J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VI
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Can you link the article or post?
SinoSoldier
Colonel
Big mistake if true. The PLAAF only needs to look up the history of the F-4 to see the implications.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
No it doesn't.
The History of the F4 doesn't prove that a gun system solved it's problems. Impact the versions with the gun had the worst kill rates of the Vietnam war. What made it a better machine was changes in training for maintenance and pilots.
Infact F4 was not unique in lacking a cannon Interceptors often lack cannons.
The number of actual air to air kills in the last three decades has been few but almost none are gun kills. Missile reliability was used more often as a excuse for lack of training and tactics by F4 pilots it was also the perception of missile advancement that cause them to lack such. This was not the fault of the pilots per say but that of command for not training them. As older proven ace pilots cycled in they quickly became teachers and pushed hard for changes in flight instruction. Using missiles and old tactics proved successful in Turing around the success rate by late war. Farther investments like Top Gun, Red Flag, Constant Peg, Aggressor squadron and Adversary Squadrons did more.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
There has been ZERO pictures or verifible reports of the J20 ever having an internal gun, only pure conjecture and assumptions and since the gun is far from being some super secret weapon system I would have to go with the common assumption and common sense that it has NO internal cannon.
If it does, there is really no reason why we have not seen it already by now. There is no logical, tactical or strategic reason to purposely hide something so mundane.
If it does, there is really no reason why we have not seen it already by now. There is no logical, tactical or strategic reason to purposely hide something so mundane.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
I haven't digged too deeply into this topic, to be honest, but wasn't the gun added to the F-4 only because many pilots were lodging complaints about it? The F-4 was designed to be a missileer and was found to be challenging to use against the VPAF MiG-17s during close-range maneuvering dogfights.
But at least this first batch is from Zhuhai 2016. These two J-20s are not numbered and have the early regular plain-grey camo-scheme.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Yes and no.
Yes for the USAF no for the Navy and based on late war kill ratio I side with the Navy. The gun was nice but the issues were more training.
The year was 1968 and the mission loss ratio was 1000 aircraft for 1 million sorties. The USAF concluded it was a tech issue and took the formerly podded gun from the belly of the F4 ( it had a gun pod from day one) and mounted it inside the her. They also looked into upgraded radar and missiles.
The Navy felt the issue was more systematic and less system. They pushed for changes in training for air to air against dissimilar aircraft and ground crew training. Founding the Topgun program.
End game pre 70 navy loss rate was 3.7 to 1 post was 6 to 1 the USAF kill rate remained at 2:1
Soon after the end of the War the USAF followed the Navy in there own training changes.
Throughout the war the means of air to air kills the as now was almost always missiles.
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