Future PLA combat aircraft composition

Hadoren

Junior Member
Registered Member
Stand off missile strike idea as the ultimate solution keeps rearing its head. Yet it's fallacious in many aspects.
Because of the following:

1. Chinese enemies would not have just a few bases available (like on Guam) but possibly 100 + various bases spread over vast swaths of land to operate from, with great majority being closer to China than Guam.

2. Average base mentioned is not a single target but a set of targets numbering dozens different items, each needing some kind of penetrating warhead.

3. Overall number of missiles available to China, that are capable of going over 1000 km is actually not that great. The fact not all can be fired at once as launcher numbers are smaller than missile numbers and the fact the launchers themselves are needed in multiple locations, preclude launches of very large number of missiles at once, at a target. Coupled with missile defenses and possible malfunctions, it's not unexpected that in a notional 24 missile salvo perhaps 10 or so missiles would not hit their targets. (of course this can be much debated)

4. Assets such as tankers would be operating from bases even farther away, if needed. Further lowering the numbers of missiles that could reach so far.

5. Targeting runways is easily done. But runways can get repaired within a day, in most cases.

6. Targeting individual planes is NOT an easy task. Recon flights at sufficient proximity to determine targets are not easily done near such bases. Due to distance, defenses, etc. Determining targets via satellite overflights (let's assume satellites themselves won't be subject to interference) is still far from an easy task. Great majority of Chinese satellites are optical. They do not provide meaningful images during night time. Western pacific is fairly cloudy throughout the year. For example, Tokyo will have overcast weather 50% of the time. Overall average time of clear image availability will be, roughly speaking, 6 hours a day. But not 6 hours of the exact required spot on Earth. Given that pretty much all recon satellites need 90-ish minutes to do an orbit, and that revisit times over the required spots on Earth are usually 3 days or so, there's a high chance a single satellite will need over a week to get a single usable image. Thus, for better coverage, not one but dozens and dozens of satellites would be used.

Great majority of those satellites have decent but still not great resolution. 0.5 to 1 meter. That's NOT good enough to confidently say whether a shape is a real plane or a detailed decoy model.
One can bet one's bum that in war one side will be making thousands of fairly cheap decoys on factory lines, to be brought in by planes/ships/trucks and assembled on site and then easily moved on wheels around the base. Such decoys could cost a few thousand dollars, enough to make them fairly detailed, yet cheap enough to be very dispensable.

6b. Radar satellites can be more useful, both to determine targets and to offer more coverage, undisturbed by night time and clouds. But they're far, far less numerous than optical ones. Which pretty much results in the same issue of target coverage that's simply not that good.

7. target discrimination isn't done automatically. Recon imagery needs to be assessed manually. Sent to a person making decisions. Targeting plan needs to be done and targets need to be input into missiles before launch. While huge, high contrast targets like carriers can be targeted while missile approaches the target - small targets such as individual planes can not. In all likelihood - the whole kill chain from satellite flying over to missile reaching the target would need at least an hour, for a ballistic missile, and several hours for a cruise missile. In that time, many of the targets and decoys alike would be relocated. Pretty much precise times of satellite overflights would be known to the enemy as tracking satellites is a fairly trivial job for a world superpower.

7b. Cruise missiles could have self-retargeting capability against planes on tarmac in certain visibility situations, helping in the issue - but they're not a solution on their own. And they're rather vulnerable. And still not that numerous in Chinese inventory.

Conclusion: China would likely be able to concentrate its assets by doing fuel costly satellite redirections and destructive missile strikes on a single (or a few) bases per day. And do great damage to those. Yet, runways and infrastructure would get repaired and more planes hit than not would in fact be decoys. But it'd take most of its resources to do so. And there'd be dozens and dozens of of similar bases operating at the same time. Not to mention the very same base that was hit would likely need to be hit by a big concentrated recon/targeting/missile strike effort again, and again, every day or two.
I've paid close attention to this thread and have learned a lot of information from it. With respect to conventional missiles, I personally think you bring up a lot of very good points - which is why I wanted to bring up this insightful post again.

