J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread V

[Blitzo]

I think you're being a little too liberal with the verb 'designed'. While I would lean towards J-20 being optimized toward air-2-air combat, I don't see any evidence to conclude it is designed with no ability to carry out air-2-ground strikes.

The size of its internal bays may not allow for large weapons, but given its stealth it does not need to fire from the same stand-off range as legacy fighters. Thus a smaller, shorter range weapon should be just as effective. I think something in the class of IR/TV guided Popeye II should synergize quite well with its sensor systems.

I don't think he's being too liberal with that word at all -- the phrase "designed as a strike fighter" does convey a suggestion that an aircraft was optimized for the strike role as its primary mission.

Saying that the chance of J-20 being designed as a strike fighter as "just about zero" is quite correct because it isn't a strike fighter.

However, what Iron Man said is also very consistent with the idea that J-20 is capable of conducting some strike roles. That is the difference between an aircraft "designed" to be a strike aircraft vs a multirole or air superiority aircraft with secondary strike capabilities.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

 

[Blitzo]

View attachment 36769

You are looking at the wrong side. To be honest I'm absolutely confused as to why your focus is on the ventral side at all.

If there is a gun it will be on the dorsal side, and it will almost definitely be in the positions that Iron Man illustrated in his post #4484.

In other words, it will be in a very similar position to the F-22's gun.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Again The two sides of the Dorsal are Identical. There is no door! as as for Ventral I am eliminating all the logical possibilities and We know Chengdu has used Ventral mounted guns on 2 of their other products.
THERE IS NO GUN on the units we have seen. Ironman is arguing from a Faith standpoint I am from a evidence one.

 

[Blitzo]

View attachment 36768

The green areas you depicted here is basically the only logical place for a gun to be, though I would argue the red area posterior to the green areas are also possible

But let's look at the green positions and why you think they are unlikely. Basically the reasons I see are:

1: canards take up internal space and thus we would expect to see a "bulge"
and 2: we cannot see an obvious door for a gun in those positions and both sides are "symmetrical"

My counter positions:

1: canards do take up internal space, however we do not know how much internal space the actual internal pivots of the canard actually needs. We have no reason to suspect that the internal machinery controlling the canard is so large that the gun would have to bulge out. We do not know what the internal geometry of that area of the aircraft is like, what with the air intake and duct, the canard, and other machinery, so we do not know how they could have used that space to potentially fit a gun there.

2: I would argue that the pictures we see do seem to show a degree of asymmetry between the left and right side's doors in the green highlighted positions, however the lack of an "obvious" gun door is merely a reflection of the fact that we do not have very high resolution pictures of the aircraft and also because they likely designed the aircraft specifically with the gun door and overall gun port to be flush with the aircraft's fuselage surface.



Given the decently large volume of the J-20 and its overall configuration of fuselage, wings and control surfaces, and given the still rather limited photos we have of it, and given the fact that gun ports on stealth fighters can very much be designed to be hard to spot (see F-22), and given that all Chinese fighters are equipped with a gun and considering the sort of role that the Chinese Air Force would expect J-20 to fulfill, as well as the general logic of why a gun exists on a fighter aircraft, I think it is a very reasonable default assumption for us to say that a gun likely exists on J-20, and the fact that we have yet to identify it should not come as a surprise.

If we get new information in coming months or years which serves to change that underlying logic then we can change the default assumption, but at this point I consider this gun "issue" to be going over well trodden ground that has been discussed to death years ago..

 

[Deino]

...
THERE IS NO GUN on the units we have seen. Ironman is arguing from a Faith standpoint I am from a evidence one.

Honestly ... isn't this point of view a bit arrogant !??
In Ironman's point of view - and others seems to agree - its exactly revered: He's arguing with evidence and You are based of faith.

I for myself would be very careful ... and as long we have no clear confirmation, both options are nothing more than options or opinions.

Just my 2 Cents.

Deino

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

 

[Blitzo]

View attachment 36771

The green line is inaccurate and if anything a bit deceptive, because the "hump" of the canard on the intake's geometry makes it seem like the "hump" is there for the whole width of the intake, but in reality the "hump" is actually only on the immediate outside border of the intake and the bulk of the intake's dorsal surface is smooth and if anything is on a downwards canted geometry.

This picture depicts it quite handsomely (ignore the red box, that is one of the positions I speculated could be for the gun port)