J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

AndrewS said:

The micromissile, laser and drone paradigms that you are describing are not mutually exclusive.

The drone wingman concept looks pretty solid now, with present day air-to-air missiles.
When you combine that with micromissiles or lasers, you still end up with a battle of attrition.

The side with the larger number of drones, micromissiles or lasers wins.
So you would still need a larger stealthy, survivable manned platform (like the J-20) to direct large numbers of drones/missiles.




I don't see any reason for a J-20 carrying non-stealthy external missile rails as standard.
You might as well have the cheaper J-11s being the micromissile carriers.

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Re: @by78 We're discussing future systems and the "drone paradigm" is relevant as this is what's being discussed.

@AndrewS you're right that all of these paradigms are mutually complementary; for instance, in a micromissile paradigm lasers might end up being used as they can't be shot down by missiles. The J-20, by the way, generally has better kinematics than the J-11s, and we've seen nothing to suggest that the J-11 will be upgraded to be an analogue to the F-15EX, although this is a direction the Chinese can work toward.

I'd disagree that the drone paradigm would triumph over the micromissile paradigm, by the way. If the drones are not micromissile paradigmed, you could put up 400 targets but a squadron or two of aircraft would have the micromissiles needed to take out the drones.

@Brumby
I trust my acquaintance, we're not friends since I insulted the Eurofighter (which is badly designed; it basically gets all its maneuverability from having a gigantic wing, compare to the F-16 and Rafale which use LERX to achieve that objective).

The point is, if you have networked AESA, you now have synthetic apertures that are equal to the number of AESA networked together. Moreover, multi-static radar is believed to defeat stealth; stealth works by scattering radar waves and inducing a phase change, but having multiple pick-up locations defeats this effect and now shaping has much reduced effect on the stealthiness of an aircraft.

As for J-11 escort, the point behind a command J-20 is that the commander can dedicate their time to monitoring the situation; i.e, they're a mini-AESA. It's the same reason people still want 2-seaters for EW; because you want a dedicated weapons officer to assess the information as opposed to having it done by machine.

Inst said:

It is still relevant to the conversation. EW is discussed as a potential modification of J-20 dual-seat, so's command. I'm just pointing out that a J-20 dual-seat version will likely not have drones available to control at least at the outset.

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Drones won’t be available to control at the outset, but DEWs and micro missiles won’t be available at the outset either. Why validate speculation of the latter but pose skepticism for the former?

latenlazy said:

Drones won’t be available to control at the outset, but DEWs and micro missiles won’t be available at the outset either. Why validate speculation of the latter but pose skepticism for the former?

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DEWs and micromissiles are being discussed in the context of drones, i.e, future technology being discussed in the context of future technology.

Moreover, we have a calendar for micromissiles (MSDM in this case), with funding being guaranteed to 2021. The most immediate missile from the program is AIM-260 (seems to be the LRAAM) which should be IOC by 2022.

The F-15EX, in itself, seems to be designed as a partial counter to plane swarms, not just drone swarms, as the 22 missile loadout is fairly extreme.

Inst said:

The J-20, by the way, generally has better kinematics than the J-11s, and we've seen nothing to suggest that the J-11 will be upgraded to be an analogue to the F-15EX, although this is a direction the Chinese can work toward.

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The primary argument for the F-15EX is a stop gap measure to address capacity and its relevancy is predicated upon EPAWSS It is state of the art self defense system with geolocation capability. No specific details are known except it is an upgrade of DEWS which itself is a digital integrated self defense suite slated for Japan's F-15 upgrade and the system installed on Saudi's latest F-15 I am not aware of any Chinese analog. Currently to my knowledge, the only countries offering all digital SPJ systems are the US and Israel.

Inst said:

The point is, if you have networked AESA, you now have synthetic apertures that are equal to the number of AESA networked together. Moreover, multi-static radar is believed to defeat stealth; stealth works by scattering radar waves and inducing a phase change, but having multiple pick-up locations defeats this effect and now shaping has much reduced effect on the stealthiness of an aircraft.

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Multi static net is one of those things that may look good on paper but is frankly not a practical solution because of the volume of air space.

Inst said:

As for J-11 escort, the point behind a command J-20 is that the commander can dedicate their time to monitoring the situation; i.e, they're a mini-AESA. It's the same reason people still want 2-seaters for EW; because you want a dedicated weapons officer to assess the information as opposed to having it done by machine.