I was thinking of a possible solution to the weaknesses you mentioned with respect to conventional missiles - Why not use tactical nuclear weapons to eliminate the bases? This resolves many of your problems.

2. A single strike is all that's necessary to destroy all those dozens of targets.
3. Only one hit is needed for one base. If only 10 of 24 weapons hit the target, you just need to fire two to three missiles.
5. Runways will be hard to repair after a hit.
6. Most individual planes will be destroyed after a single strike.
6b. No need to worry about clouds or radar satellites. You can use a paper map to set the target and still eliminate most of your objectives.
7. No need for target discrimination. Most targets will be destroyed with a hit.
7b. No need to worry about self-retargeting or visibility. As long as the warhead successfully lands in the general area, the targets are mostly eliminated.
 
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gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
I have little doubt the PLA has nuclear warheads on most of those DF-21 and DF-26 missiles. I wouldn't be surprised if they have nuclear tipped H-6K launched missiles as well. Once H-20 becomes available carpet bombing targets with conventional weapons will also become possible.
 

Inst

Captain
Inst is an Indian?

The problem is, with departure of AFB and Jeff Head, it feels like this board has veered into fanboy territory, i.e, a Chinese version of DFI.

As far as J-20 being a failure goes, my point is more that you are twisting my words (it's clear if you've read the exchange I'm discussing if the J-XY becomes the "low" of the PLAAF, as opposed to a Su-57 or single-engined J-20 derivative).

As far as Su-57 procurement goes, I think you might have originally mentioned no possibility whatsoever, when Chinese experts have already suggested they want to pick up Su-57s for evaluation purposes (i.e, check out what the Russians are doing and how it fairs against the J-20).

I've stated my case as to the potentiality of large-scale Su-57 procurement (it depends very much on how much the Russians want to sell it for; their domestic procurement price is extremely cheap that we can overlook all its deficits, but they'd need to sell much cheaper than J-20 procurements for the Chinese to be even interested).
 

plawolf

Lieutenant General
I think the performance of the J20 against PLAAF legacy fighters might have prompted a significant rethink within PLA top brass on the value of 5th gen fighters (and probably also downgraded their valuation of 4th gen by extension).

The huge numbers of F35s the US and allies are procuring would also be a consideration. The PLAAF might expect a J20 to be able to easily deal with an F35, but when F35s outnumber J20s several to one, that changes things since quantity has a quality of its own, as old Stalin used to love to say.

In that respects, I could see the PLA going with a dual track procurement approach.

The first phase would see the PLAAF procure a significant number of carrier capable J21s to operate from land based airfields fo make up numbers quickly, potentially with PLANAF pilots transferring over to the PLAAF to pilot them.

As J20 numbers build up and new PLAN supercarriers come online, those J21s and their pilots would be transferred back to the Navy and transition to carrier squadrons.

This means that in the medium term, the PLAAF builds up its inventory of 5th gens twice as fast as they could with J20s alone, and in the medium to long term, it means the PLAN’s new nuclear powered supercarriers become fully combat capable in the least amount of time possible with pilots who have already had years of operational experience on their 5th gen fighters. It should also not blow up the budget since in the long run, the total number of J20 and J21s produced should not be significantly more than what would have been planned for had the PLAAF stuck to just the J20 and the J21s were only procured for naval carriers.

On the whole, I do not really see the PLAAF having massive appetite for J21s for the same reason China isn’t unduly worried about hostile F35s at present - geography and range.

PLAAF land based J21s would need land bases to operate from, and there is just no one China needs land based J21s to defend against.

Maybe in the long term, as the belt and road really takes off there might be a need for PLA forces to secure it against the inevitable hostile actions, but those would look to be mostly COIN and ground forces work, since no one would be stupid enough to wage a full scale way against a fully connected Belt and Road country as that would be equivalent to starting a ground war with China. In which case legacy fighters and drones would be the workhorses, and any shock and awe intimidation ops can be carried out by J20s.

I still think the J21 is going to be a mostly naval and export fighter. Which maybe why the Chinese initially stay mum about their plans to ultimately transfer their land based units to naval carriers.

