Here's the score from before. 4 J-20s launched their entire weapons bay, made up of PL-21s, at the E-2D Hawkeye. All of the PL-21s were shot down by a flight of F-35 CUDA missiles. However, a wing of J-20s moves to intercept because the F-35Js went supersonic to intercept, and one F-35 is out of missiles, while the two others are shot down. There is still another wing that launched Meteors at the J-20s, which we will get to now.
The F-35s that launched Meteors at the J-20s were more cautious than the interceptors, being further out from the E-2D, so they did not engage afterburners. But the Divine Eagle, having counter-stealth radar, detects them at about 55% of maximum range, so picks them up while they're about 330 km out. A flight of J-20s is vectored to engage, and one J-20 races ahead supersonically. Unlike the intercepting F-35s, however, the Meteor F-35s are subsonic and thus harder to track, so the supersonic J-20 must get closer.
Having seen the outcome of the defensive missiles on the intercepting flight, the F-35s realize their goose is cooked and elect to launch all missiles, 12, at a J-20 virtually in its NEZ. The J-20, in response, ripple fires its entire payload, lobbing 18 missiles at the F-35s, before hitting afterburners towards the rest of its flight. The outcome is more severe than before, since the F-35s failed to launch defensive missiles, and all of the F-35s are destroyed. However, there are now 12 CUDAs chasing the J-20, within its NEZ. At Mach 5, vs a Mach 2 aircraft, it takes about 2 minutes for the missiles to impact. But the rest of the J-20 flight intervenes, launching 24 missiles of their own at the CUDAs, knocking out 9. Another salvo of 6 missiles are launched at the remaining CUDAs, leaving a single missile, against which the J-20 executes a hairpin turn using its canards, while simultaneously launching flares right before impact. The J-20 lucks out; and the CUDA locks onto the flares, running out of fuel before it can make another run on the J-20.
As to the 6 Meteors, the rest of the flight launches first 12 missiles, and then 4, eliminating the Meteors before they can reach the Divine Eagles.
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At this stage, the score is 5 F-35s destroyed, 1 retreating. 6 F-35s, 3 of which carry XASMs, are escorting an E-2D. The total CUDA armament is 48 on the 6 F-35s. No J-20s have been lost, but 4 J-20s launched 4 PL-21s, of which all were shot down. Another intercepting flight had one J-20 launch all of its missiles, but the rest remain fully-loaded. The J-20 flight that went after the Meteor expended all of the missiles on one aircraft to knock out the F-35s, and 46 missiles on the other flight. So two J-20s are now unarmed except for cannon. Altogether, the remaining J-20s have 78 missiles left, 4 each on the PL-21 launchers, 18 each on the flight that went after the interceptors, and 8 missiles left, between 3 aircraft, on the flight that knocked out the Meteor launchers.
The successful J-20s now have a numerical advantage of 10 fighters vs 6 fighters, and 78 missiles vs 48. The survivors group up and prepare to push home against the E-2D Hawkeye. The F-35s, on the other hand, realize that they are outmatched, and sound the retreat. The J-20s, being faster, can chase down the Japanese contingent, but their initial capacity of CUDA-clones has gone down from 160 to 78. They choose to proceed cautiously, as they approach Japanese airspace, and with their missiles depleted, a surprise attack by American F-22s could prove lethal. The F-35s, likewise, pursue a cautious strategy, leaving the fully-loaded F-35s guarding the rear, with the XASM F-35s in front of the E-2D.
With the F-35s retreating, however, their IR signature from the back is increased, and the commander of one of the flights volunteers to make a shot at the F-35s, despite the risk of attacking an all-aspect fighter from the rear. His squadronmates group up and prepare to cover him, and he launches 18 missiles at the F-35s while supercruising. The F-35s are fighting a retreat, and while the J-20 enters their NEZ, they elect to use their CUDAs defensively. 36 missiles are launched, destroying all but 2 of the Chinese missiles, which are negated by a combination of chaff and DIRCM. The F-35s are now immensely vulnerable, and if the J-20s were to push their advantage, the remainder of the flight would be vanquished.
