They need to reinstall guns on all J-20 planes as soon as possible regardless of the intended mission. Are the J-20 pilots even trained in dog fight at all? If they are not trained in dog fight, then they should be.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
They need to reinstall guns on all J-20 planes as soon as possible regardless of the intended mission. Are the J-20 pilots even trained in dog fight at all? If they are not trained in dog fight, then they should be.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I think you just answered your own question. Comparing Ukraine to China's overall defense posture is erroneous.
Outside of potentially Taiwan, I don't see China having any invasion desires anytime soon.
J20 was designed specifically to take out high value or strategic air assets like bombers, AWACS, tankers.etc.
Secondary targets would be to engage enemy fighters from BVR distances.
WVR air to surface warfare is really not the primary focus. There is really nothing to take out in the open ocean per se.
As far as bases etc. are concern the primary weapon system of choice would be massive preemptive or retaliatory strikes by cruise missiles, drones or similar type of munitions.
The localized SP SAMs, AAAs etc.. are of no concern because they are not invading everyone.
There is no Afghanistan or Iraq or even an Ukraine for China to fight where you need massive amounts of ground strike fighters and ATG munitions.
You are looking at China's force structure through very western centric lens and that's not always applicable.
As to Taiwan, well if SHTF the war would be quite lobsided you don't really need any J20s to do bomb and missile runs 'downtown'.
There are enough J10s and J-Flankers in inventory to neutralize any localized air defenses.
If the US, Japan etc. gets involved nothing really changes strategically anyway. J20s are not going to start bombing runs on ships and carriers. It would be bith dumb and suicidal.
The ONLY possible situation where I think it would make some sense to equip 5th Gen fighters to carry AG munitions is if China and India are both engaged in an actual full blown conflict however the odds of that happening is extremely slim thereby nullifying my initial point.
lcloo
Captain
Yes, I standby what I wrote. Dofg fight certaintly is not a design priority for J20.
Most of your argument also applies to F22. If you are willing to state that dog fight is not a design priority for F-22, then at least you are consistent.
What's with the fuss with trying to fit the J-20 with a gun anyways? The STOVL and CATOBAR variants of the F-35 don't have built-in guns either.
In today's and future's age of aerial warfare, it would be much more common that you get detonated by an enemy AAM than actually getting torn into bits by bullets.
Besides, with excellent degrees of maneuverability being the nature of every fighter jet in the world - What's the probability that enough bullets from your fighter jet's gun would even hit the enemy fighter, when both you and your enemy are engaging in highly agile, high-G dogfights at close distances at the same time?
Therefore, investments into Peregrine/CUDA/SACM-type small-sized SRAAMs would be a more suitable investment. You can only shoot directly ahead with your gun, but a very high G-capable SRAAM with off-boresight capabilities can cue onto targets that are considerably off the nose of your fighter jet.
In fact, given that we have talked about the J-20 being already capable of carrying 6 new MRAAMs inside its main weapons bay before - A Chinese-variant of Peregrine/CUDA/SACM could theoretically allow the J-20 to carry up to 12 of them for close-quarters dogfighting and even self-defense against enemy AAMs. Simultaneously, allied fighters and/or loyal wingman UCAVs will be responsible for carrying the new MRAAMs and/or (U)LRAAMs for mid, long and ultra-long range anti-air missions.
Last-but-not-least - The J-20s will (if not already) have certain degree of A2G capability, even though the capability is possibly being inferior to that of the J-16 and JH-7.
Why? Because the J-20 is still a mainly A2A combat-focused airframe. Hence, we could say that the A2G capability is more like a "with-but-not-for" option for the J-20.
The same goes for the J-35, contrary to how many people tend to equate the J-35 to the F-35. This is despite in reality, both the J-35 and F-35 do not have the same main roles to play in the PLAN (and perhaps the PLAAF too) versus the USAF, USN and USMC, respectively.
In today's and future's age of aerial warfare, it would be much more common that you get detonated by an enemy AAM than actually getting torn into bits by bullets.
Besides, with excellent degrees of maneuverability being the nature of every fighter jet in the world - What's the probability that enough bullets from your fighter jet's gun would even hit the enemy fighter, when both you and your enemy are engaging in highly agile, high-G dogfights at close distances at the same time?
Therefore, investments into Peregrine/CUDA/SACM-type small-sized SRAAMs would be a more suitable investment. You can only shoot directly ahead with your gun, but a very high G-capable SRAAM with off-boresight capabilities can cue onto targets that are considerably off the nose of your fighter jet.
