Chinese purchase of Su-35

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Deleted member 13312

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Great plane, but sadly China would find it difficult to integrate them into the existing logistic structure. Because AFAIK, Russian weaponary and avionics are incompatible with foreign made systems. Which would mean that China would not be able to use the latest domestic weapons (PL-10 and PL-15) on them. Most likely they will use the earlier stockpile of R-77s and R-73s. Judging by the official data, the Iribis-E is an excellent radar, but in the end it is still a PESA with all the accompanying short-comings. Anyone would want to bet that China might try and slap on an improved AESA radar on them in the future ?
 
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KlRc80

Junior Member
Registered Member
From Oedosoldier's Twitter:

SU-35's rudders deflected differentially for braking.
Has this been seen on China's other flanker versions before?
IMG_20180514_193307.jpg
 
plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
Viktor Jav said:
Great plane, but sadly China would find it difficult to integrate them into the existing logistic structure. Because AFAIK, Russian weaponary and avionics are incompatible with foreign made systems. Which would mean that China would not be able to use the latest domestic weapons (PL-10 and PL-15) on them. Most likely they will use the earlier stockpile of R-77s and R-73s. Judging by the official data, the Iribis-E is an excellent radar, but in the end it is still a PESA with all the accompanying short-comings. Anyone would want to bet that China might try and slap on an improved AESA radar on them in the future ?
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Not really, since one of the key uses for the Su35 would be to reciprocate the aggressive brinkmanship of foreign, especially Japanese pilots; who have locked engagement radar on Chinese warplanes before.

Now the PLAAF could not only lock back, but use wartime settings to burn through and/or bypass Japanese EW suites without worrying about revealing key operating frequencies while potentially being able to gleam operationally useful frequencies and performance parameters of Japanese EW.

When the chips are down and the other guy is hanging real ordinance, it would take quite a brave pilot to just sit there and allow the lock, knowing all it would take is a twitch of a finger to send a missile up his tailpipe (or even straight for his cockpit if the missiles are the new gen super nasty IIR kind) with near zero warning and reaction time; when he has the option to trigger jammers to try and break the lock.
 
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Deleted member 13312

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plawolf said:
Not really, since one of the key uses for the Su35 would be to reciprocate the aggressive brinkmanship of foreign, especially Japanese pilots; who have locked engagement radar on Chinese warplanes before.

Now the PLAAF could not only lock back, but use wartime settings to burn through and/or bypass Japanese EW suites without worrying about revealing key operating frequencies while potentially being able to gleam operationally useful frequencies and performance parameters of Japanese EW.

When the chips are down and the other guy is hanging real ordinance, it would take quite a brave pilot to just sit there and allow the lock, knowing all it would take is a twitch of a finger to send a missile up his tailpipe (or even straight for his cockpit if the missiles are the new gen super nasty IIR kind) with near zero warning and reaction time; when he has the option to trigger jammers to try and break the lock.
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Well that is not really the answer I was looking for. If China wants to engage in brinkmanship with foreign aircraft, they have plenty of aircrafts they can choose from before hand without resorting to the Su-35, earlier versions of the J-11s and the JH-7s have the requisite range and avionics that are good enough for brinkmanship but not sensitive enough to be militarily damaging if exposed.
The Su-35s are engine and airframe wise, one of the best 4th gen fighters at China's disposal. Not to mention among the newest, so it would make sense to upgrade them. But rewriting the entire OS on the fighters would be a huge undertaking.
 
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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
But JH-7s are no air to air fighters. Not sure if they can participate in this "brinkmanship" engagement with F-15J or F-2s. Almost all the instances have been very close range and JH-7 just can't turn like the Japanese fighters. J-11s are the backbone of the PLAAF and exposing information is far more costly than just the 24 Su-35s. If they plan on acquiring more Su-35s then that changes the assumption. So far our suspicions of PLAAF wishing to use Su-35 as frontline engagers in these brinkmanship activities with Japan (possibly also USA, Vietnam, Taiwan, and India) have been confirmed. If they plan on keeping Su-35 as some sort of ace to play in actual conflict, they would not be risking any exposure. The fact they are already flying them in patrol and escort missions shows they prefer to keep J-11's signatures a secret while comfortably exposing Su-35 to whatever the other guys can collect.
 
