Chinese air to air missiles

plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
SinoSoldier said:
Then this, as I've stated above, would be a function of the PLAN's future AShM development rather than an inherent limitation of the J-20.
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You cannot magic away physics. The J20’s bays just doesn’t have the volume to carry decent sized strike weapons because that’s not what the J20 was designed and built for.

Even if there was some sudden quantum leap in propulsion and explosives technology to allow you to achieve decent range and explosive yield with a projectile small enough to fit in the J20’s bays, such technological breakthroughs are hardly going to be limited to air launched anti surface weapons. SAMs, SSMs, BMs etc would also benefit, effectively cancelling out the gains.

What you are suggesting is akin to using a Maserati to move house. Sure, you could have a go and do a bad job of it while risking significant damage to your premium sports car, but why would you bother doing that when you have perfectly good vans available?
 
SinoSoldier

SinoSoldier

Colonel
plawolf said:
You cannot magic away physics. The J20’s bays just doesn’t have the volume to carry decent sized strike weapons because that’s not what the J20 was designed and built for.

Even if there was some sudden quantum leap in propulsion and explosives technology to allow you to achieve decent range and explosive yield with a projectile small enough to fit in the J20’s bays, such technological breakthroughs are hardly going to be limited to air launched anti surface weapons. SAMs, SSMs, BMs etc would also benefit, effectively cancelling out the gains.

What you are suggesting is akin to using a Maserati to move house. Sure, you could have a go and do a bad job of it while risking significant damage to your premium sports car, but why would you bother doing that when you have perfectly good vans available?
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First of all, we need to define what is considered "decent" in terms of range & warhead payload. What is required to attack an AEGIS-type destroyer will obviously be different from what would suffice to enforce a naval blockade, for example. Granted, physics will not allow the J-20 to carry a Storm Shadow-type missile, but who says that such a weapon would be required or that a lesser missile won't be useful?

We need to be cautious when saying these things about the future because all we have are the dimensions of the J-20's bays and the sizes of existing AShMs. Even then, I would argue that even a "small" AShM like the NSM or a stealthy-fied C-705 could come in handy in certain cases.
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
SinoSoldier said:
First of all, we need to define what is considered "decent" in terms of range & warhead payload. What is required to attack an AEGIS-type destroyer will obviously be different from what would suffice to enforce a naval blockade, for example. Granted, physics will not allow the J-20 to carry a Storm Shadow-type missile, but who says that such a weapon would be required or that a lesser missile won't be useful?

We need to be cautious when saying these things about the future because all we have are the dimensions of the J-20's bays and the sizes of existing AShMs. Even then, I would argue that even a "small" AShM like the NSM or a stealthy-fied C-705 could come in handy in certain cases.
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Why would anyone want to use J20s to enforce a naval blocked with AShMs? Precisely what benefit does shoehorning the J20 into such a role offers over using JH7s or Su30/J16s?

To try to attack an Aegis class AAW capital ship, a J20 carrying small missiles might be able to get closer than conventional strikers to launch at close range before bugging out. But doing so would put the J20 at significant risk as it would be well within range of the warship’s SAMs, and would be presenting its least stealthy rare aspect to the warship as it bugs out.

To risk all that just to fire a clitch of C705 class light AShMs that will be very unlikely to be able to get through a modern warship’s multiple defensive layers (even if the J20 delivery can somewhat blunt the effectiveness of the long range layer of defence); and even if a few do get through, they won’t have enough punch to sink a major warship. At most it will mission kill it. Just doesn’t seem like a good trade-off in terms of risks and rewards and opportunity cost.

Just because something could theoretically maybe do something doesn’t mean it is a good idea for it to do it.
 
SinoSoldier

SinoSoldier

Colonel
plawolf said:
Why would anyone want to use J20s to enforce a naval blocked with AShMs? Precisely what benefit does shoehorning the J20 into such a role offers over using JH7s or Su30/J16s?

