Jian's vs F-22/F-35??

I'm thinking about R-27 would appear on your radar earlier due to its larger size and such. Also, it's size means you can't load as many of them on. I guess the fact that China has purchased so many of it is a good sign, but China sort of has to import it due to its huge fleet of flankers.

Not really. Flankers can carry as much as 8 of them.

I've just been checking out stats on various missiles - r-27 is smaller than its predecessor r-23 in every aspect, and smaller than aim-7 in wingspan and length, with being 3 cm wider in diameter of the body of missile. It's little big bigger than aim120 and r-77 too but thing is - all these differences are rather small. The fraction of a second earlier that one's radar would detect a r-27 versus a r-77 for example is hard to make much difference. That's if we're talking about sarh version. If we're talking bout IR version of r-27, one'd actually have less warning when r-27 would approach it than with r-77, like crobato said. It may be overall less efficient missile, like most SARH missiles, compared to ARH ones but it's still a nice piece of equipment. I wonder what will happen with ARH verion of it that is under development...

Totoro:
USAF isn’t going to takeover China, it doesn’t need to plan like Operation Iraqi Freedom. 3000 cruise missiles and refueled stealth bombers are more than enough for US Effects-Based Operation. At the very least, short range aircraft like J-7 will not be able to operate effectively after major forward airbases near China coast have been paralyzed. New aircrafts such as Su-27 won’t have the same problem, but PLAAF’s overall quantitative advantage will decrease for sure.

Sea Dog’s 1:6 / 1:8 ratio doesn’t mean anything, he pulled it out of a hat. RAND estimates a 1:3 to 1:6 ratio of F-15C and Su-27. F-22A with its stealth features and datalink technology is far better than that. According to RAND, F-22 could achieve 1:20 ratio against Flankers.

If you consider Electronic Warfare superiority, pilot trainings, and AWACS advantage, there isn’t any need to even consider J-7 and J-8. Only J-10 and Flankers stand a chance against Super Hornet, JSF, and F-22. The gap of fighter technology is only one element of the war, the overall operational planning and tactics of USAF are much better than some people assumed.

When you talked about target rich environment in China, don’t forget that the strategic depth also means there are more area to defend. It’s true that attackers need more resources and higher strength to penetrate, but defense has the dilemma of not knowing where the attacker will concentrate and therefore defense must cover all. An alternative to the “cover all” defense strategy is to have high mobility and logistics, but PLAAF does not have enough modern fighters and infrastructure to do that yet. Short range aircrafts like J-7 don’t have the capability and the flexibility for that kind of strategy.

Edit:
Made mistake on the OEF sortie rate. Carrier operation had long hours, not high sortie rate per day.

Can i please ask you to quote statements you're replying to, especially considering it's an old thread? I had to go back and reread all i've written in this thread. Anyway...

cabbageman said:

Totoro:
USAF isn’t going to takeover China, it doesn’t need to plan like Operation Iraqi Freedom. 3000 cruise missiles and refueled stealth bombers are more than enough for US Effects-Based Operation. At the very least, short range aircraft like J-7 will not be able to operate effectively after major forward airbases near China coast have been paralyzed. New aircrafts such as Su-27 won’t have the same problem, but PLAAF’s overall quantitative advantage will decrease for sure.

Click to expand...

US wouldn't have for its mission to invade china, that is true. But i am arguing that the cruise missiles used in operation iraqi freedom were used to attack the same kind of targets that would have to be attacked in a huge air campaign that we were discussing here. Once All the C&C nodes, sam defenses, airbases were destroyed there was no need for cruise missiles in iraq. They were used mostly in the opening days of the war. Same principle applies to china air campaign. Only difference is that such targets in china number in thousands, not hundreds like in iraq.

Just when we're talking about major military airbases, iraq had 24 operational ones in first gulf war, less than that number in 2003, according to globalsecurity.org. Of course i'm not saying all of them were attacked with cruise missiles but it's a fair illustration of the difference in scale. in 1999 Yugoslavia had five major airbases. China on the other hand operates 110.
Over 330 cruise missiles were launched in first gulf war. That figure is not even relevant anymore as back then it was an unproven weapon and later caimpaigns showed that US would rely on cruise missiles much more.

