China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
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Back when I started following Deino on Twitter, he had recently posted about total Y-20A numbers and I have taken note every time he updates ever since. I didn't realize all of the tankers had been concentrated in the 38th regiment, while the Y-20s are in the 12th and 37th.
My count is at 92 Y-20As in total, which would mean 46 aircraft per regiment. This seems pretty big though. Did I completely lose track, or have some regiments been filled up with more aircraft than authorized strength in recent years?
I recently learned that air regiments tend to consist of three groups with 8 or 10 aircraft each. I also saw a conversation in the J-20 thread speculating about regiment size, and the two possible numbers mentioned were 24 and 30, so that tracks.
If there are indeed roughly 90~ Y-20As, the rumor the 39th AR has received them might make sense. But apparently there is some discrepancy in the serial number of the alleged 39th AR aircraft.
It also may not be out of the question that a regiment could be much bigger than normal. If the PLAAF has a big requirement for transports but can't really afford to build more airbases or convert existing ones to transport duties, it would make sense to just make an existing regiment bigger. In addition, currently all transport regiments are located in the WTC or CTC, in other words far out of range of sea or ground-launched Tomahawks. Although the coastal theater commands might require their own heavy transport aircraft, stationing them in those areas would put them at risk of destruction. If H-6s are lost to such strikes, their role can be filled by surviving (more survivable) assets like road-mobile ballistic missiles, ships, subs, etc. But heavy transport aircraft cannot be replaced easily.
Therefore transport regiments would need to be expanded to a much bigger size than combat air regiments because they would be tasked with serving both the theater command they are based in as well as theater commands that lack heavy transports due to their vulnerability (or at least hypothetical vulnerability) to enemy strikes if based there.
EDIT- To be clear, when I say all transport regiments are in the WTC and CTC, I mean dedicated transport regiments, not the SAR & Transport regiments, the transports of which I assume have a utility role and are too few in number to meet the transport demands of a major conflict.
My count is at 92 Y-20As in total, which would mean 46 aircraft per regiment. This seems pretty big though. Did I completely lose track, or have some regiments been filled up with more aircraft than authorized strength in recent years?
I recently learned that air regiments tend to consist of three groups with 8 or 10 aircraft each. I also saw a conversation in the J-20 thread speculating about regiment size, and the two possible numbers mentioned were 24 and 30, so that tracks.
If there are indeed roughly 90~ Y-20As, the rumor the 39th AR has received them might make sense. But apparently there is some discrepancy in the serial number of the alleged 39th AR aircraft.
It also may not be out of the question that a regiment could be much bigger than normal. If the PLAAF has a big requirement for transports but can't really afford to build more airbases or convert existing ones to transport duties, it would make sense to just make an existing regiment bigger. In addition, currently all transport regiments are located in the WTC or CTC, in other words far out of range of sea or ground-launched Tomahawks. Although the coastal theater commands might require their own heavy transport aircraft, stationing them in those areas would put them at risk of destruction. If H-6s are lost to such strikes, their role can be filled by surviving (more survivable) assets like road-mobile ballistic missiles, ships, subs, etc. But heavy transport aircraft cannot be replaced easily.
Therefore transport regiments would need to be expanded to a much bigger size than combat air regiments because they would be tasked with serving both the theater command they are based in as well as theater commands that lack heavy transports due to their vulnerability (or at least hypothetical vulnerability) to enemy strikes if based there.
EDIT- To be clear, when I say all transport regiments are in the WTC and CTC, I mean dedicated transport regiments, not the SAR & Transport regiments, the transports of which I assume have a utility role and are too few in number to meet the transport demands of a major conflict.
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Thanks for following me on Twitter - and so maybe you remember better what I posted when than me!
- however let me add a fe comments and corrections:I have a list (table) of NOT 92 Y-20As but "only" 53 Y-20A transports (24 in the 12th AR & 29 in the 37th AR) plus 20 (?) YY-20A tanker (all in the 38th AR) + maybe one more within the 39th.
As such it fits nicely IMO to 3x8 within the 12th and almost 3x10 in the 37th and I expect both regiments in the end to be equipped with 30 transports. Similar but a bit confusing is the 38th with IMO not yet all tanker identified and some still not delivered, but overall I won't be surprised when the 38th too will have 30 tanker.
Confusing is, that we have different serial number blocks within the 38th - 2054x-2074x and 2085x-2094x) and IMO these are not all individual aircraft but just 20 tanker at all and they got initially 2085x-2094x numbers as long as the Il-76s were active and are now being renumbered to 2054x-2074x numbers.
What in fact surprises me is this new single YY-20A spotted with "maybe/allegedly" the number 21040, which would hint to be the first one assigned to the 39th AR but the individual bort number #00 makes no sense. As such, we need more information and for this is just checking construction numbers ... interesting, the highest one known so far is cn. (2)0058 for a transport.
Just noticed at second sight only, it is not a Y-20A transport, but a YY-20A tanker.
Anyway, I still think the number "21040" is strange.
@huitong
Its code number should be 100.
yes, but according to the regular pattern, a 21x4x serial number would be an aircraft from the 39th AB.