But wait! F-22 signatures begin to appear on the Divine Eagles' systems, and American jammers start to interfere with Chinese communications. The J-20s quickly realize that against a fresh squadron of F-22s, they'd be outmatched, and fly back to escort the Divine Eagles home. They bark insults at the USAF pilots, complaining about kill-stealers [not realistic, but I've been cheated of too many jokes of late], and threatening to use all of their missiles offensively if engaged, as well as the presence of a second-wave behind them. The F-22s pursue the J-20s back to Chinese airspace, but keep their distance. Their E-2D does in fact detect a second wave of J-20s, and they proceed to return to base.
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The final tally is that we have seen a sort of Battle of Shanghai in reverse, with 5 Japanese F-35s being knocked out by J-20s without any Chinese losses. The F-35s are immensely vulnerable, having expended most of their missiles, and without the intervention of the Americans, they'd all be dead. Strategically, the Japanese intervention in the Battle of Taiwan has been averted, and it is likely the Chinese will be facing sanctions, instead of full-scale war against the combined might of the United States and its allies.
The primary tactical mistake made in this battle on the Chinese side was loading PL-21s and firing them. This greatly compromised the fighting effectiveness of their wings, trading off 48 SinoCUDAs for long-range missiles of varying capability. It could still have been wise to keep the PL-21s for the end of the engagement, or fire less PL-21s to decoy the F-35 CUDAs, but the PL-21s were untested and the PLAAF needed to know whether they would have worked in the present environment.
On the Japanese side, the main mistake was overconfidence. The tactic of J-20s supercruising in and getting covered by their wingmens' interceptors was not anticipated, and a good ambush strategy would have made it much more costly on the Chinese side to execute this gun-and-run tactic. Likewise, loading and firing the Meteors in the way they did were as much of a mistake for the Japanese as they were for the Chinese. On a technological level, as well, the advent of what could be termed micromissiles strongly reinforced the obsolescence of stealth. A F-15 upgraded and loaded with Boeing's latest packages could fire up to 48 CUDAs, providing a revolution in both defensive and offensive capability, while an F-22 could only fire 14. Likewise, IR pods would allow 4th generation aircraft to defeat 5th generation aircraft's stealth capability. The weakness of the F-35, as well, came to the fore in this hypothetical battle. With poor engines and poor maneuverability, it was effectively outranged by the J-20s, calling forth the Battle of Tsushima where the IJN outmatched the Russian Navy by exploiting its greater range. Likewise, its inability to run would have doomed the entire squadron if the F-22s hadn't intervened.
Criticizing the J-20, it does not have the same excellent stealth the F-35s do, due to its larger size, aerodynamic compromises, and greater engine power, and an upgraded CUDA for higher range would have allowed the F-35s to put it into NEZ before the J-20s. But its excellent kinematics gave it an advantage over the F-35s, despite claims by Lockheed's marketing department that agility is obsolete. It simply came into play in other ways; by boosting its missiles to longer ranges, as well as enabling it, in the sole instance, to outmaneuver the CUDA at maximum range. On a design level, the best advice to the Chinese would be to focus on making its EODAS more capable on the larger platform, giving it better eyes than the crippled MAWS EO on the F-22 and the small EODAS on the F-35. This would allow it to detect the F-35 either at the same range or earlier, despite the F-35's greater stealth.
And most importantly, this scenario presupposes the Chinese can clone and improve upon the CUDA system. The Americans are engaging in a generational leap in missiles, even if they're going for the more reliable (because they're not from Lockheed, and Lockheed's built too many white elephants of late) Raytheon SACM and MSDM systems. These missiles might mean that stealth in general becomes a tactical weapon, instead of a game changer, or that ship-borne defenses are now superior to air-launched weapons, but it also renders existing air-to-air missiles, such as the PL-21, obsolete. If the Chinese do not develop their own CUDA equivalents, the scenario proposed here, where the JASDF is whipped by the PLAAF and has to be saved by the USAF, would be reversed, and the J-20s would be decisively outmatched, and dare I say, eradicated by the F-35s.
. I never thought there would be two type of serial numbers painted on an operational fighter. So when I re-posted it here, I did not bother to mention "construction" which is clearly in your post. This lead Deino's post. And we can not blame him of not reading Chinese of course.
