J-35 carrier fighter (PLAN) thread

[Atomicfrog]

No doubt that J35 will have many advanced features like situational awareness than J15B.
However, they are not competitors, they are teamates.
Just like F35+F18 of US Navy, and J20+J16 of PLAAF.
Both keep their own relatively backward model for dirrerent mission and complementary.

PLA must know well about how to play the effect of 1 plus 1 greater than 2.
The combination of J35+J15 will be invincible on the ocean in the future.

There's also maintenance with stealth aircrafts having historically a lot more maintenance per flying hours than the last generation to keep them at full capability. A prolonged conflict will be on j15 shoulders.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

A 076 class that can deploy J35s, stealthy strike drones and AWACS would become just another type of full fledged carrier... You need reinforced landing arresting gear, bigger catapult, repair facilities, etc... you just turn it in a carrier. They are already building their new type of carrier, It's splitting apples...

I can see air-air UCAV around the corner and cannot see the need to carry other things than UAV and UCAV on 076 class. J35 will be way more well served in a full fledged carrier with 076 giving him wingman UCAV fleet to multiply effectiveness.

To be honest, I don't really see how a Type 076 would be capable of showcasing her full potential flexibility-wise, when she can only have half of the capabilites as an amphibious assault ship, plus another half of the capabilities as an aircraft carrier at the same time.

If given options, I would rather design the Type 076 to become fully-fledged medium-size aircraft carriers (maybe closer to the size of Vikrant). Said redesigned Type 076 CVMs would mainly operates combat drones and a number of manned fighters, alongside limited or zero amphibious operation capabilities.

Type 076 CVMs would thus be relegated to support amphibious task forces, AND support the mainline carrier battle groups (001A, 002, 003, 004, 005 etc) regarding naval aviation warfare/operations on the high seas - all while without wasting any spaces onboard, because space can be transformed into capability when used efficiently.

Meanwhile, I'll choose to continue pumping out more Type 075 LHDs and Type 071 LPDs, since those ships are actually geared towards launching and supporting amphibious assault roles. Maybe giving the Type 075 LHDs some ground-support drones with VTOL and/or STOVL capabilities would be a better option.

But that might just be my own personal opinion on the matter. What do you guys think?

If there are some newernaval concepts surrounding the viability of Type 076 LHAs that I do not know or don't understand, please feel free to point out.

 

[gongolongo]

That was actually a bad statement by me without further explanation. Shilao podcast said J-20 two seater was half a generation ahead of J-20 single seater due to all the new technology available and the ability to redesign internal layout. They also said that a new J-20 single seater variant would have similar advantages (being able to redesign internal layout to accommodate new technologies), but still lack the additional multi-role capability offered by the second pilot. If we assume that the naval variant of J-35 started development at around the same time as J-20 two seater, then it should also have the advantage of having internal layout designed to accommodate China's latest electronic technology.

I was using that statement to show that J-35 show have much better situational awareness than a J-15B.

Can you link this podcast and is this guy a good source?

 

[Michaelsinodef]

Can you link this podcast and is this guy a good source?

Shilao and his podcast can be considered a 'good source'.

Ofc things should be taken with a pinch of salt, but there have been plenty of times his (and also Xi Yazhou's) podcast has revealed/hinted at stuff that later turned out to be true (quite safe to say that they have sources/know friends in like the PLA as well as 'other places').

Link for the 2 podcasts

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and

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[tphuang]

Valid points for why J35s won’t be operating off of 075s. But for 076, which is still on the drawing board, all of those issues and concerns could be easily addressed at the design stage.

Munitions and fuel storage and handling can all be provisioned for at design, much of which can easily be made modular so the necessary stuff can be carried depending on if they just want to do rotor wing ops or want to also factor in J35s.

I don’t really see any special need for accommodations for J35 ground crew. They literally can sleep in any bunk. Worst case you loose a squad or two of marines in exchange.

As for specialist stealth maintenance facilities and flight deck layout. Those will be much bigger commitments, but again, I think it’s worthwhile, especially if you look further down the horizon at stealthy strike drones. All the maintenance and flight deck investments needed for J35 operation would also be needed for stealth strike drone operation.

Being able to operating J35s, stealth drones and drone AWACS/tankers would, imo, be the primary justification for the 076 class. Otherwise, if the PLAN only intends to operating rotor wing, they could just buy more 075s.



Well, I’m not sure about that. There are a massive gulf in the mission spectrum between rotor wing only and full fleet carrier operations. Especially if the Taiwan question remains unresolved, as it is likely to remain so for some time to come.

How comfortable would the PLAN be to commit to deploying fully fledged fleet carriers to far away deployments knowing those carriers could be effectively stranded in the Indian Ocean should a shooting war break out while they are on deployment? Especially for lower priority and threat operations?

A 076 class that can deploy J35s, stealthy strike drones and AWACS would give the PLAN all the tools it needs for deterrence patrols, comprehensive fleet defence operations as well respectable air superiority and strike operational capabilities against 3rd tier opponents should the need arrives. All without needing to deploy full carriers far from home.

Having an 076 fleet could also be very useful to train up pilots and crews for future carrier ops as the PLAN spin up additional carriers without needing to take 001 or 002 out of the deployment pool for training missions. It would also be very useful to help pilots and crews gain operational experience from long duration patrols far from home, much like what the anti-piracy operations have been doing for the PLAN surface fleet. Only with the 076, they can simulate carrier ops without needing to send an actual carrier.

Are you looking for a LHD or a baby carrier that does everything worse than a real carrier?