But in developing it and having the PLAAF initially operate it should help it to secure some decent export orders. Pakistan would be interested, and China might even clear it for Iran if relations with America and Israel continue to deteriorate. Hell, even the Russians might be interested if there is meaningful ToT, which might be on the cards.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
The real issue is that this is not something "added" to the navy version, is that SAC need to take additional steps to "delete" these features from naval version considering the naval version would be the default. That means you need to R&D two different model, establish different production line, build different parts, etc. All of these cost additional money.
Take the R&D, procurement and manufacture process into consideration, it is hard to say which is cheaper, to produce a slightly less expensive and slightly more kinetic land based model, or just produce a single model in a much larger quantity? I don't know, I don't think anyone on this forum know.

It depends how many they will build and if another slightly different line is worth the different costs. If they want a lot of PLAAF types, they will develop a more suitable version. The drawbacks of having unnecessarily bulky and heavy landing gears and more complex failure prone folding wings, is probably not even worth it for 100 or so fighters which should be sensibly estimated as the lower end of likely procurement if there is actually any for PLAAF.

I think the performance of the J20 against PLAAF legacy fighters might have prompted a significant rethink within PLA top brass on the value of 5th gen fighters (and probably also downgraded their valuation of 4th gen by extension).

The huge numbers of F35s the US and allies are procuring would also be a consideration. The PLAAF might expect a J20 to be able to easily deal with an F35, but when F35s outnumber J20s several to one, that changes things since quantity has a quality of its own, as old Stalin used to love to say.

In that respects, I could see the PLA going with a dual track procurement approach.

The first phase would see the PLAAF procure a significant number of carrier capable J21s to operate from land based airfields fo make up numbers quickly, potentially with PLANAF pilots transferring over to the PLAAF to pilot them.

As J20 numbers build up and new PLAN supercarriers come online, those J21s and their pilots would be transferred back to the Navy and transition to carrier squadrons.

This means that in the medium term, the PLAAF builds up its inventory of 5th gens twice as fast as they could with J20s alone, and in the medium to long term, it means the PLAN’s new nuclear powered supercarriers become fully combat capable in the least amount of time possible with pilots who have already had years of operational experience on their 5th gen fighters. It should also not blow up the budget since in the long run, the total number of J20 and J21s produced should not be significantly more than what would have been planned for had the PLAAF stuck to just the J20 and the J21s were only procured for naval carriers.

On the whole, I do not really see the PLAAF having massive appetite for J21s for the same reason China isn’t unduly worried about hostile F35s at present - geography and range.

PLAAF land based J21s would need land bases to operate from, and there is just no one China needs land based J21s to defend against.

Maybe in the long term, as the belt and road really takes off there might be a need for PLA forces to secure it against the inevitable hostile actions, but those would look to be mostly COIN and ground forces work, since no one would be stupid enough to wage a full scale way against a fully connected Belt and Road country as that would be equivalent to starting a ground war with China. In which case legacy fighters and drones would be the workhorses, and any shock and awe intimidation ops can be carried out by J20s.

I still think the J21 is going to be a mostly naval and export fighter. Which maybe why the Chinese initially stay mum about their plans to ultimately transfer their land based units to naval carriers.

But in developing it and having the PLAAF initially operate it should help it to secure some decent export orders. Pakistan would be interested, and China might even clear it for Iran if relations with America and Israel continue to deteriorate. Hell, even the Russians might be interested if there is meaningful ToT, which might be on the cards.

Yes and no. Yes because what you're saying is true and relatively accurate but no because you don't need to necessarily tackle the problem head on this way. China doesn't need to build as many J-20s as they calculate is necessary to match the combined F-35 threat. They can't anyway. They can't outspend and outbuild the Americans it's simply not possible as long as the US hold influence over the rest of the developed world while maintaining dollar hegemony as they have no real "cost" to what they spend... except delayed impending consequences no one truly understands.

