My argument regarding numbers are not inconsistent -- I fully believe the PLA needs the ability to compete with the US in total 5th gen numbers in the region.
However I never said that they needed to match the US in terms of manned 5th gen fighters deployed aboard ships.
As you can see from my fleet airwing orbat -- I place a heavy weight increasingly on UCAVs.
I believe UCAVs will be key to high end naval combat/carrier vs carrier combat in future. Their role, range and endurance for ISR, AEW&C, ASW, and strike into the future will be something that manned fighters will find difficult to match.
Having a sufficient number of manned J-XYs on board for manned CAP, for UCAV control, and having the option to conduct manned strike missions, is enough for my vision of future air-naval warfare.
If you believe that the PLAN needs to match the combined number of F-35Bs and F-35Cs that the US has, then you either have to give up the large complement of UCAVs or to build more carriers.
In regards to choosing between J-15s and J-XYs -- preferring to field more J-XYs instead of J-15s in a high end conflict depends on the availability of each type.
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As for future air to air combat and the role of UCAVs, I think that our views are simply incompatible.
I do not view the role of future air to air UCAVs as aircraft primarily intended to engage enemy aircraft in dogfights and to exploit their lack of a pilot to pull immense Gs.
I view future air to air UCAVs as being sensor-shooter platforms that are intended to operate forward of manned combat aircraft, who together combine to operate as a manned-unmanned team, where their unmanned nature allows them to actively emit knowing that they may be destroyed but whose active emissions means the rest of your unmanned and manned aircraft are able to detect the enemy's aircraft earlier and destroy them earlier before they have a chance to detect your own manned forces.
If you lose a UCAV to enemy air action, that allows you to narrow the volume of search to track down your enemy and allow the rest of your UCAVs and manned fighters to either engage the enemy or to position yourself for a more favourable engagement.
Such a UCAV would not have to be expensive nor large. The physical size of such an aircraft can be smaller than a J-10 or F-16, does not need to be supersonic nor pull substantially high Gs, and would emphasize stealth, a moderate sensor suite (a small AESA and an EO sensor perhaps), and a datalink. A modern purpose built UCAV of this size would easily be able to achieve operationally relevant ranges that an equivalent sized manned aircraft could not.
A single such UCAV would be 1/3rd to 1/4th the cost of a manned J-20 or equivalent generic manned 5th generation fighter -- that is the kind of favourable sensor-shooter ratio one wants.
E.g.: if one was asked to field 4 manned fighter aircraft vs 4 manned fighter aircraft, and one side had the option of trading out 1 manned fighter for 4 UCAVs, I would certainly choose to go with a 2 manned fighter and 8 UCAV formation versus 4 manned fighters.
If I have a network of MUMT drones, and you my opfor is conducting hit and run attacks with manned fighters, I would very gladly trade one or two of my drones for one of your F-35s in those encounters.
The whole point of these drones is to allow my unmanned forces to be able to engage the opfor's manned forces without putting my own manned forces at the same risk.
Let's put it this way -- my view is that if the qualitative individual aircraft of each side is equally hard to detect (i.e.: stealthy), and if they field weapons and sensors of equal quality (AESAs, EO, whatever), then the side which will be able to win, is the side that is able to saturate the airspace with more sensors and more shooters operating from multiple individual platforms and directions in a networked manner, ideally with manned aircraft operating further "behind" the frontline, so they are able to preserve their valuable human pilots and more expensive manned aircraft while the forward operating UAV/UCAV swarm acts as the first line of detection and fires.
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Edit, also, in case there was any confusion -- the role of my carrierborne UCAVs is different to the A2A MUMT UCAVs I was describing.
The role of the carrierborne UCAVs would be to primarily emphasize: stealth, range/endurance, payload, and cost, in that order of priority/capability. These UCAVs would be relatively large, capable, and intended to fill roles of ISR, long range strike and maritime strike missions, followed by supplementing CAP and air to air refuelling.
The role of the MUMT A2A UCAVs otoh, would be to emphasize stealth, cost, range/endurance, and payload, in that order of priority/capability. These MUMT A2A UCAVs would likely be primarily land based, and operate alongside manned fighters (which may be land based or carrier based depending on the exact location where you are contesting air superiority).
(There are of course other UCAVs and UAVs that I see as part of the overall future force structure in the PLAAF and PLANAF -- including large long range land based strike UCAVs, large long range land based ISR/networking UAVs, large long range AEW UAVs, swarming small size cruise missile esque reusable UAVs/decoys, among others -- but they're not directly relevant to the topic at hand.)
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