Over 400 were launched in 1998 during operation desert fox in iraq, then again over 230 in 1999 during air strikes on yugoslavia. Finally, at least 750 were launched in 2003 during invasion of iraq. Even if we assume that as many as 20 airbases were operational in 2003 in iraq that would give a ratio of over 40 launched cruise missiles for one airbase. That pretty much means 4500 cruise missiles for china. That does no take into account the fact that china has far bigger military industry targets, more decentralized c&c network and more potent radar and interception network than either iraq or serbia had.

I still stand to my assesment that IF america would want to achieve the same effect that it had in serbia and iraq, over all of china's targets, not even 5000 cruise missiles would be enough. And whole discussion is moot really since current US inventory is under 3000 thousand.

I apologize for this slight off topic rant bout numbers of cruise missiles fired, but at least now we have them all listed in one place, if anyone wants to read.

Anyhow, deep inland of china could not be reached by tomahawks anyway, which pretty much leavs only B2s as the weeapon of choice, as no fighter or EW plane could have the range to assist it. Unless US achieves such air superiority that it starts refuelling its planes over china itself. Of course, that does leave more tomahawks for targets closer to the shore, for bigger saturation.

Just what do you mean when you say effects based operation? This whole discussion so far has been under the assumption US goal would be to obliterate china's air and naval force and infrastructure, as well as destroy military equipment factories and research centers with c&c networks and sam sites being necessary prerequisite targets to pull all that off. If by effects based operation you mean a smaller scale air campaign than this - well, then we're both barking up the wrong tree.

Another thing to note. It is not that easy to paralyze an airbase. With all the overwhelming qualitative and quantitative advantage US had, iraq still managed to sustain it sortie rates for several days. It has been shown that an airbase whose infrastructure has been attacked can be put back into operation in very little time. damaged airstrips were repaired in a matter of several hours. So US would need to maintain its attacks over several days on chinese airbases in order to truly paralyze them.

cabbageman said:

Sea Dog’s 1:6 / 1:8 ratio doesn’t mean anything, he pulled it out of a hat. RAND estimates a 1:3 to 1:6 ratio of F-15C and Su-27. F-22A with its stealth features and datalink technology is far better than that. According to RAND, F-22 could achieve 1:20 ratio against Flankers.

If you consider Electronic Warfare superiority, pilot trainings, and AWACS advantage, there isn’t any need to even consider J-7 and J-8. Only J-10 and Flankers stand a chance against Super Hornet, JSF, and F-22. The gap of fighter technology is only one element of the war, the overall operational planning and tactics of USAF are much better than some people assumed.

Click to expand...

I know Sea Dog's ratio is something he pulled out of a hat. I asked him to do that. 1:8 ratio is pure guesswork, just like RAND ratio figure is. There is no real way to come up with realistic ratio based on computer simulations based on assumed tech data based on guesswork tactical and strategical situation. But lets assume RAND data is true, since it is very convenient to have some palpable figures, otherwise the whole discussion is meaningless.

US would lose its 36 (guesswork figure of combat ready raptors) in exchange for some 720 flankers. Of course china doesnt have that many. If no raptors are lost in strike missions US wins. Chinese 350 flankers and j10s would then down some 78 f15Cs. Not bad for US. And so on. It really is the main question here, just how effective is PLAAF and just how effective is USAF and USN. Simulations are nice but they're next to useless. We can know the real efficiency only from real combat.

JSF isnt available yet though, and old f18s still comprise two thirds of an carrier air wing. I wonder what RAND said about the ratio there, flanker against old f18 and against super hornet? Can you please provide the RAND study link, i'm really curious.

US training advantage is already assumed. Tactics and force multipliers are assumed. China had plenty of opportunities to study both. Plus i would not assume j7 and j8 planes are useless, even j6s. At close range and/or in large numbers they can still be either deadly for US or a factor that will force the US attack to be turned away if the risk is deemed too high. More missiles fired at j7s means less missiles fired at flankers. However small or big difference that may make, it still does make a difference.

cabbageman said:

When you talked about target rich environment in China, don’t forget that the strategic depth also means there are more area to defend. It’s true that attackers need more resources and higher strength to penetrate, but defense has the dilemma of not knowing where the attacker will concentrate and therefore defense must cover all. An alternative to the “cover all” defense strategy is to have high mobility and logistics, but PLAAF does not have enough modern fighters and infrastructure to do that yet. Short range aircrafts like J-7 don’t have the capability and the flexibility for that kind of strategy.