F-35s do not have unlimited range. They do not have unlimited payload. Each unit can deal a known maximum damage/threat of damage and be completely worthless after this. All one is required to do is destroy their airfields including the floating ones. Now that's MUCH easier said than done but guaranteeing this outcome is certainly far easier than matching the threat posed by F-35s (as an isolated unit). If they are truly as effective in real near peer war, then the outcomes are either get depleted until defeat or escalate with what you got. At least the latter gives you some chance of escaping defeat. So even if you had no other option (and China has several) than to nuke carriers and airfields/bases in the region, it's something you gotta do. Consequences be damned at that point because not doing so means guaranteed death while doing it is a coin toss between nuclear escalation or peace talks. Personally I doubt any western leader at the moment is insane enough to play nuclear roulette with even North Korea let alone China unless they have groundbreaking new technologies that can ensure outcomes.

The only thing that must be done is build and stockpile enough nukes to make the surface uninhabitable as an insurance against being attacked. Without the safety net (which both Russia and US - the old cold war foes) there is simply no saying for sure. This is why both Russia and US insist on such high warhead stockpiles. I don't see any reason why China should and would have significantly less.

Even without Su-57 or any fighters for that matter, Russia would not fear any number of F-35 as long as she has the ability to send those airbases and carriers into a thermonuclear end. If the US want to retaliate with the same, well that matters zero to Russia because it was given a choice of death via F-35 or coin toss between death via MAD or peace talks. A rational actor would choose to use nukes on US bases and carriers. It's the only sensible choice when the outcomes are those. Struggling and playing a conventional who's fighters are better game is just the warm up. Whoever wins it is going to receive thousands of missiles at all their floating and stationary platforms.

As much as war and military technology has evolved over the centuries since the industrial revolution, we still mostly use dumb chemical propulsion and the old principles. Our guns are still projectile kinetic weapons like they were centuries ago albeit improved. The US military is formidable but if you can reach their platforms (which no previous victim of theirs could) then they won't initiate conflict until they have surety over outcomes. If China were militarily weak, the US would have invaded in the early 2000s as soon as it became more clear that PRC isn't going to roll over and play by their rules.

The US actually can't project considerably military power to an area that can challenge it with A2AD. They can project the most but what they can offer that's publicly known, isn't really as much as people realise UNTIL you account for those carriers. They are the real threats. Knock them out and you knock out 90% of US military power projection. Use all means necessary otherwise sure loss. A hypothetical nuclear power state in a war with US would probably first wrestle and find out whether or not a conventional conflict is viable. If not, take out carriers with anti-carrier weapons. Don't have those or they don't work out? Gotta use them nukes. If the Americans retaliate, it's MAD. Do they want to have MAD over the loss of all their carriers for example? Doubt it. Ask yourself whether you'd rather lose your house or lose your life.

Again the ONLY thing that matters is having enough nukes and enough effective delivery systems. At the worst, make sure that even detonating your stockpile within your country is enough to kill surface life. It's the last insurance policy against belligerent aggressor. If it's China doing the invading, then I'd tell the other country to make sure it has enough to kill the imperialist as well. The issue is it's abundantly clear to all fair minded, who is who.
 
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Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
I think the performance of the J20 against PLAAF legacy fighters might have prompted a significant rethink within PLA top brass on the value of 5th gen fighters (and probably also downgraded their valuation of 4th gen by extension).

The huge numbers of F35s the US and allies are procuring would also be a consideration. The PLAAF might expect a J20 to be able to easily deal with an F35, but when F35s outnumber J20s several to one, that changes things since quantity has a quality of its own, as old Stalin used to love to say.

In that respects, I could see the PLA going with a dual track procurement approach.

The first phase would see the PLAAF procure a significant number of carrier capable J21s to operate from land based airfields fo make up numbers quickly, potentially with PLANAF pilots transferring over to the PLAAF to pilot them.

As J20 numbers build up and new PLAN supercarriers come online, those J21s and their pilots would be transferred back to the Navy and transition to carrier squadrons.

This means that in the medium term, the PLAAF builds up its inventory of 5th gens twice as fast as they could with J20s alone, and in the medium to long term, it means the PLAN’s new nuclear powered supercarriers become fully combat capable in the least amount of time possible with pilots who have already had years of operational experience on their 5th gen fighters. It should also not blow up the budget since in the long run, the total number of J20 and J21s produced should not be significantly more than what would have been planned for had the PLAAF stuck to just the J20 and the J21s were only procured for naval carriers.

