J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread

[weig2000]

I know that this is getting off-topic, but please remember that the majority of information that we have about Chinese military research and procurement is almost always of the beautified, highly edited and pacified kind. You know, the one a priori curated by the government itself, the source.

I disagree strongly. In fact, I think the exact opposite is true.

First of all, most serious PLA watchers do not base their judgement solely on government information. In general, government information tend to be selective and filtered, but usually are not blatant lies. They can also be cross-checked.

Secondly, the information coming out of China on most military development and achievement have generally treated with suspicion, downplay, or ultralight contempt. This is particularly true in the West. A lot of reactions are knee-jerk. Take J-20 for example, ever since its initial appearance, it was considered subpar, with horrible stealthiness, no real air superiority fighter but an interceptor, reverse-engineered from former Russia aircraft or even worse its technologies were stolen from the US. We had and continue to go through endless discussion and debates to set the records straight. While one can argue that China is the late-comer in advanced military technologies and therefore the burden of proof is on it, at least it just shows that Chinese military technologies have not gotten easy pass or less scrutiny or that people just accept what Chinese government claims at face value.

Lastly, as much as China is a late-comer in advanced military technologies, we have observed and accumulated decades of experiences of watching China's development and progress in the area (How many years has SDF been in existence?). A lot of hypothesis and suspicions have been tested, and indeed, a lot of glasses have been broken. While the Chinese are not exactly very transparent in the defense matters, it's also a very porous area.

In a way, I feel that your question or questioning arises precisely because China has made such huge progress and great strides in defense and defense technologies within only a few decades, it's almost unbelievable! Surely, it must be because the Chinese government has presented us with a "beautified, highly edited and pacified kind," you know, the one "a priori curated" by the CCP. We, the gullible and innocent PLA watchers, are just being easily fooled.

Or maybe, it's the person or people who are constantly doubting the Chinese or its defense development who should reflect on. After all, leave aside the relatively opaque military development, just observe the giant progress that China has made in their economy, industries and technologies simultaneously, which are so much more open, transparent and broader and yet they're still accompanied by the same never-ending doubt, suspicion and reservation. They're good mirror images of each other which are likely originated from similar psychology.

 

[Blitzo]

I know that this is getting off-topic, but please remember that the majority of information that we have about Chinese military research and procurement is almost always of the beautified, highly edited and pacified kind. You know, the one a priori curated by the government itself, the source.

This is the name of the game of course *(there are no other avenues of information to base a discussion on, and when they are...the government promptly shuts them down for obvious reasons), but sometimes it feels like we forget it, especially when trying to compare data from different countries. Countries that don't have this filter baked in, or where the filter itself is prone to scrutiny - for various reasons.

The propaganda view always trumps true vision. Especially when common sense dictates otherwise.

What on earth are you talking about?

If you are using this as a method to criticize the claims made by SCMP -- it is correct that SCMP's claims are utter rubbish, but they most certainly are not a government source nor a "beautified, highly edited and pacified kind". They're just rubbish, plain and simple, and have been proven time and time again to be wrong, either exaggerating things in too positive or too negative a direction.


This community that has done PLA watching has done so for well over a decade now, and the ability to gain information on new developments and existing capabilities is all a result of the ability to extrapolate from what little useful information we get given either from state media sources, or usually from the grapevine.

Putting it another way, I have no clue what "government source" you are talking about because there are very few instances where state media has given us actually detailed and useful information that even has the latitude to be interpreted in the way you describe.
If anything, when state media does give information around new systems, they are almost always legitimate and valuable when interpreted in context.


So what you've written here is actually entirely unhelpful and frankly misleading for people who are interested in following Chinese military developments.

 

[taxiya]

I know that this is getting off-topic, but please remember that the majority of information that we have about Chinese military research and procurement is almost always of the beautified, highly edited and pacified kind. You know, the one a priori curated by the government itself, the source.

This is the name of the game of course *(there are no other avenues of information to base a discussion on, and when they are...the government promptly shuts them down for obvious reasons), but sometimes it feels like we forget it, especially when trying to compare data from different countries. Countries that don't have this filter baked in, or where the filter itself is prone to scrutiny - for various reasons.

The propaganda view always trumps true vision. Especially when common sense dictates otherwise.

Please elaborate what information was from Chinese government, beautified or not. As far as I know, there is none.

