J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Lindsey Ford claims that J-20s are deployed on South China Sea islands and reefs
This information is scheduled to be shared by Lindsey Ford, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia of the Department of Defense, during the hearing of a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C., on Thursday 2 p.m. (Friday 2 a.m. Philippine time).
“Over the past decade, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] has added more than 3,200 acres of land to its seven occupied outposts in the Spratly Islands, which now feature airfields, berthing areas, and resupply facilities to support persistent PRC military and paramilitary presence in the region. Since early 2018, we have seen the PRC steadily equip its Spratly Island outposts—including Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross—with an increasing array of military capabilities, including advanced anti-ship cruise missiles, long-range surface-to-air missile systems, J-20 stealth fighter jets, laser and jamming equipment, and military radar and signals intelligence capabilities,” Ford said.
This information is scheduled to be shared by Lindsey Ford, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia of the Department of Defense, during the hearing of a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, D.C., on Thursday 2 p.m. (Friday 2 a.m. Philippine time).
“Over the past decade, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] has added more than 3,200 acres of land to its seven occupied outposts in the Spratly Islands, which now feature airfields, berthing areas, and resupply facilities to support persistent PRC military and paramilitary presence in the region. Since early 2018, we have seen the PRC steadily equip its Spratly Island outposts—including Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross—with an increasing array of military capabilities, including advanced anti-ship cruise missiles, long-range surface-to-air missile systems, J-20 stealth fighter jets, laser and jamming equipment, and military radar and signals intelligence capabilities,” Ford said.
I'm no expert BUT that article is full of shit, even an amateur arm chair enthusiast will tell you that such strategy is foolish. You don't expose your important aircraft on such risky deployment. Any 4th generation aircraft can do the job as the other claimant don't have the necessary aircraft to challenge the Chinese.
No, it is possible to deploy J-20 on those islands, if a war breaks out, the area of those islands is so small that no aircraft can survive. But face-to-face confrontation in a Cold War-like environment is another matter. In this case, At present, the F-35 is also an opponent that often appears in the South China Sea.deploying J-20 in the South China Sea can greatly enhance the response speed and surveillance and interception range compared to the nearest base on Hainan Island.
Problem is, at least from my understanding we have not seen a J-20 on any of the islands yet, even if I won‘t exclude this.
With the J-20’s range, it does not need to be deployed that far forward. It is designed to go beyond the first island chain with no escort and return even if heavily damaged. Perhaps US aerial assets have encountered J-20 far out in SCS and assumed that they would’ve taken off one of the islands.
Have these been shared before? I know, these are all missing the most important bits.
Just crop this back on.
From these pictures those hexagonal mesh grills behind the intake are still present, the earlier video I guess didn’t have the lighting to really show them.
Although with that original image, it should have enough details to show those grills. I wonder if that’s because it’s taken from a video, and then sharpened after the fact and those details were just lost? Weird.