The future orbat composition of China's potential adversaries in 5-10 years and certainly after 10 years, will include many hundreds if not over 1500 5th generation fighters, the majority of which will be F-35s. Going into the 2030s that will likely begin to approach 2000+ F-35s for the US alone.
Furthermore, in the medium term it is likely AEW&C and battle management and EW and ISR aircraft will become very distributed and attritable -- i.e.: instead of single large lumbering aircraft, they will become smaller, perhaps unmanned, where losing one or two aircraft will not bring down the entire battle-space's ability to maintain situational awareness/battle management or ISR or EW.
What all this means is that no, it is not enough to simply "depend" on a relatively small force or a minority fleet of 5th generation fighters supported by 4+ generation fighters, because you are going up against a foe with 1000+ or 2000+ 5th generation fighters (depending on the time period and how you count it), and because the enemy's force multipliers will become more survivable and distributed as well.
This is also ignoring likely advances in unmanned aircraft technology, specifically air to air unmanned loyal wingman type UCAVs that will likely enhance the capability and "fleet size" of the side which fields it, which will augment the capability of manned combat aircraft by acting as secondary sensor and shooter nodes.
I think the USAF is heavily over-invested on short-ranged manned stealth fighters like the F-35, even if it is amazing in the air.
These aircraft need to operate from bases close to the Chinese mainland and are therefore highly vulnerable to destruction on the ground where they spend the vast majority of the time.
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I also disagree with your assertion that USAF force multipliers will become more survivable and distributed.
If we're talking about large tanker/AWACs/bomber aircraft, they are so vulnerable because they rely on fixed airbases within range of Chinese missiles. And on a cost-benefit basis, destroying these expensive aircraft on the ground is a bargain compared to the cost of missiles.
We already see the USAF removing its bombers from Guam due to Chinese missiles, and I expect Chinese missile development to continue with even longer-ranged missiles up to Hawaii which is some 8000km from the Chinese mainland.
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I actually see the advent of loyal wingman autonomous UCAVs as
reducing the utility of manned stealth fighters like the F-35 or J-20.
These UCAVs will become the
primary sensor and shooter platforms, as they are sent out far ahead. An F-35 or J-20 will become the
secondary sensor and shooter platform. Then there is a question about whether the F-35 or J-20 is the best command and control platform for these drones.
So the conclusion is that you want to produce vast numbers of UCAVs, which are controlled by a more modest number of F-35s, J-20s or other aircraft.
Plus these cheap disposable UCAVs are being developed with a range of 4000-6000km in mind. 6000km of endurance is beyond the capabilities of a manned stealth fighter.
Even Guam is only a 6000km round trip from China, so it would be feasible to send large numbers of air superiority and ground attack drones against Guam. So from the Chinese perspective, what use is having an excessively large number of short-ranged manned stealth fighters?
All this is to say that going into the next 5, 10 and 15 years, the path that the PLA's combat aviation fleet needs to take is quite obvious:
- try to move to all 5th generation fighter procurement as soon as possible and stop 4+ generation fighter production (likely not possible until the mid 2020s at the earliest), with the goal of procuring as many 5th generation fighters as the budget and fleet requirement allows
- further develop and fast track unmanned aircraft technology, with the goals of operationalizing their own loyal wingman UCAV type aircraft within 5 years, as well as operationalizing their own distributed/attritable ISR/AEWC/ISR/ELINT UAV fleet. Once mature, large scale procurement is necessary.
- 4+ generation fighters will continue to be in service and upgraded, however will be completely non-competitive against a foe who will be operating majority fleet 5th gen fighters supported by a large fleet of their own 4+ fighters and increasingly capable unmanned technologies and pre-existing formidable "legacy" AEW&C/EW/ELINT force multipliers.
- continue to try to fast track and develop 6th generation fighter technologies for a rollout preferably by 2030 if not earlier, even if it is in a "phased" manner where new capabilities are rolled into the aircraft over time.
Obviously in addition to the above fundamentals, seeking greater strike/offensive counter air capability to hit opfor air bases when their aircraft is on the ground is desirable, and that will also be pursued.
But seeking to have an air force that is able to at least match, if not outmatch the enemy in the air if you are unable to greatly hamstring their sortie rate/airbases, IMO is also essential.
.... Now, all of this isn't to say that continuing to have 4+ generation aircraft in your fleet is a bad idea -- but rather what I'm saying is that depending on how large and capable the opfor's 5th generation fleet is, you also need to have a sufficiently large and capable 5th gen fleet of your own.
Say we have three air forces:
Air Force A: has 1000 4+ generation fighters and 200 5th gen fighters
Air Force B: has 400 4+ generation fighters and 60 5th generation fighters
Air Force C: has 600 4+ generation fighters and 700 5th generation fighters
In comparing those three air forces, Air Force A's composition would obviously be able to outmatch Air Force B by virtue of not only having a larger total air fleet of fighters (in both 4+ gen and 5th gen).
However, Air Force A would likely be greatly challenged to face Air Force C which has a 5th generation fleet of 700 fighters versus Air Force A's only 200 5th generation fighters, and Air Force a's 1000 4+ generation fighters will not likely be able to pick up the slack.
In an ideal world, not only is your own air force larger than your opfor's, but also each and every single one of your aircraft is qualitatively superior than your opfor's. I don't need to describe the synergistic effects of this in a system on systems confrontation between two air forces, I'm sure.
In the real world, where air forces are limited by budgets, you have to make do with what you can.
But for the PLA, I think we also have to be realistic wrt the scale of the challenge they will be facing in the near future and how their future procurement may be shaped to approach it.
My view is that it would be foolish for the Chinese Air Force to try and match the number of manned stealth fighters, even if they had the budget to do so.
The geography of the Western Pacific allows the Chinese military to invest in missiles to destroy opposing stealth fighters on the ground, rather than in the air which is far more difficult and expensive.
Let's say the Chinese Air Force was given the budget to match the opposition's 2000 manned stealth fighters, in its goal to contest achieve air superiority in the Western Pacific. But the Chinese Air Force would struggle to obtain air superiority in such a symmetric force-on-force encounter.
But if China were to only field 1000 manned stealth fighters, the rest of the money could be used for land-attack missiles instead.
A back of the envelope calculation indicates that China could buy over 100,000 JASSM or Tomahawk type missiles.
Other missiles are more or less expensive, but you get the idea.
Such a combination of forces would guarantee Chinese air superiority over the Western Pacific, because everyone else will barely have any aircraft into the air.