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Deleted member 13312

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ougoah said:
But JH-7s are no air to air fighters. Not sure if they can participate in this "brinkmanship" engagement with F-15J or F-2s. Almost all the instances have been very close range and JH-7 just can't turn like the Japanese fighters. J-11s are the backbone of the PLAAF and exposing information is far more costly than just the 24 Su-35s. If they plan on acquiring more Su-35s then that changes the assumption. So far our suspicions of PLAAF wishing to use Su-35 as frontline engagers in these brinkmanship activities with Japan (possibly also USA, Vietnam, Taiwan, and India) have been confirmed. If they plan on keeping Su-35 as some sort of ace to play in actual conflict, they would not be risking any exposure. The fact they are already flying them in patrol and escort missions shows they prefer to keep J-11's signatures a secret while comfortably exposing Su-35 to whatever the other guys can collect.
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Brinksmanship is a game of chicken, its more about thumbing one's nose at the other and daring them to do something about it. For these cases,having the JH-7 showing up unannounced into contested territory and then ignoring the counter challenges from Japanese fighters for a while then pulling back before things escalate any future is brinksmanship enough. As far as records show no Sino-Japanese air engagements have evolved into anything more serious like mock dogfighting. Neither side would want to initiate a situation in which misunderstandings can quickly arise.
And the J-11s share many similarities with the Su-35s , one can even say that aerodynamics and avionics wise the Su-35s are even more advanced then the earlier variants.
And it would not be the first that China has used J-11s in foreign interceptions. The P-8 incident over the SCS is one. And wasn't the assumption is that China bought the Su-35 largely out of a political favour than any tactical need ?
 
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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Some certainly believe the purchase was purely for political favour although I consider that a matter of fact, the primary consideration was for the purposes of conducting interceptions, patrols, and escort missions. That's my own opinion at least and I've believed this for the longest time. There is no sense in buying Su-35 only for political reasons. Anyway that part's history on this sub-forum. Maybe they are using Su-35 so they don't need to be using sino-flankers. I don't think flying any plane into disputed territory is the point otherwise just keep flying drones and J-7s why even bother with JH-7. PLAAF probably also wants to show off a bit as well so parading Su-35 as their new toy certainly does that. No doubt Su-35 is overall superior to J-11b. How much information can be collected is pure speculation. I'm probably totally wrong about masking signals and radar frequencies etc (I'm completely ignorant of the technicalities so bad conjecture from me) but we don't really know for certain. Fact is they are using these new Su-35s for these sort of missions. That's all. Draw own conclusions.

P.S. even if they do not use radar to lock and target each other, it still helps to send fighters than can turn with the best available in Japan. Sending old JH-7s gives off a totally different image to sending Su-35 or J-11s.
 
D

Deleted member 13312

Guest
ougoah said:
Some certainly believe the purchase was purely for political favour although I consider that a matter of fact, the primary consideration was for the purposes of conducting interceptions, patrols, and escort missions. That's my own opinion at least and I've believed this for the longest time. There is no sense in buying Su-35 only for political reasons. Anyway that part's history on this sub-forum. Maybe they are using Su-35 so they don't need to be using sino-flankers. I don't think flying any plane into disputed territory is the point otherwise just keep flying drones and J-7s why even bother with JH-7. PLAAF probably also wants to show off a bit as well so parading Su-35 as their new toy certainly does that. No doubt Su-35 is overall superior to J-11b. How much information can be collected is pure speculation. I'm probably totally wrong about masking signals and radar frequencies etc (I'm completely ignorant of the technicalities so bad conjecture from me) but we don't really know for certain. Fact is they are using these new Su-35s for these sort of missions. That's all. Draw own conclusions.

P.S. even if they do not use radar to lock and target each other, it still helps to send fighters than can turn with the best available in Japan. Sending old JH-7s gives off a totally different image to sending Su-35 or J-11s.
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True, sometimes military actions are not all rooted in reasonable thinking and more on the more bases drives like pride and ego.
 
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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
It absolutely is mostly about "making a statement". Short of using the J-20 in these "aggressive" missions, Su-35 makes the statement that China possesses capable hardware. It's not all Mig-21 derivatives coming out to meet F-15s. Don't underestimate our capabilities and resolve etc etc.
 
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