J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VIII
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
Every manned fighter that isn't a J-15DT/16D, J-20A/S, J-35/A or J-36/XDS registers as a J-7G to me now.
Jokes aside, this is something we should fight with.
"Bulk" PLAAF capability are J-20(linchpin), followed J-16, J-10C, H-6K/N. Rear, but still very highly important - J-11B(s).
It will take at least a couple of years to change that. This is assuming J-20a/s will have no significant ramp up time (which appears to be the goal), and J-35A will have it fast (as it is reason d'etre for this aircraft).
As with US/West/NATO - when we think of them, nowadays we first think of F-35. But rank and file western aircraft are variants of MLU F-16&F-15E.
And it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Air force too modern is often a rather inflexible small air force, often plagued with immaturity.
China has 2500 total fighters. Out of that only 350 of them are J-11Bs. So, even in terms of numbers they are not that important.
Whether its air-superiority or ground missions, 400+ J-16 is obviously superior. 250 J-10C is probably close behind in terms superior tech as well.
I don't know how capable of an upgrade J-11BG is. If its just the radar upgrade then probably not much. But if its a comprehensive upgrade to make J-11Bs comparable to J-16 in terms of Radar, Data link, Sensor fusion and weapons capability, then it might still have some AA combat relevance.
It's more like 2000ish fighters (maybe a bit less even see post) which is roughly evenly split between modern 4.5 and 5 gen fighters (J-20, J-35A, J-10C, J-16) and older legacy fighters such as J-10A/B, J-11, Russian imports, and such. So while the J-11 platform in specific might not be too important, the older legacy fighters are still very important right now as they're about half the fleet. If production rates remain stable with what we believe the production rate is now, that will change by 2030 where the older platforms are much less relevant but for now those platforms are still very important to PLAAF.
They upgraded radar and such but I believe one of the major reasons they want to retire J-10A/B is that even with overhaul it's hard to match performance of plane designed from the beginning for data link and such planes are going to be increasingly less viable as data link becomes ever more important. This would also be true for J-11.
I have been following PLA fighter jet count for the last 10 years. Cause as some people here may know, I care a lot about these numbers as the key signifier of military power difference between US and China. And my observation is that PLA fighter jet count has never gone below 2000 and I would say always stayed above 2200.
Here is my current estimate based on IISS 2025 numbers and guesses about newer fighter jet count.
J-10A 236
J-10S 77
J-10B 55
J-10C 240
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Total J-10: 608 (This is probably the peak count of J-10 as they will not add any new J-10)
Older Flankers:
Su-27UBK 32
SU-30MKK 97
SU-35 24
J-11A 100
J-11B/BH 345
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Total older flankers: 598
Even older
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J-8F/H 40
JZ-8 48
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J-8 total: 88
JH-7 : 200
Total so far - 1494
Now comes my own guess part augmented from IISS:
J-16 - 400 (300 according to IISS but SomePLAOSInt guesses it passed 400)
J-20 - 400 - 450 (As we have been discussing here for sometime)
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Ultra top Tier: 850 ish
Naval
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J-15: 100 (J-15 and J-15T)
Oldest
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J-7 - 150 (289 according to IISS, I am actually reducing it down by a lot)
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Final count - 1494+850+100+150 = 2594
So its actually almost 2600 fighters.