would have to bring the fact that J-20 family and J-35 family are stealthy and capable of doing strike missions with compact strike weapons from their IWB in a stealthy configuration that J-16 is unable to do in any configuration.
If one wants to argue that "J-16 is able to do a different strike mission set where VLO is less important and where external payload capacity is more viable" -- then the rest of my reply is relevant, which is that the PLA has and will have other platforms that will take on elements of that mission as well, potentially with greater survivability.
In short, nothing you wrote has actually refuted my point which is that ceasing vanilla J-16 production at present is quite reasonable in context of in production and upcoming/expected aircraft which are capable of strike, and that looking for one to one replacements is a bad way of viewing things.
Who cares if J-20/35 is only able to carry four large external stores versus J-16 being able to carry seven large external stores in context of... the rest of the modern fixed wing aerial strike platform system of systems and the high importance of fighting in a non permissive environment???
If you read the post I replied to, the question isn't about whether J-16s niche is narrow or wide, but rather whether it has a mission set that is so unique which optimally requires a one to one replacement airframe type that only J-36 or J-XDS can meet as opposed to every other platform type the PLA is procuring today and is expected to procurement in future.