J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII

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AndrewS

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latenlazy said:
Cheaper? Sure. But you cannot do all your force planning around single option strategies, or at least it’s best not to if you’re not resource constrained the way China was twenty years ago.
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I agree. But when someone effectively proposes 1600+ J-20 by 2032, that sounds awfully like a single option strategy. Namely to shoot down opposing aircraft in the air at short-range, high-cost and high-risk.

And remember that the J-20 is a still just a fighter jet which doesn't have the range to reach the 2nd Island Chain.
If all the opposing airbases within the 2nd Island Chain can be continuously attacked by missiles or drones, then how many J-20 do you actually need?

Instead of 1600 J-20, you would want to cut that number down significantly. Even 1000 would be more than enough in my opinion.

But that would free up resources for longer-range systems to project power to the 2nd Island Chain and beyond.
More aircraft carriers with stealth fighters, H-20 bombers, long-range nuclear submarines, more missiles/drones etc etc
 
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AndrewS

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plawolf said:
One thing to remember is that just because you can build 200 J20s a year doesn’t mean you have to.

Not saying they are building up a peak capacity of such huge volumes, but it would not be uncommon to establish a peak capacity that is not fully utilised as part of contingency planning. It’s better to have the capacity and not use it than to need that capacity and not have it.
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My opinion is that the US military is over-committing on short-ranged manned fighter aircraft.
But there's no reason for the Chinese military to make the same mistake
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
AndrewS said:
I agree. But when someone effectively proposes 1600+ J-20 by 2032, that sounds awfully like a single option strategy. Namely to shoot down opposing aircraft in the air at short-range, high-cost and high-risk.

And remember that the J-20 is a still just a fighter jet which doesn't have the range to reach the 2nd Island Chain.
If all the opposing airbases within the 2nd Island Chain can be continuously attacked by missiles or drones, then how many J-20 do you actually need?

Instead of 1600 J-20, you would want to cut that number down significantly. Even 1000 would be more than enough in my opinion.

But that would free up resources for longer-range systems to project power to the 2nd Island Chain and beyond.
More aircraft carriers with stealth fighters, H-20 bombers, long-range nuclear submarines, more missiles/drones etc etc
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No one is proposing that they procure 1600 J-20s in lieu of more missiles or other systems. The idea is to convert your current number of fighters to the latest capabilities. The point of the J-20 isn’t just to shoot down opposing enemy aircraft in offensive operations. If you want to control an air space you need to maintain a constant sortie presence. That’s not just foreign air space but your own. If you have an opposition Air Force trying to penetrate your air space you don’t want to lose that engagement because your opposition had stealth and you didn’t. You also need to maintain capability to keep pace with future threats. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to deal with surges in force deployment from potential adversaries with no excess margin to match. Missiles and drones only handle striking adversary assets. They don’t handle defending air space.
 
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AndrewS

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latenlazy said:
No one is proposing that they procure 1600 J-20s in lieu of more missiles or other systems. The point of the J-20 isn’t just to shoot down opposing enemy aircraft in offensive operations. If you want to control an air space you need to maintain a constant sortie presence. That’s not just foreign air space but your own. If you have an opposition Air Force trying to penetrate your air space you don’t want to lose that engagement because your opposition had stealth and you didn’t. You also need to maintain capability to keep pace with future threats. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have to deal with surges in force deployment from potential adversaries with no excess margin to match.
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And my point is that 1000 J-20 does constitute an excess margin for use within the 1st Island Chain
With the exception of China, aircraft production rates are pretty much set 5+ years out.

Remember China is already in a situation where it is at a significant military disadvantage once you reach the 2nd Island Chain
The J-20 adds very little at this distance
 
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latenlazy

Brigadier
AndrewS said:
And my point is that 1000 J-20 does constitute an excess margin.
With the exception of China, aircraft production rates are pretty much set 5+ years out.

Remember China is already in a situation where it is at a significant military disadvantage once you reach the 2nd Island Chain
The J-20 adds very little at this distance
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1000 J-20 might be reasonable. But so might 1600. You need enough fighters to cover your whole territory just as a matter of ensuring ample capability to constantly secure and defend your air space in additional to margin for offensive operations, which is where we get ~1500 fighters in the PLAAF in the first place, and if you’re going to field that you want to make sure they can win their engagements.

China doesn’t *need* to be advantaged in the 2IC. It *needs* dominance in the 1IC. Ability to put long term strategic pressure on the 2IC is dependent on *dominance* in the 1IC. China doesn’t absolutely need to win the 2IC. It just needs to make the 2IC the buffer by securing the 1IC. Leapfrogging to win the 2IC without securing the 1IC is putting the cart before the horse.
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

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AndrewS said:
My opinion is that the US military is over-committing on short-ranged manned fighter aircraft.
But there's no reason for the Chinese military to make the same mistake
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There is a key reason why US fighters have shorter ranges than Russian and Chinese mainline fighters: Expected theater of operations.

