Chinese UCAV/CCA/Loyal Wingman (sensor, A2A and A2G) thread

[gelgoog]

The US cannot get an operational scramjet on a disposable missile, what makes you think they can make a reusable aircraft with one at this point? A reusable aircraft is about an order magnitude harder to make since you have to use different materials for example.

As for Lockheed Martin, you have to separate their funded ongoing programs from proposed prototypes done on their own budget. One example is Lockheed Martin's fusion reactor program, which has been putting out puff pieces on the press for over a decade with little to show for it.

 

[dingyibvs]

I think both US and China has enough launch capability that it's a fool's errand at this point to out shoot each other in satellites. The consequences of mutually assured destruction in space is also so catastrophic that it'll piss off the entire world over as low orbit Kessler syndrome is measured in decades if not centuries.

I don't see how the limitations for sats would be much different from aircrafts. That is, they'd be limited by survivability in a hot war rather than launch capabilities. I assume that ASAT weapons would be cheaper and easier to build than recon sats, just like how SAMs are compared to recon aircrafts. This limitation is the whole point of the WZ-8, being fast, high, and stealthy enough to survive a hostile environment.

 

[sr338]

And I really thought that @大包CG is merely fooling around (which he does sometimes) when I saw his CGI of a WZ-8 strapped with two rocket boosters. Turns out this is true...

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Looks like the WZ-8 will jettison the rocket booster pair soon after takeoff/during climb?

Crude, but effective.

Seriously though, it's time for China to work on a counterpart to the American SR-72. Having to jettison those rocket boosters into the ocean/marshes every time a WZ-8 is self-launched is a big waste of time, space and material involved.

WZ-8 being rocket propelled has an advantage over the SR-72, it can operate much higher.
The ceiling of air-breathing engine is 30km, the WZ-8 can easily operate at 50km

 

[CasualObserver]

I don't see how the limitations for sats would be much different from aircrafts. That is, they'd be limited by survivability in a hot war rather than launch capabilities. I assume that ASAT weapons would be cheaper and easier to build than recon sats, just like how SAMs are compared to recon aircrafts. This limitation is the whole point of the WZ-8, being fast, high, and stealthy enough to survive a hostile environment.

So, what kind of an ISR payload we can expect the WZ-8 to have?

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Is having ~10 minutes of on station recon that much more valuable than satellite recon? I guess at high mach speeds it could be used to complete the anti ship ballistic missile kill chain and be extremely difficult to intercept?

It is important for high resolution and real time imaging/video. Satellite overflight time is not that long, there will be coverage gaps, line of sight hidden by clouds, and distance imposes resolution limits.

I imagine a wide area satellite can pick up targets of interest then WZ-8 or small spot satellites tasked for high resolution imaging.

 

[latenlazy]

It is important for high resolution and real time imaging/video. Satellite overflight time is not that long, there will be coverage gaps, line of sight hidden by clouds, and distance imposes resolution limits.

I imagine a wide area satellite can pick up targets of interest then WZ-8 or small spot satellites tasked for high resolution imaging.

Spotter vs tracker. Satellites are the former, drones are the latter.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Question - What is the current level of China's operational capabilities for its combat aircrafts as unmanned platforms?

To put the theme of discussion into persepctive:

Now, China operates around 600 J-10s and around 400 J-11s, of which large portions of them (mainly the A, B variants for the J-10 and A, B, BS, BH variants for the J-11) will most likely retreat from frontline services in the coming 10-20 years. Instead, J-10 and J-11s of older variants will be relegated to homefront, rear-guard and/or supporting duties and roles until their retirement.

Say, would it be feasible and viable for all of these 4th-gen fighters of older variants to be converted into unmanned fighters that can either be strictly loyal wingmans that will be controlled by J-16s and J-20s, or capable of semi/fully-autonomous mission-execution capabilities? If so, how fast and until when before we can this realistically achieved?

While the retrofitting of older fighters certainly will not cost a measly amount, but doing so can grant immediate availability of UCAVs on platforms that are already capable of active combat roles during periods of tension and/or wartime - While simultaneously waiting for the serial production of newer, built-from-scratch UCAVs to begin/ramp up.

There is also the factor of pilot resource management - Instead of having a not-exactly small pool of fighter pilots keep flying older, less capable fighters (and thus increasing the risk of losing this precious manpower from enemy action due to their less-capable fighters), the newly-freed up fighter pilots made available from the conversion of those older fighters can then be redirected towards piloting newer, more capable Gen-4.5 (J-16), Gen-5 (J-20, J-35/31) and even Gen-6 fighters. This certainly helps to lift the combat performance and prowess of the PLAAF and PLANAF across the board - Though not just increasing the size of the combat aircraft fleet, but also focusing precious manpower onto more-capable platforms while letting robots taking over less-capable platforms.

Though, I believe that the assigned roles for these converted unmanned fighters should depend on the variant, capability and duration of which these older fighters have served prior to their conversion.

The general ideas would be for:

1. Not-so-old and/or comparably-capable airframes to be relegated as autonomous fighters that are capable of semi-/fully-independent mission-execution, patrolling hostile airspaces and providing ISTAR to allied units, plus capable of engaging and dogfight against enemy aircrafts on its own volition; while

2. Older and/or less-capable airframes to be relegated as bomb trucks and/or missile trucks that would conduct attacks against enemy ground targets and/or launch missiles against enemy aircrafts from longer distances away, either as loyal wingmans or with some level of autonomous capabilities.

 

[Atomicfrog]

Question - What is the current level of China's operational capabilities for its combat aircrafts as unmanned platforms?

