You can't sink a ship with anything the Raptor could carry internally. So it is not an offensive weapon in the strike sense.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
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You can't sink a ship with anything the Raptor could carry internally. So it is not an offensive weapon in the strike sense.
And if true again a surprise... IMO a two-folded one!
First if this image is legit and not again a faked one, the 56th Air Brigade assigned to the Central Theater Command based at Zhengzhou and currently flying J-10B & J-10AS seems to have gained its first J-20A.
... and second since I expected yet another Su-30MKK unit like the 54th or 85th AB to become the PLAAF's next unit to convert to the J-20A.
What do you think?
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The official Weibo of the PLA Central Theater proves that the Air Force of the theater has been equipped with J-20 fighters
This is a pedantic quibble, but there's a difference between all aspect VLO and broadband VLO. The former refers to a plane being VLO from all angles, the latter means a plane is VLO with respect to a broad range of radar frequencies. They're independent concepts.
Yes, but that works both ways, hence the H-20.
Is that an issue with the physical dimensions of the F-22's weapons bay or a limitation of the munitions compatible with it? Furthermore, you don't need to sink a ship to have significant (even decisive) military impact. Mission-killing a ship is often sufficient.
Raptor is limited by bay depth.
It's unlikely the F-35s were sans Luneberg lenses. The last thing the US would want to do is give a China a look at a "clean" F-35. On the other hand you can be certain the US knows exactly the size of the F-35s RCS with the lenses in place and can extrapolate reaction times and detection ranges.
No, that was supposed to be one of the B-2s missions. That's why it has the big ass LPI phased arrays. Not sure how much luck they'd have had though.
(These replaced the original phased arrays which, apparently, were a MF to build.)
But, isn’t the same true for the F-35 JSF (Joint Strike Fighter)!
From the hoom and ha about how invincible and full of stealth and capability, one would have gotten the wrong idea but then again considering their current successes right now, I guess one wouldn’t place too much hope on them at all. I somehow expected this conclusion but now it seems my thought are more or less confirmed
If the F-35 are really now able to be detected quick enough that it can be intercepted, how much of an advantage is it really?
Stealth aircraft make a lot of compromises with aerodynamics, payload and cost, what's the benefit?
Stealth aircraft make a lot of compromises with aerodynamics, payload and cost, what's the benefit?
It's going to become increasingly cheaper over time. Adding anti-stealth radar like YLC-8E along the cost over time, the coverage should continue to improve. Also in the future as more 052D come online with L-band radar and operate along the coast, they should also provide additional data point to the so called anti-stealth networks. And in the future, as more of divine eagle type of UHF band AEW UAVs join service, they will be able to perform more routine patrols allowing them to occasionally catch F-35s along East China Sea.
I expect China to get a lot better with stealth countermeasures over the next decade. Similarly, I expect USAF to also get a lot better since now they have a legitimate target to deal with even if J-20 doesn't have all aspect stealth. The next generation aircraft will need to significantly improve stealth level if they want to stay hidden.
As for B-21, I think it will be a game changer. However, I would be very surprised if it can fly into Chinese air space undetected in wartime scenario. The Chinese anti-stealth radar will continue to get larger and more sophisticated over time and will allow them to detect even a flywing design like B-21 from further out. As long as you can detect B-21 at some small range outside of your air space, then you are not worried about it flying over your military base and dropping 10t of bombs on a J-20 base of your largest military shipyard.
I see H-20 as similar game changer for PLAAF as B-21. I think H-20 and follow-on to GJ-11 will allow PLAAF to do similar missions against less well defended military bases within second chain. They will also let China try out their anti-stealth solutions against very VLO targets.
If you look at GJ-11. That is really stealthy. That's a great target to test your system against. Just as J-20 was used to test PLAAF defense against F-22/35, GJ-11 and H-20 can be used in the future to test your defense against B-21s.
I don't agree with that premise. Since a multi-role J-20 could never drop enough ammunition to threaten USN ships. That's where the loyal wingman concept comes in. A j-20 two seater or a future J-20D would be more lethal in controlling a man of VLO GJ-11 types to attack something like a Burke class destroyer by dropping a bunch of gliding PGMs or even stealthy ARMs. In those cases, you can achieve mission kills against radar/missions of the target ship without ever exposing J-20. Is any Chinese naval ship worried about a couple of missiles from F-35? A high valued stealth fighter would only endanger itself by carry a couple of missiles close to a carrier group and dropping them.
I agree that in most cases, these fighter jet are probably operating with Luneberg lens. However, I don't know how much Luneberg lens change signatures against these really large UHF band radar stations. It would be easy for US to extrapolate reaction times and ranges if they are repeatedly flying toward the same radar, but China is moving forward in this area pretty rapidly. It's not the same as PLAAF flying over and seeing the same Taiwan air defense radar every day.
China is saying they have encountered all 3 variants of US operated F-35s many times. It would be unlikely they have never detected F-35 without Luneberg lens. They said they have even tracked the decaying stealth from F-35B/Cs as they spend longer time on deck on a deployment. That is also a good lesson for PLAN as it looks to introduce J-35 in a few years. Maintaining stealth layer on board or even a forward deployed base isn't the same as a dedicated F-35 hangar/base.
I think that's actually the game changing part of B-21. You don't have to station them in their home page in CONUS. You can forward deploy them to Guam for example.
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