J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread V

[Air Force Brat]

I personally think the gun is greatly overrated in a high altitude super cruising stealth fighter, and only made it into the f-22 because of lingering influence of the fighter mafia. If j-20 doesn't have one, it would mean it's designers were allowed to be more clear headed about what they are designing.

The F-22 and the F-35A both have very capable guns, the F-35B and C have no internal gun because of weight issues with those two aircraft, each being considerably heavier than the A model, and on the B the lift fan and associated hardware make space unavailable for an internal gun.

In addition the B has a 7G max, the C has a 7.5 G max, while the A model is maxed at 9Gs in operational configuration, and yes it is a "gunfighter". There is a more pragmatic cadre of aviators that believe as does Blitzo, that a fighter without a gun, is kinda like Barney Fife? "all holster, no gun".

 

[siegecrossbow]

Now the nozzles are silver.

I think it confirms the fact that they are used as some sort of IR suppression.

 

[Blitzo]

I personally think the gun is greatly overrated in a high altitude super cruising stealth fighter, and only made it into the f-22 because of lingering influence of the fighter mafia. If j-20 doesn't have one, it would mean it's designers were allowed to be more clear headed about what they are designing.

At this stage I think it would be too much of a risk for any air to air fighter to not have a gun. Technology has not arrived to a point where WVR combat is such a remote possibility, and a last ditch defence in the form of a gun is probably still necessary.

I otoh, think a gun is critical in the age of 5th gen fighters.

As stealth fighters are inherently harder to detect, engagement ranges are likely to be significantly reduced in a 5th gen v 5th gen fight.

Add in supercruise, and the time rival 5th gens stay in BVR combat is going to be significantly reduced further compared to contemporary jets.

Finally, 5th gen stealth fighters are optimised against X band fire control and terminal guidance radar, the precise type used by BVRAAMs.

That means that the effectiveness and kill ratio of BVRAAMs are likely to be significantly reduced when used against 5th gens even if you could detect them far enough out to use such weapons.

Add in the fact that all 5th gens have a very limited internal missile load and that all means that it is highly likely that in the event of a massed air brawl between rival 5th gens, many if not most of those 5th gens will make it into WVR combat.

With only two WVRAAMs carried internally apiece, at best, a 5th gen without a gun is simply going to be in big trouble when fighting against enemy 5th gens with guns. Hell, I would go as far as to suggest a 5th gen without WVRAAMs or a gun is simply going to become a sitting duck if faced against enemy 5th gens that have both.

I think guns are still very important to have, especially for air to air fighters, however, I do think the ability for opposing stealth fighters to use guns against each other is probably very unlikely, because I think modern HOBS SRAAMs would make much more potent weapons at those sort of ranges, and both sides would likely have to expend all of their BVRAAMs and SRAAMs first before they'd resort to guns, and by that stage both sides would likely have suffered crippling losses or one side would have suffered crippling losses and moved to dis engage and retreat.

I think guns will only get more important going forwards, especially as new technology is developed and becomes available.

Depending on timeframe, it is entirely possible that 6th or 7th gen fighters will start relying on guns as their primary weapon if rail guns and energy weapons (and their power generation/storage solutions) could be minituarised enough to fit on fighters.

It is possible, but earlier this year CSBA put out a very compelling case for a future vision of air to air combat where flying wing UCAVs are networked with large manned flying wing bombers, all of which are very stealthy and armed with large passive (including EOIRST) sensors as well as very long range missiles and possibly even lasers.

The idea being that the UCAVs and bombers which control them would deliberately fly slower to avoid earlier detection and tracking by the opposing side's own EOIRST systems, while their larger sensors and more networked "forward line" of UCAVs are able to detect and gain weapons quality EOIRST locks against opposing supercruising 5th generation supercruising fighters, before the 5th gens are able to detect the UCAVs and bombers.
Such missiles would likely involve multimode seekers as well, not only active radar but also passive and EO such as ImIR.