In fact, given that we have talked about the J-20 being already capable of carrying 6 new MRAAMs inside its main weapons bay before - A Chinese-variant of Peregrine/CUDA/SACM could theoretically allow the J-20 to carry up to 12 of them for close-quarters dogfighting and even self-defense against enemy AAMs. Simultaneously, allied fighters and/or loyal wingman UCAVs will be responsible for carrying the new MRAAMs and/or (U)LRAAMs for mid, long and ultra-long range anti-air missions.
Last-but-not-least - The J-20s will (if not already) have certain degree of A2G capability, even though the capability is possibly being inferior to that of the J-16 and JH-7.
Why? Because the J-20 is still a mainly A2A combat-focused airframe. Hence, we could say that the A2G capability is more like a "with-but-not-for" option for the J-20.
The same goes for the J-35, contrary to how many people tend to equate the J-35 to the F-35. This is despite in reality, both the J-35 and F-35 do not have the same main roles to play in the PLAN (and perhaps the PLAAF too) versus the USAF, USN and USMC, respectively.
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True but J-20's role is air superiority rather than air to ground. What you mention is all valid but the PLAAF uses stealth UCAVs like GJ-11 for this. J-20 may be faster and have better range than GJ-11 and it would be one more stealth platform that would be capable of air to ground but anti-ground is something PLA is the best in the world at. I'm referring to PLA ground forces.
You're thinking about this from a 1:1 comparison with a very different military and doctrine (USA). US require most of their stealth aircraft to perform air to ground because it is a military designed to fighter far from its home. PLA fighting at home or near home require its resources to focus more on being able to counter and deny US force projection. In doing so, there is so much more value in investing all your performance points into better air superiority for your main frontline air superiority fighter. Compared to say diminishing those abilities by demanding it perform secondary ground strike roles which J-20 may be able to do. Again that's just not its role. For that, there's PLAGF, PLARF, Z series helicopters, JH-7, H-6, GJ-11, and more MALE drones than I care to bother listing.
Also fight against US is over western Pacific. It is a bit of a "gap" in PLA arsenal not having a stealthy anti-ship missile that J-20 can carry at least two of in internal bays. PLA seems to have devoted all the observable anti-ship capability to the A2AD weapons (MaRV, HGV, HCM) and supplemented by the wider PLAN force structure with YJ-12 and YJ-18 being the mainstays with various other YJ, CJ, DH, C series of cruise missiles supplementing those. It would be nice for J-20 to be able to carry 2 or even 4 smaller, stealth anti-ship cruise missiles internally but to make those effective, J-20 would have to get within 100km of USN fleets which just isn't happening unless China has air superiority over much of that space. For that, J-20 and J-35 would need to be as good at air superiority role as these platforms can be.
Therefore wouldn't it be much smarter to put all your points into air superiority to try match USN air and allow the rest of your force to operate more effectively? In that way, GJ-11 and other stealth platforms delivering their anti-ground/anti-ship weapons would have much better operational environment thanks to J-20 and J-35 being just that much better at air superiority than they would be if they had to distribute their capabilities into performing less needful A2G/anti-shipping.
In any case, it is pretty easy to develop a stealthy anti-ship cruise missile. Radar and electronics tech - tick. Stealth tech - tick. cruise missiles nav and guidance - tick. Precedence of similar platform - tick (forget the one that was shown with J-16 ... stealthy air to ground ordinance). Either they have one already and not shown or it's deemed not the right weapon for J-20.
IMO the latter. J-20s should only be in the air to establish air superiority or defend existing air superiority. Bombing ground targets should be left to legacy planes. Just like you wouldn't make a supercar your daily driver. That thing is for holidays, weekends, date nights, etc.
Honestly you wouldn't even need stealth UCAVs like GJ-11. For the price of one J-20 and its pilot (all associated costs of the pilot) you could buy and operate probably more than 15 CH-x MALE drones. At worst that requires the adversary to fire 15 SAMs just at the MALE drones. If they're carrying and launching stand off weapons at their targets, the adversary has to expend multiple times 15 SAMs just to have some semblance of defeating the attack. All of this is far more effective already at eroding adversary defence and achieving objective of destroying its target/s than operating a single J-20 for this A2G mission.
But PLAAF not only has thousands of CH-x and GJ series UAV/UCAVs that are capable of filling such a role. It has an entire upper tier of near strategic weapons that are purpose designed to take out important ground/sea based targets at much longer ranges. That isn't to say it's not very important for PLA to develop parity against the US forces in these more conventional domains though.
But PLAAF not only has thousands of CH-x and GJ series UAV/UCAVs that are capable of filling such a role. It has an entire upper tier of near strategic weapons that are purpose designed to take out important ground/sea based targets at much longer ranges. That isn't to say it's not very important for PLA to develop parity against the US forces in these more conventional domains though.