To put the theme of discussion into persepctive:

Now, China operates around 600 J-10s and around 400 J-11s, of which large portions of them (mainly the A, B variants for the J-10 and A, B, BS, BH variants for the J-11) will most likely retreat from frontline services in the coming 10-20 years. Instead, J-10 and J-11s of older variants will be relegated to homefront, rear-guard and/or supporting duties and roles until their retirement.

Say, would it be feasible and viable for all of these 4th-gen fighters of older variants to be converted into unmanned fighters that can either be strictly loyal wingmans that will be controlled by J-16s and J-20s, or capable of semi/fully-autonomous mission-execution capabilities? If so, how fast and until when before we can this realistically achieved?

While the retrofitting of older fighters certainly will not cost a measly amount, but doing so can grant immediate availability of UCAVs on platforms that are already capable of active combat roles during periods of tension and/or wartime - While simultaneously waiting for the serial production of newer, built-from-scratch UCAVs to begin/ramp up.

There is also the factor of pilot resource management - Instead of having a not-exactly small pool of fighter pilots keep flying older, less capable fighters (and thus increasing the risk of losing this precious manpower from enemy action due to their less-capable fighters), the newly-freed up fighter pilots made available from the conversion of those older fighters can then be redirected towards piloting newer, more capable Gen-4.5 (J-16), Gen-5 (J-20, J-35/31) and even Gen-6 fighters. This certainly helps to lift the combat performance and prowess of the PLAAF and PLANAF across the board - Though not just increasing the size of the combat aircraft fleet, but also focusing precious manpower onto more-capable platforms while letting robots taking over less-capable platforms.

Though, I believe that the assigned roles for these converted unmanned fighters should depend on the variant, capability and duration of which these older fighters have served prior to their conversion.

The general ideas would be for:

1. Not-so-old and/or comparably-capable airframes to be relegated as autonomous fighters that are capable of semi-/fully-independent mission-execution, patrolling hostile airspaces and providing ISTAR to allied units, plus capable of engaging and dogfight against enemy aircrafts on its own volition; while

2. Older and/or less-capable airframes to be relegated as bomb trucks and/or missile trucks that would conduct attacks against enemy ground targets and/or launch missiles against enemy aircrafts from longer distances away, either as loyal wingmans or with some level of autonomous capabilities.

Using a old j-11 for trolling air defences in a one way scenario before main forces going in could be a thing. Saturation of air defences, helping sead operation. In a way, depleting opponents aam and sam with decoy before the main fight is interesting. Old batch of attritable fighter could be used like bait for a couple of J-20.

But a smaller decoy mimicking radar footprint could do the same.

Modifying old j-11 and j-10 to do direct action in combat would be more of the same, easy targets. The cost of modifications per jet would be on par or worse than a brand new loyal wingman designed to be attritable.

It's all about cost and also mothballed j-11 could still be used for spare parts.

 

[Blitzo]

Question - What is the current level of China's operational capabilities for its combat aircrafts as unmanned platforms?

To put the theme of discussion into persepctive:

Now, China operates around 600 J-10s and around 400 J-11s, of which large portions of them (mainly the A, B variants for the J-10 and A, B, BS, BH variants for the J-11) will most likely retreat from frontline services in the coming 10-20 years. Instead, J-10 and J-11s of older variants will be relegated to homefront, rear-guard and/or supporting duties and roles until their retirement.

Say, would it be feasible and viable for all of these 4th-gen fighters of older variants to be converted into unmanned fighters that can either be strictly loyal wingmans that will be controlled by J-16s and J-20s, or capable of semi/fully-autonomous mission-execution capabilities? If so, how fast and until when before we can this realistically achieved?

While the retrofitting of older fighters certainly will not cost a measly amount, but doing so can grant immediate availability of UCAVs on platforms that are already capable of active combat roles during periods of tension and/or wartime - While simultaneously waiting for the serial production of newer, built-from-scratch UCAVs to begin/ramp up.

There is also the factor of pilot resource management - Instead of having a not-exactly small pool of fighter pilots keep flying older, less capable fighters (and thus increasing the risk of losing this precious manpower from enemy action due to their less-capable fighters), the newly-freed up fighter pilots made available from the conversion of those older fighters can then be redirected towards piloting newer, more capable Gen-4.5 (J-16), Gen-5 (J-20, J-35/31) and even Gen-6 fighters. This certainly helps to lift the combat performance and prowess of the PLAAF and PLANAF across the board - Though not just increasing the size of the combat aircraft fleet, but also focusing precious manpower onto more-capable platforms while letting robots taking over less-capable platforms.

Though, I believe that the assigned roles for these converted unmanned fighters should depend on the variant, capability and duration of which these older fighters have served prior to their conversion.

The general ideas would be for:

1. Not-so-old and/or comparably-capable airframes to be relegated as autonomous fighters that are capable of semi-/fully-independent mission-execution, patrolling hostile airspaces and providing ISTAR to allied units, plus capable of engaging and dogfight against enemy aircrafts on its own volition; while

2. Older and/or less-capable airframes to be relegated as bomb trucks and/or missile trucks that would conduct attacks against enemy ground targets and/or launch missiles against enemy aircrafts from longer distances away, either as loyal wingmans or with some level of autonomous capabilities.

There's a reason converted manned fighters aren't part of the loyal wingman/MUMT plans for most high end air forces.

Cost, maintenance, performance, just aren't worth it, and you're better off designing clean sheet UCAVs for those missions that can actually leverage the benefits of a clean sheet unmanned design.


Converted manned fighters will likely only be used for target drones, testbeds, or glorified suicide drones at most.
Otherwise the manned fighters would be mothballed and used for spare parts for remaining manned fighters that are still in service.

 

[dingyibvs]

What about using them as one way range extenders? A J-11 could extend the range of a missile and maybe a couple decoys by ~2000km. It might be cheaper to just use longer range missiles, but it could also make a lo-lo-lo profile missile into a very long range one.