On the whole, I do not really see the PLAAF having massive appetite for J21s for the same reason China isn’t unduly worried about hostile F35s at present - geography and range.

PLAAF land based J21s would need land bases to operate from, and there is just no one China needs land based J21s to defend against.

Maybe in the long term, as the belt and road really takes off there might be a need for PLA forces to secure it against the inevitable hostile actions, but those would look to be mostly COIN and ground forces work, since no one would be stupid enough to wage a full scale way against a fully connected Belt and Road country as that would be equivalent to starting a ground war with China. In which case legacy fighters and drones would be the workhorses, and any shock and awe intimidation ops can be carried out by J20s.

I still think the J21 is going to be a mostly naval and export fighter. Which maybe why the Chinese initially stay mum about their plans to ultimately transfer their land based units to naval carriers.

But in developing it and having the PLAAF initially operate it should help it to secure some decent export orders. Pakistan would be interested, and China might even clear it for Iran if relations with America and Israel continue to deteriorate. Hell, even the Russians might be interested if there is meaningful ToT, which might be on the cards.

I don't see any rationale for why they would deploy carrier based aircraft on land.
For the PLA as a whole, a J-XY that is produced and in service -- whether it is based on a carrier or based on land -- it is still only one 5th generation fighter.
More importantly, given the development time that the standard carrier based J-XY will take (assuming a maiden flight this year), and going by the pace at which the 003 carrier will be built/launched/commissioned and even accounting for additional 003 pattern carriers that may be built this decade, I do not see any benefit in "delaying" the introduction of carrier based J-XY aircraft to operate them mostly from land before operating them primarily from carriers.


The question IMO is about whether there will be a carrier based variant (that we have all been expecting as the first baseline variant) and whether there will also be a land based variant (which over the last six months we have been getting strong hints of), and what the total number of J-XYs will be built (carrier and land based variants combined) in relation to J-20s.


I agree with you that the PLA has a significant need for a large number of 5th generation fighters, however I think that requirement is likely better served through production of a large run of J-XYs separated between a carrier based variant and a land based variant, in addition to J-20s.
I also believe that the PLA very much does consider the F-35 a threat that deserves to be honored, and for all of the long range strike systems the PLA has to strike the airbases the F-35s operate from in the region, and for all the ways in which they could try to counter tankers that F-35s may depend on for greater combat persistence -- I still believe the PLA would like to have at least parity in terms of deployable 5th generation aircraft from potential adversaries in the region, if not quantitative superiority in the region.

I could envision an ultimate J-20 production run of some nearly 500 aircraft (ending in the mid 2030s), a production run of some 300+ carrier based J-XYs (beginning 2025 and ending after mid 2030s), and a production run of some 600+ land based J-XY (beginning mid/late 2020s and ending 2040).
This of course would be complemented by initiation of production of a 6th generation fighter in the early to mid 2030s (likely by CAC), as well as an unknown number of various MUMT/A2A/loyal wingman, and multirole UCAVs in both the land based and carrier based domains.
In addition, the land based J-XY variant would likely form the basis of an export variant -- i.e.: taking the same airframe but fitting it with export clearance avionics, where the avionics suite will likely prove the biggest "difference" between a domestic PLA variant aircraft and an export variant of the same aircraft.


I could very much see a land based J-XY variant having a larger production run -- potentially double the size -- than the carrier based J-XY "baseline" production run. Both the carrier and land based J-XY variants would enjoy the same avionics suite, weapons suite, engines, and software upgrade spirals, however the difference would primarily be their structural differences in terms of provisions for carrier operations.
Given the numbers involved for carrier and land based variant production for their given airframes, the benefit of having a dedicated land based variant without the complexities of carrier modifications that introduces additional production costs, performance costs and operating costs, would begin to be apparent and worth the development time for a dedicated land based variant.
 

sndef888

Captain
Registered Member
I do think the PLA needs more stealth fighters, either J20 or J21 to deal with Taiwan.

It'll be very dangerous if there comes a time of war and they find out J10s can't detect F35s flying over from Okinawa
 
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