A LHD would have a large well deck which is completely wasted if you want to use it as a carrier. It would also have part of a deck reserved for armored vehicles that you would want to launch the assault. A LHD would not have the same powerful motor or speed requirement as a nuclear carrier. It would not have the same endurance as a carrier. It would not have the same sized aviation facility as a carrier. How are you getting a full sized maintenance facility for your J-35 air wing? Remember, the maintenance facility size for 8 J-35s isn't going to be that much smaller than for 20 J-35s.

It's one thing to have a few J-35s on deck for a short mission and live with the inefficiencies. It's quite a different thing to go to another part of the world with it. It seems to me you want a small carrier, not a LHD.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Many people are really excited for 076, which is indeed a very interesting and forward-looking concept.
But in the end that 7 in '076' doesn't stand for nothing.

 

[Blitzo]

Many people are really excited for 076, which is indeed a very interesting and forward-looking concept.
But in the end that 7 in '076' doesn't stand for nothing.

The insistence of 076 retaining a major amphibious assault role despite having a CATOBAR fit out, is a reflection of a welldeck being listed as one of its key subsystems and also being a consistent part of rumours with one of the usual sources stating that it would still be an amphibious assault ship.

 

[SinoSoldier]

First, I will say that it makes sense for them to have J-35 be able to operate off 076 with EMCAT. Just for operational flexibility.

But, there are many reasons you would not want to operate J-35 off Type 076 even if it can operate off there. On a LHD, the provisioning of fuel, missiles and general support are based on the requirement of amphibious fleet. Just think about how many engineers and how much storage is needed for maintaining the stealth layer of J-35. There is also the other issue of LHD flight deck simply not optimized for the flight operation you would want with J-35.

PLAN will be operating both LHD and carrier, so I think for any large missions that require real manned fixed wing aircraft, they will just bring along a carrier.

There is no way J-15B will have a larger situational awareness bubble than J-35. J-35 was designed from ground up with 5th generation situation awareness in mind. J-15B was not. If you listen to the recent Shilao podcast, you will hear there is a huge difference between the situation awareness of J-20 vs the 4th gen aircraft. J-35 would probably be more comparable to J-20 two seater.

The main reason you would want to keep have J-15s on deck is to do role you don't want J-35s to do like EW aircraft, buddy to buddy refueling, bomb truck.

Although even with J-35, you want to see what type of external missiles/pods you can integrate on there without drastically increasing its signature.

I didn't make my statement clear. The "situational bubble" was talking about refers to the carrier's eyes & ears, not those of the J-15 itself. The J-20 and J-XY for sure will have a more complete sensor suite than the J-15B ever will, but the latter having a much larger radar implies a greater search range, which translates to greater radar coverage for the carrier group.

 

[snake65]

I didn't make my statement clear. The "situational bubble" was talking about refers to the carrier's eyes & ears, not those of the J-15 itself. The J-20 and J-XY for sure will have a more complete sensor suite than the J-15B ever will, but the latter having a much larger radar implies a greater search range, which translates to greater radar coverage for the carrier group.

This is relevant only in absence of shipborne AWACS.

 

[plawolf]

Are you looking for a LHD or a baby carrier that does everything worse than a real carrier?

A LHD would have a large well deck which is completely wasted if you want to use it as a carrier. It would also have part of a deck reserved for armored vehicles that you would want to launch the assault. A LHD would not have the same powerful motor or speed requirement as a nuclear carrier. It would not have the same endurance as a carrier. It would not have the same sized aviation facility as a carrier. How are you getting a full sized maintenance facility for your J-35 air wing? Remember, the maintenance facility size for 8 J-35s isn't going to be that much smaller than for 20 J-35s.

It's one thing to have a few J-35s on deck for a short mission and live with the inefficiencies. It's quite a different thing to go to another part of the world with it. It seems to me you want a small carrier, not a LHD.

You can have both.

With Catapults, the speed of the boat is far less of an issue.

For full-on combat operations you will need full blooded fleet carriers, but how likely is it that China will want to invade some random country in Africa or the middle east?

It’s long range amphibious assault capabilities are, realistically speaking, going to be primarily used for security assistance and stabilisation operations in support of friendly nations being CIA-coup’d; and evacuating Chinese nationals in the event of a catastrophic collapse of friendly governments to foreign sponsored coups and civil wars.

For such missions, time is of the essence. Unless China is absolutely curbstomping the CIA in the spy business, China is going to potentially have very limited reaction time to a sudden coup attempt to be able to do enough to stop it from succeeding in ousting the friendly government or plunging the nation into civil war.

That, plus the very limited number and mission set of Chinese overseas military bases makes naval action groups the primary rapid reaction force China could realistically field on the short to medium term.

In that context, you don’t need nor want to pack your LHD/LHAs to the gills with marines and armour, thus the loss of some carrying capacity is going to be of limited or even no concern.

The purpose of mini-carrier LHD/LHAs like the like of 076 I envisage would be to provide PLAN with SAGs that can carry out such missions without needing fleet carrier support. Deploying 2-3 of such SAGs centred around such an 076 would give China the rapid reaction presence it needs to hopefully dissuade the CIA from even attempting some coups while not diluting the PLAN fleet carrier fleet strengths at home.

The alternative is that the PLAN would need up to 6 additional fleet carriers to do the same peacetime missions if we factor in the rest, refit and retraining times needed after long deployments.

The J35s would be there primarily to provide fleet air defence and escort for rotor wing friendlies of such SAGs, as well as providing PLAN carrier pilots with useful experience of long duration naval aviation deployments without needing to send out full fleet carriers.

In that sense, you should get 90% of the peacetime capabilities of deploying full fleet carriers for maybe 20-30% of the costs.