To try to attack an Aegis class AAW capital ship, a J20 carrying small missiles might be able to get closer than conventional strikers to launch at close range before bugging out. But doing so would put the J20 at significant risk as it would be well within range of the warship’s SAMs, and would be presenting its least stealthy rare aspect to the warship as it buys out.

To risk all that just to fire a clitch of C705 class light AShMs that will be very unlikely to be able to get through a modern warship’s multiple defensive layers (even if the J20 delivery can somewhat blunt the effectiveness of the long range layer of defence); and even if a few do get through, they won’t have enough punch to sink a major warship. At most it will mission kill it. Just doesn’t seem like a good trade-off in terms of risks and rewards and opportunity cost.

Just because something could theoretically maybe do something doesn’t mean it is a good idea for it to do it.
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The naval blockade was an example to illustrate the need for different AShMs types depending on the context of the situation. Frankly I don't think anyone can precisely map out how the PLANAF or PLAAF intends to evolve its airborne AShM capabilities, but my point is that it would be premature to consign the J-20/XX to any particular role based solely on what we can presently see.

I think it's evident enough that the PLA wants its weapons to be sufficiently modular and future-proof such that its capabilities will no longer be bound by the platform's inherent design but rather by the future development of specific munitions.
 
Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
SinoSoldier said:
The naval blockade was an example to illustrate the need for different AShMs types depending on the context of the situation. Frankly I don't think anyone can precisely map out how the PLANAF or PLAAF intends to evolve its airborne AShM capabilities, but my point is that it would be premature to consign the J-20/XX to any particular role based solely on what we can presently see.

I think it's evident enough that the PLA wants its weapons to be sufficiently modular and future-proof such that its capabilities will no longer be bound by the platform's inherent design but rather by the future development of specific munitions.
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Isn't that what the ASBM is for, such as the DF-21D and the DF-26 as well? Don't forget China is also developing their own LRSB stealth bomber as well.o_O
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
SinoSoldier said:
Did we ever get confirmation that the J-20 cannot be armed with ASuW weaponry? I get that the size and depth of the bay may proclude the loading of certain munitions, but one would think that such a capability is more dependent on the development of future AShMs than the configuration/size of the J-20.
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Come on, let's not try to defend their statement.

We all know there has been zero indication that J-20 is capable of firing any AShM yet. We also know what the size of J-20's weapons bay is.


There are no grounds for them to claim that it has a "large weapons bay capable of hiding anti ship missiles" -- at best they can say that future smaller size anti ship weapons or powered stand off weapons might be developed to accommodate its weapons bay.

But we all know what they are trying to say and where they are coming from.


No need for us to bend over backwards to try and make their logic a bit more feasible.
 
SinoSoldier

SinoSoldier

Colonel
Bltizo said:
Come on, let's not try to defend their statement.

We all know there has been zero indication that J-20 is capable of firing any AShM yet. We also know what the size of J-20's weapons bay is.


There are no grounds for them to claim that it has a "large weapons bay capable of hiding anti ship missiles" -- at best they can say that future smaller size anti ship weapons or powered stand off weapons might be developed to accommodate its weapons bay.

But we all know what they are trying to say and where they are coming from.


No need for us to bend over backwards to try and make their logic a bit more feasible.
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Yes of course, their statement is wrong (or way too premature at the very best), but I'd also like to point out that it's too early to speculate on the nature of its weapons loads since we barely have any information regarding them.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
SinoSoldier said:
Yes of course, their statement is wrong (or way too premature at the very best), but I'd also like to point out that it's too early to speculate on the nature of its weapons loads since we barely have any information regarding them.
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I don't think anyone's suggesting that J-20 has zero chance of ever having a weapon capable of striking ships with.
There is a possibility (though I think a low one) that J-20 might get a small diameter powered weapon.


But whether J-20 might one day possibly get a small powered anti ship weapon isn't really what we're talking about and it isn't what that part in the paragraph is talking about.
 
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