I think it definitely is a compelling case, and the future may well be headed in the direction of large, long range, stealthy and slow missilers relying on networking and immense sensor fusion with reliable "sensor+missile platform" UCAVs, rather than high speed aircraft. I think a case could be made for either direction.

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[plawolf]

If you have 5th gens going against each other, I would expect significant and comparable losses on both sides.

You also need to consider that in combat, averages often do not apply. Some fighters can get shot down without firing a single missile, while others could shoot off their entire missile load and not kill a thing,

In a complex massive furball, you want as many fighters to stay in the fight for as long as possible.

I would also be very careful about thinking in a dogfight between rival 5th gens that the gun is suddenly going to be less lethal. It will not be.

A legacy fight shooting at a faster moving 5th gen will see their cannon shells lose relative velocity, but two supercruising 5th gens shooting at each other will cancel out the speed difference.

The higher speeds will reduce the firing window, but most modern fighters rely on computer aided gunnery as standard now, where the targeting computer can shoot the cannon automatically as soon as a viable shot is lined up. The pilot just needs to hold down the cannon firing stud and wave his nose around at the bogey, as soon as he lines up the target, the gun fires, removing human reaction time from the equation.

This system worked so well, the Flanker's designer has even express regret at designing the fighter to take so many cannon shells.

Networked swarm bots are a good idea, but highly vulnerable to jamming and cyber attacks.

Drone carriers would make good supplimentary assets to aid air dominance fighters, but I would be extremely uneasy about relying on them to replace air dominate fighters.

That example in the link you provided relies on the often abused logical fallacy of comparing a system against individual enemy assets.

The detection range advantage these large stealth drone carriers are supposed to enjoy could easily be countered if the enemy 5th gens have long range sensor support as well. As they would do in any realistic combat scenario.

In addition, stealth technology can only be optimised against a very limited directional window. If the enemy emitters are coming from an angle outside of your optimised window, your RCS and detection ranges are going to start spiking.

That problem is going to be further compounded if enemy fighters are using optimised networks formation detection methods, where the enemy fighters position themselves such that radar energy redirects from one radar is likely to be reflected back to another fighter in formation.

You also need to consider the kinetic and range advantages you will be giving up by making your missile carriers slow and low flying. Not to mention the relative lack of quick response time compared to super cruising fighters.

There are just too many points where the whole thing could be compromised.

In my view, it is always a wise policy to ask, what will you do if the enemy strips away or counters your plan A?

With top end 5th gens, you can render their BVRAAMs ineffective, but they can still close ton WVR to hit you with heat seekers and have the raw performance to drill you with cannon fire, or bug out as a last resort with supercruise.

Your large drone carriers have none of that to fall back on. That will leave them awfully exposed if things don't go entirely to plan. And if there is one thing you can bet and bank on in war, it is that things will always not go according to plans sooner or later.

 

[Blitzo]

I don't think we are in any particular disagreement.

Regarding guns, like I said, I wouldn't be too confident of any A2A fighter aircraft going into combat without a gun... but I also think the chances for fighters (even 5th gen vs 5th gen) needing to actually use them may be somewhat small. Even assuming 5th gen fighters do come across opfor 5th gen fighters, both sides will also have all sorts of force multipliers such as AEW&C, ELINT and EW aircraft supporting each them during a mission, and if any side is weaker in that regard (which may occur for a variety of reasons) then that makes them immensely more vulnerable during the BVR phase. It could be very possible that one side with disengages entirely prior to the WVR due to their 5th generation fighters getting badly mauled in the BVR phase due to inferior detection and tracking due to inferior force multiplier support.
So I'd speculate that gun battles between 5th generation aircraft would probably only occur if both sides manage to survive to the WVR phase, and after one side has expended their WVR missiles but are still choosing to continue to engage (or is unable to disengage)... and the chances of it do not seem very high to me.
This is not to say that guns could not be effective -- I think guns could be very effective in WVR, but I'm questioning whether a 5th aircraft would survive long enough in a 5th vs 5th engagement to use them in the first place.


