J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread V

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vesicles

Colonel
Com'on guys! There is nothing weird going on with the PLA on security issues. Most likely, several high profile projects hit the low-activity phase at the same time. China has so many projects going on at the same time. So some thing like this will be bound to happen. In fact, similar "suspicious high security alert" things have happened before.

Increasing security measures in response to political climate does not make any sense. We should be certain that China had planned out all different scenarios, including all the possible responses by the US, before they started all the island-building in the SCS. They must have had all the analysts coming up with all different possible scenarios and how China should act accordingly. And one of the most likely and most predictable scenarios would be US becoming more assertive, in response to China's island building. Based on past behavior of the US, it would be completely inconceivable that the US would back down and stay quiet.

So the Chinese already knew how the US would act. We all know that the Chinese are very methodical. They plan, plan and plan before doing anything. We also know that the Chinese are obsessed with chess-like strategizing. Thus, just like in a tough chess game, Anticipating possible US military intervention, the Chinese should have tightened their security well before they began the island building.

If they did that before they began the island building (2011/12?), they would be able to hide everything. We would not know how the J-20 has progressed. We would not know about the J-15 and the J-16. We would have no clue of the J-31. That would have been much more effective.

Instead, they let people see all of that. Now? Even if they clamp down hard on everything, we can still predict the progress of all the major top-secret toys with relative accuracy. So a late clamp-down is now useless and achieves almost nothing.

This is not consistent with how the Chinese typically do things. If they wanted to clamp down, they would have done it much earlier. Doing it now makes them look like they had been caught shocked and unprepared by how the US is responding. That's almost impossible. Even a 6 year old would have predicted how the US would act in such scenarios.

Thus, my view is that it is simply a coincidence that a number of top profile toys happen to hit a low activity phase at the same time. It does happen often. Ever heard of a phenomenon called rogue wave? Ocean water all vibrate at distinct wavelength. Once in a while, they all sync together, which leads to a huge amplification of waves --> rogue wave.

Similar thing could be happening to several of China's fancy toys. They all have their own separate schedules and progresses. Once in a while, they sync and hit a similar phase all together. I still remember some forum members mentioned that China all of a sudden came up with all sorts of new battleships. It almost looked like that were intentionally doing that. I think that case might be another example of accidental syncing. The only difference would be that that was a peak activity phase and this time is a low activity phase.

Once again, a late clamp down does absolutely nothing, except making fans like us miserable. Also, most of the stuff that we complain about, like the J-20, J-31 etc, won't be deployed in the near future. So what would clamping down on them achieve anything in response to possible US military intervention in the SCS?
 
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by78

General
Has this been posted? J-20's firecontrol testbed:

27141423151_7e27ba1835_o.jpg
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
Staff member
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Yes ... quite old since in the meantime (I think at least for more than one year) it has also received a wing-like structure on top of the cockpit + a few more arrays including the IRST-device.
 

Deino

Lieutenant General
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Reports are circulation about "2103" having seen ...

But again .... I want images, now and full-size, high-resolution !!


By the way, I'm out and away from the PC (+ offline) due to a family-trip into the woods for four days ... so CAC, come on. I'm away and You can show all others Your stuff.... ;):p:D

Deino
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Reports are circulation about "2103" having seen ...

But again .... I want images, now and full-size, high-resolution !!


By the way, I'm out and away from the PC (+ offline) due to a family-trip into the woods for four days ... so CAC, come on. I'm away and You can show all others Your stuff.... ;):p:D

Deino

The blogger (or weibo-er) who posted the info already deleted it. The clamp down on information is legit.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Suppose that F-22 specs leaked before it entered service. Do you think that Lockheed Martin will start from scratch and completely redesign? Would rival nations like Russia or China have countermeasures immediately in place just because a few stats are leaked?

Aircraft design isn't like software design, which is highly fluid in the early phase but still fairly inflexible when the overall framework is in place. When you modify an airframe, you need to essentially redo wind-tunnel testing, stress testing, etc. to make sure that it's still up to par.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
Militaries are usually not overly precious about most technological secrets. They will try to conceal as many capabilities, specs, and design details for as long as possible, but they're under no illusions that they can sustain that secrecy forever. Sooner or later their potential adversaries will get a hold of that information. When information is compromised it's not as crippling as some might think because most of these weapons are not going to decide victory by themselves anyways. Information breeches may hurt, force you to redesign some specs of features and systems, or develop new counters to the imminent counter measures, but it's not going to cripple your ability to utilize the capabilities of the weapon or force you to do a complete overhaul.

This is *especially* true of the air frame, which is so transparently obvious that there's no point even regarding it as a secret. If the Pentagon or CIA really wanted to figure out the aerodynamic performance of a plane making a model from images, doing their own wind tunnel tests, and working backwards to figure out the performance envelopes and FCS optimizations of the plane isn't especially difficult in concept. The ease which aerodynamic performance of an adversary's design can be studied casts special doubt over the veracity of the rumour about an information breech leading to a physical redesign, because it suggests someone who doesn't seem to understand how the external design of the plane itself is not a special secret. The kind of information breech that would hurt may include details about subsystems or the RAM the plane is using, but addressing any of those breeches wouldn't impact the physical appearance of the plane.
 

Ali Qizilbash

Junior Member
Registered Member
The excellent post above should lay to rest rumors regarding physical changes due to espionage. They may physically redesign due to host of any other factors but not due to espionage.
 

Hendrik_2000

Lieutenant General
Has this article posted before ? SOC take on the new shape of J 20 from Jane
Second radar cross-section test range identified in China
Sean O'Connor, Indianapolis - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
24 May 2016
1651051_-_main.jpg

The J-20 full-scale RCS test article present at the Dingxin RCS test complex appears to differ from current J-20 prototypes. Source: CNES 2016, Distribution Airbus DS / 2016 IHS
Key Points
  • Airbus Defence and Space imagery captured in 2016 shows a new radar cross-section test range in China
  • A J-20 full-scale test article is present at the new test range, with apparent design changes suggesting either a new powerplant installation or a new aircraft variant under evaluation
IHS Jane's recently identified a radar cross-section (RCS) test complex in China. Airbus Defence and Space imagery captured on 24 April shows a recently completed test range northeast of Dingxin Airbase (AB) - the second new test site to be identified in the East Asian nation. The first one is located southwest of Beijing near Gaobeidian. A third possible site, predating the new complexes, is situated near Luoyang.

The location near Dingxin AB is well suited for a signature evaluation complex, with flat terrain and a lack of man-made or natural obstructions near the facility. Additionally, the configuration of the J-20 full-scale RCS test article present suggests design changes may be forthcoming to China's fifth-generation stealth fighter.

Along with the Gaobeidian RCS complex, the Dingxin RCS complex illustrates China's increasing attention to low-RCS aircraft design. The Dingxin RCS complex was constructed after the Gaobeidian site, which was built in the 2009 timeframe - perhaps in an effort to establish an RCS test range in a more secure location.
 
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