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There are many on this forum that believe AESA rollout include the J-11s. Why do you need the J-20 to act as mini-AESA when the J-11's have similar capabilities?

RAND studies indicated that the PLAAF could plane spam the USAF in a Taiwan scenario and that the US would run out of missiles, leaving tankers exposed and short-ranged aircraft doomed to crash. The F-15EX's main selling point is its absurd weapons loadout.

As for multi-static, it's already being worked on for the F-35 using its datalinks. But the F-35 is a 700mm radar and can't be easily modified to dual seat. The F-35 has to rely on data fusion to take advantage of multistatic radar capabilities, and the increased number of nodes for an equivalent collective aperture will result in greater bandwidth requirements in the datalink.

I misspoke on the AESA. I meant AEW&C but the rest of the point stands. All J-11s use pulse doppler radars. Upgrading them to AESA is more expensive than simply adding a single J-20 to the flight.

Saw this from a Facebook group, thought I'd share.

Brumby said:

Firstly, networked J-20 cannot replace AEW&C platform - not in a practical manner. It is an issue of persistence and numbers required Ir is the same conversation of F-35 acting as mini AWACs to leverage its net centric sensor fusion capabilities. It is the same hurdle - persistence. The US approach in my view is towards developing a penetrative stealthy HALE ISR platform IMO the RQ-180 is a likely candidate.

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Which is correct, but missed an important reason. AEW uses long wave, long wavelength radars, like S-band and L-band. Array size requirements for these radars makes it next to impossible for use with a fighter jet, and even if you use a linear array L-band like on the Su-35, it still not as good in terms of overall power and coverage than having it on an AEW.

Long range, long wavelength radar can pick up stealthy objects much better than X-band radar, but is unable to provide a high quality track on them, and provide sufficient resolution on the target to distinguish it. Could be a bird? Could be a plane? This is where the AEW sends message to its network, and routes other fighters to the suspected area to find, ID or deal with the threat. Fighters will have to share sensor information with the AEW in a CEC network.

Special EW J-20 may try to incorporate a L-band array but this has to be done through a linear conformal array. Another way is through a HALE drone that has to be modified with a conformal array.

Inst said:

I'd disagree that the drone paradigm would triumph over the micromissile paradigm, by the way. If the drones are not micromissile paradigmed, you could put up 400 targets but a squadron or two of aircraft would have the micromissiles needed to take out the drones.

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It's not about the drone paradigm triumphing over the micromissile paradigm.

Drones are just a cheap expendable platform, for whatever weapons system or payload is viable.

So of course drone platforms (which can sent out in front) are the logical carriers for micromissiles which are very short ranged.

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There's no need to risk a larger expensive manned aircraft, when you can have large numbers of expendable $2M drones in front.
Each drone would carry a few micromissiles, but you end up with a very large number of micromissiles.

Ditto if lasers become feasible. The more drones, the better.

That drives a requirement for drone control and command.

So I imagine single seat J-20s controlling their own drones, with the 2-seat command J-20 also controlling drones and providing the next level of command and control.

Then the KJ-500 providing the next level of command and control.

But all these aircraft have some capability to manage the adjacent level of command.

Brumby said:

Kindly explain whether the J-20 has stealthy datalinks somehow is a null hypothesis conversation. If you insist it has, what evidence do you have in support of your "hypothesis"?
There are three conceivable possibilities:
1)It has no data link
2)It has some form of datalink; and
3)It has stealthy datalink.

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This is the exact kind of "does J-20 have AESA" debate I'm not going to entertain with my time.

Similar to how the null hypothesis for that question to disprove is "is there any evidence to suggest J-20 does not have an AESA," the null hypothesis for this question is "is there any evidence to suggest J-20 is not equipped with a stealthy datalink".

The fact that you are even willing to include "it has no data link" as a "conceivable possibility" just demonstrates how fruitless it has having these kinds of discussions with you when we are universes away from each other in terms of what constitutes a "reasonable assumption" or "reasonable question".

Brumby said:

Kindly explain whether the J-20 has stealthy datalinks somehow is a null hypothesis conversation. If you insist it has, what evidence do you have in support of your "hypothesis"?
There are three conceivable possibilities:
1)It has no data link
2)It has some form of datalink; and
3)It has stealthy datalink.

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OK, let me see if I can use your logic and ask you another question... Do you think a Tesla has a radio? It's an electric car and one of the most advanced vehicle in the world. but people have doubts about whether it has a radio?!