Regarding future air combat and drones... A lot of it will depend on how well the technology of networking/datalinking, AI, but how especially active and passive sensors, and how missile technology progresses and how it would compare in cost compared to traditional current 5th generation fighters.

I don't think the suggestion offered by the CSBA is necessarily "unfair" because it is envisioning a force of 5th generation fighters up against an equal force of one controller bomber aircraft controlling a smaller number of drones. That is to say the total cost of each force is probably envisioned to be equal, and the "offboard sensor" capability of the controller bomber aircraft is intended to be conceptually inseparable from its drone formation. If we were to introduce an AEW&C to the 5th generation side then it would only be fair to introduce an additional AEW&C equivalent to the bomber+drone side as well, because the bomber controller aircraft is as integral to its capability as a four 5th generation aircraft may be to an overall large 5th generation formation.

Yes, a bomber+drone formation would not be conducting high speed interception missions against time sensitive targets, however they can be useful for other A2A missions. For instance if their slower speed means significantly earlier detection and engagement of the faster opfor in an offensive counter air role, then slower speed may matter less because the enemy cannot use their speed to out maneuver your missiles to begin with. If such aircraft are also cheaper and have a significantly higher sortie rate, then speed may also not matter as much for interception tasks because you will always have a formation of networked drones up in the air to begin with.

There are also some additional factors to consider, such as stealthy flying wing UCAVs likely being significantly cheaper than a manned fighter (lower kinematic demands which has significant implications for the power plant and structural standards for the drone, and no need for a pilot), as well as being stealthier than a traditional fighter design (potentially even against long wave radar).

That said, there are definitely some core technologies that will have to be demonstrated for controller bomber+UCAV formations to be a viable strategy and more difficult to "compromise"... but the bomber+UCAV formation proposal at its core still actually uses many of the fundamentals which define 5th generation aircraft -- first look/first kill, stealth, networking -- but it is packaged in a different way, and dependent upon the development of some core technologies, specifically networking, missile technology and passive sensors (EO/IR especially).

 

[Deino]

Hmmmm ???

If I'm not completely wrong, then there are reports about three more J-20s spotted (??) at CAC including 2018, 2019 and also a yellow (??) 2101 !

Not sure, but a discussion is here:

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What I really would love to see is a J-10 factory fresh in its yellow primer similar to the many J-10s we know. ... that would be a Christmas present !

Deino

 

[siegecrossbow]

Hmmmm ???

If I'm not completely wrong, then there are reports about three more J-20s spotted (??) at CAC including 2018, 2019 and also a yellow (??) 2101 !

Not sure, but a discussion is here:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

What I really would love to see is a J-10 factory fresh in its yellow primer similar to the many J-10s we know. ... that would be a Christmas present !

Deino

We'll know for sure on January 11th next year.

 

[newguy02]

Hmmmm ???

If I'm not completely wrong, then there are reports about three more J-20s spotted (??) at CAC including 2018, 2019 and also a yellow (??) 2101 !

Not sure, but a discussion is here:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

What I really would love to see is a J-10 factory fresh in its yellow primer similar to the many J-10s we know. ... that would be a Christmas present !

Deino

Weren't the rumors saying that 2017 was going to be the final prototype? But nevertheless this is definitely a pretty good Christmas present , the alleged presence of a J-20 in yellow is definitely a very interesting one and especially since its number is 2101 instead of 201X which could potentially mean LRIP has started.

 

[plawolf]

If there are 3 more J20s this soon, it would mean that 2017 wasn't the last prototype, it's the first LRIP bird!

That would explain all the bigwig fanfare surrounding its first flight.

But let's not get too excited until we see actual pictures of these other 3 new J20s.

 

[SinoSoldier]

Pretty sure that actual LRIP aircraft would get a new serial number sequence.

Perhaps 2017/18/19 are built for final certification tests at CFTE?