The 4th-generation (F-15, F-16) and 5th-generation (F-22, F-35) fighters of the US were designed during the Cold War, where they were expected to fight against air forces of the Warsaw Pact. This means that US fighter design doctrines at that time did not necessitate on the need for longer range fighters, because their expected area of operations would be just right next door to their bases in Western Europe.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had no choice but to develop both the Su-27 (long-range) and MiG-29 (medium-range) fighters because the Soviet Union spans a huge distance. They have to cover vast areas of terrioritial airspaces in times of war. Therefore, as MiG-29s were stationed at bases closer to the frontier and serve as rapid respond fighters, Su-27s can be stationed deeper into Warsaw Pact territories, where they would have to fly further to reach the battlefield but having better access to airfield facilities and support infrastructures.

Of course, the US definitely realize this very mistake as soon as they reconfigured their focus from Europe to the Asia-Pacific. This is why IIRC, their 6th-generation fighters, i.e. NGAD and F/A-XX have requirements that they must be able to fly longer ranges in order to better operate in vast expanses of the Western Pacific.

China, meanwhile, is extremely lucky that to have great, visionary technical experts and military commanders who understood the need of long-range fighters for the PLAAF back in the 1990s, such that they firmly picked Su-27s over MiG-29s despite heavy pressure from the Soviets and Russians to do the exact opposite.
 
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AndrewS

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ACuriousPLAFan said:
There is a key reason why US fighters have shorter ranges than Russian and Chinese mainline fighters: Expected theater of operations.

The 4th-generation (F-15, F-16) and 5th-generation (F-22, F-35) fighters of the US were designed during the Cold War, where they were expected to fight against air forces of the Warsaw Pact. This means that US fighter design doctrines at that time did not necessitate on the need for longer range fighters, because their expected area of operations would be just right next door to their bases in Western Europe.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had no choice but to develop both the Su-27 (long-range) and MiG-29 (medium-range) fighters because the Soviet Union spans a huge distance. They have to cover vast areas of terrioritial airspaces in times of war. Therefore, as MiG-29s were stationed at bases closer to the frontier and serve as rapid respond fighters, Su-27s can be stationed deeper into Warsaw Pact territories, where they would have to fly further to reach the battlefield but having better access to airfield facilities and support infrastructures.

Of course, the US definitely realize this very mistake as soon as they reconfigured their focus from Europe to the Asia-Pacific. This is why IIRC, their 6th-generation fighters, i.e. NGAD and F/A-XX have requirements that they must be able to fly longer ranges in order to better operate in vast expanses of the Western Pacific.

China, meanwhile, is extremely lucky that to have great, visionary technical experts and military commanders who understood the need of long-range fighters for the PLAAF back in the 1990s, such that they firmly picked Su-27s over MiG-29s despite heavy pressure from the Soviets and Russians to do the exact opposite.
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Agreed

But if we look at the Western Pacific, it doesn't change the fact that the US has very few basing options.

After the 1st Island Chain, there's Guam and then Australia.
With a required operating radius of 3000km from Guam to China, fighter aircraft start to look more like a bomber or strike aircraft.

Personally I don't think the USAF even needs to pay much attention to a Europe-focused NGAD variant.
The Russian Air Force today only has 500 fighters aimed at air-to-air combat, almost all of them 3-4gen aircraft.

Even today, these Russian aircraft are obsolete when facing 5th gen stealth fighters like the F-35, yet Russia is barely producing any of its own stealth fighters.

That will still be the situation in 10 years time when there will be a huge number of F-35s and the introduction of NGAD.

Anyway, back to the topic of the J-20.
 
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Andy1974

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A few thought to add..

1. Each J20A can possibly control 4 UAV’s configured for air superiority, that’s 5 aircraft. To have 1600 air superiority aircraft will only need 320 J20’s.

2. Let’s say the new J20 factories will also be capable of building air superiority UAV’s and is planned to build 6th Gen later. A reasonable strategy might be to ramp up J20 production now and for a few years to match F35 effective numbers, then transition most of that to UAV production. Which then becomes the base for the 6th Gen produced later.

3. China says they don’t want to dominate or project power, they want to ensure their sovereignty and protect their SLOC’s. If they actually need J20’s to dominate in the 2nd island chain then they can take off from short runways located in the 1st island chain, or use tanker support, or their accompanying UAV’s.

4. Unlike J16’s, there is nothing to stop China from selling a J-20E to another country, including ToT. So, there may be foreign factories building J-20s for SCO members.

I think by later this decade, China can have 600 J-20’s plus 2000 UAV’s of similar capability.
 
TK3600

TK3600

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stannislas said:
the total number of J-8 could be less than 30 now, and there should be no more than 4 brigades J-7 in services, that's about 100
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We should have 500+ if you also include J-10A, Su-27SK, JH-7, JH-7A. And another several hundreds if you include earlier J-11, Su-30MKK. We can have 800+ pilot and logistic ready to spare for new J-20 without even expanding total unit size. It may seem a bit wasteful for the later category but this is next 10 years we are talking about. At some point even J-10B can go. Those plane do not have to go into junk. They can be donated or sold to Chinese geopolitical allies, or back to Russia if they need more plane against Ukraine lol.

Tldr; by 2032 J-10 is the new J-7 equivalent today, flankers are JH-7 equivalent today. They can go too.
 
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