Your post sounds like a "straw man", somebody makes up a claim out of nowhere and attribute that to Chinese government, then somebody would use that to claim that Chinese government lying because the claim is overstatement, another would claim Chinese threat because the claim is accurate. This the the real game.

 

[aubzman]

I disagree strongly. In fact, I think the exact opposite is true.

First of all, most serious PLA watchers do not base their judgement solely on government information. In general, government information tend to be selective and filtered, but usually are not blatant lies. They can also be cross-checked.

Secondly, the information coming out of China on most military development and achievement have generally treated with suspicion, downplay, or ultralight contempt. This is particularly true in the West. A lot of reactions are knee-jerk. Take J-20 for example, ever since its initial appearance, it was considered subpar, with horrible stealthiness, no real air superiority fighter but an interceptor, reverse-engineered from former Russia aircraft or even worse its technologies were stolen from the US. We had and continue to go through endless discussion and debates to set the records straight. While one can argue that China is the late-comer in advanced military technologies and therefore the burden of proof is on it, at least it just shows that Chinese military technologies have not gotten easy pass or less scrutiny or that people just accept what Chinese government claims at face value.

Lastly, as much as China is a late-comer in advanced military technologies, we have observed and accumulated decades of experiences of watching China's development and progress in the area (How many years has SDF been in existence?). A lot of hypothesis and suspicions have been tested, and indeed, a lot of glasses have been broken. While the Chinese are not exactly very transparent in the defense matters, it's also a very porous area.

In a way, I feel that your question or questioning arises precisely because China has made such huge progress and great strides in defense and defense technologies within only a few decades, it's almost unbelievable! Surely, it must be because the Chinese government has presented us with a "beautified, highly edited and pacified kind," you know, the one "a priori curated" by the CCP. We, the gullible and innocent PLA watchers, are just being easily fooled.

Or maybe, it's the person or people who are constantly doubting the Chinese or its defense development who should reflect on. After all, leave aside the relatively opaque military development, just observe the giant progress that China has made in their economy, industries and technologies simultaneously, which are so much more open, transparent and broader and yet they're still accompanied by the same never-ending doubt, suspicion and reservation. They're good mirror images of each other which are likely originated from similar psychology.

I agree and its not as if the Chinese are alone in tooting their own horns about their undeniable achievements. How many times have we seen the UK media, for example, touting the Type 45 destroyer as being "world leading" despite the fact its always breaking down, carries relatively few VLS cells and is apparently quite noisy, see this quote from the Independent newspaper

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Phead128]

You know, the one a priori curated by the government itself, the source.

We can rely on civil engineers and cost estimators for budget estimates. For example, the reported

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

for reclamation of Fiery Cross Reef artificial island in South China Sea.

Fiery Cross Reef, which has been expanded to become the largest "island" in the Spratlys with a total surface area of 0.96 kilometers, is said to have cost the Chinese government 73.6 billion yuan (US$11.5 billion), excluding buildings and other fixed equipment constructed on the reef.

NOT FROM GOVERNMENT SOURCES:

The cost was estimated by civil engineer scholars, who stated that it costs around 75 yuan (US$12.07) to deliver each cubic meter of earth and stone to Fiery Cross, with other materials costing about 41 yuan (US$6.60) per cubic meter.

We usually can estimate from civil engineering and construction cost estimators and cross-tabulate with government sources to present a comprehensive picture. You act like gov't is the sole source, but it is definitely not!

 

[iantsai]

The reasons FC-31 fans deny J-20 for the carrier-borne fighter aircraft competition are:

• J-20 is difficult to take off and land in an aircraft carrier with canards.
• J-20 is too large for the Chinese aircraft carriers.
• CAC can't produce sufficient J-20s needed for the Navy because the orders from the Air Force has taken up its production capacity for the next 20 years.

Is that for real and reasonable?

As far as we can see, French Navy has been operating Rafales for 15 years, they never complained on the canard layout of Rafales even when they were operating in a carrier with smaller deck.

J-15 is longer, wider-spanned and higher than J-20, but PLAN-AF never complained on their size and weight. And the upcoming 018 and future vessles will be even larger than Liaoning and Shandong.

CAC is not a private company, and its contract with the Air Force is not tied by commercial terms that are irrevocable, but determined by the Central Military Commission. There is no reason for the CMC to deny the navy orders for J-20.

So why the cannards, size, weight and production capacity could be the obstacles that J-20 cannot pass to be a carrier-borne fighter? Even the Air Force variant of J-20 just entered service in 2018. Maybe the PLAN is waiting for the new WS15 and the new CATOBAR carriers to enter service.

On the other hand, the performance of FC-31 has been modified by fans magically. The WS-19 engineer, being a upgrade product of WS-13 the localization solution of RD-93, was bragged to have 12 tons thrust (means thrust-to-weight ratio 12!). The MTOW of FC-31 was bragged to 29 tons. With such MTOW, it will still keep a significantly smaller dimensions of 20-ton fighter. That's not science, it's creating miracles.

Unlike the Air Force facing different level opponents, the PLAN-AF will defnitely confront the F-35s of US Navy, JASDF and RoKAF. So would they accept a mediocre medium weight, medium range fighter? I don't think so.

 

[Temstar]

The reasons FC-31 fans deny J-20 for the carrier-borne fighter aircraft competition are:

• J-20 is difficult to take off and land in an aircraft carrier with canards.
• J-20 is too large for the Chinese aircraft carriers.
• CAC can't produce sufficient J-20s needed for the Navy because the orders from the Air Force has taken up its production capacity for the next 20 years.

Is that for real and reasonable?

As far as we can see, French Navy has been operating Rafales for 15 years, they never complained on the canard layout of Rafales even when they were operating in a carrier with smaller deck.

J-15 is longer, wider-spanned and higher than J-20, but PLAN-AF never complained on their size and weight. And the upcoming 018 and future vessles will be more and more larger than 016 and 017.

CAC is not a private company, and its contract with the Air Force is not tied by commercial terms that are irrevocable, but determined by the Central Military Commission.

So why the cannards, size, weight and production capacity could be the obstacles that J-20 cannot pass to be a carrier-borne fighter? Even the Air Force variant of J-20 just entered service in 2018. Maybe the PLAN is just waiting for the new CATOBAR carriers to enter service.

On the other hand, the performance of FC-31 has been modified by fans magically. The WS-19 engineer, being a upgrade product of WS-13 the localization solution of RD-93, was bragged to have 12 tons thrust (means thrust-to-weight ratio 12!). The MTOW of FC-31 was bragged to 29 tons. With such MTOW, it will still keep a significantly smaller dimensions of 20-ton fighter. That's not science, it's creating miracles.

Unlike the Air Force facing different level opponents, the PLAN-AF will defnitely confront the F-35s of US Navy, JASDF and RoKAF. So would they accept a mediocre medium weight, medium range fighter? I don't think so.

Too large is to do with how big the aircraft is with the wings folded. J-15 can fold its wings, as J-35 can evidently do also from the fold line we see so far. AFAIK delta-wings such as J-20 and Rafale cannot have folding wings and in fact the French navy do consider that a big minus of Rafale-M

 

[iantsai]

Too large is to do with how big the aircraft is with the wings folded. J-15 can fold its wings, as J-35 can evidently do also from the fold line we see so far. AFAIK delta-wings such as J-20 and Rafale cannot have folding wings and in fact the French navy do consider that a big minus of Rafale-M

Absence of foldable wings in Rafale's design is because its wingspan is only 10.9m, advantage of a folding mechanism is unable to offset the complexity and weight added to fold the wings.

For J-20's wingspan it will be worth the cost to fold the wings for a naval variant.

 

[Hyper]

Guys what Dante means to say that it is difficult to know about the exact since the government does not exactly publish it. And also SCMP's claims are utter garbage. Everyone would like to know how exactly do they make claims about the j-20 end budget and in detail.

 

[Blitzo]

Guys what Dante means to say that it is difficult to know about the exact since the government does not exactly publish it. And also SCMP's claims are utter garbage. Everyone would like to know how exactly do they make claims about the j-20 end budget and in detail.

That is not what he wrote.

He said "please remember that the majority of information that we have about Chinese military research and procurement is almost always of the beautified, highly edited and pacified kind. You know, the one a priori curated by the government itself, the source."


That is of course entirely rubbish, because information that we have about PLA research and procurement including new projects is not "beautified, highly edited and pacified".
If anything, it is better described as "incomplete, lacking, and understated".


He was suggesting that the information we had on PLA development and procurement was the result of the government releasing deliberately fluffed up and overly optimistic, false or potemkin style information, whereas the opposite is actually true.