Click to expand...

Absolutely. China will have to choose what to defend. I am sure it will knowingly sacrifice certain areas so it arranges a more efficient defense in other areas. This again raises the question of just what do you think is the goal of this hypothetical US led air caimpagn?

Thing is, i believe logistics issues are on china's side, by a huge margin. While US would probably enjoy greater efficiency attacking china's coastline (especially opposing japan) and striking just few hundrd kms inland, the deeper it'd go its efficiency would start dropping sharply. Two things are imporant here. Max number of planes available for a mission at one time and sustained sortie rates.

US would more or less have to rely on its own airbases in the area. There are not very many of those. One can forget about using nearby countries to base planes or even fly over their territory. Pretty much only country safe from china and at the same time willing to help US would be Japan. Taiwan too could help this whole thread assumed US would attack because taiwan was being attacked/invaded.

Some 400 carrier borne planes would be available, plus up to 200 USAF planes. Unless japanese airbases get used by USAF too. That is some 800 sustained sorties available, providing all the carrier groups are near japan and all the attacks get concentratd around that general area. Attacks on south china would see perhaps a third less sorties. Even the puny j7 has a combat range of some 550 km. If attacked at the area opposing taiwan chinese could generate over 2000 sorties, pretty much assuring there'd always be enough planes in the air to intercept any US attack in the opening days of the war. Of course, if the ratio will be something like 10 flankers for a super hornet - that won't help chinese that much.

cabbageman said:

Edit:
Made mistake on the OEF sortie rate. Carrier operation had long hours, not high sortie rate per day.

Click to expand...

I don't understand, are you saying you made a mistake or i did? And if so, what is the mistake refering to? You havent mentioned carriers yourself.... so the figure of USN sortie rates in OEF i gave is wrong? Or what?

Have to say that was a good informative post by Totoro.

I'd like to put additional stress on the fact that simulation results should be taken with a grain of salt, there are simply too many factors that can change that could upset the outcome, especially in a environment as small as the Taiwan Strait. (Where a potential F-22 vs PLAAF aircraft scenario would most likely occur)

The presence of strong active jamming, overall confusion from all that activity going on all at once in a condensed area, how effective communications are between allies in the area, etc. The list goes on and on.

I won't debate that in a 1 v 1 fight a F-22 would defeat anything any country has to offer right now, but as stated previously, stats should be taken with a grain of salt, and a realistic total air war environment would arguably produce less favorable outcomes than a simulation.

The United States conducted exercises with India I'm sure you all forgot about. The results apply to this situation.

Results of air exercise with India a "wake-up call" for US air force: general

AFP | June 24 2004

The US Air Force got a "wake-up call" in air-to-air training exercises with India earlier this year that showed the United States can no longer take air superiority for granted in a conflict, a top US general said Wednesday.

A study of the "Cope India" air exercise, conducted by the US and Indian air forces in Gwalior, India last February, is secret, said General Hal Hornburg, head of the air force's Air Combat Command.

"But we have to learn a lot of things from that," he told defense reporters here. "We have to learn if we want air superiority it doesn't come cheap and it's not automatic."

The Russian-made SU-30s are reported to have bested the F-15s in a majority of their engagements, much to the surprise of the organizers.

It was the first time the two top-of-the-line US and Russian-made fighters have flown against each other in an exercise, an air force spokeswoman said.

It pitted F-15Cs from the air force's 3rd Wing out of Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska against a variety of Indian fighters, not just the SU-30s. They included Russian-built MiG-21s, MiG-29s and French-made Mirage 2000s.

Although the US fighters flew with certain restrictions that handicapped their effectiveness, the performance of the Indian fighters exceeded expectations.

"In general, we may have learned some things that suggest we may not be as far ahead of the rest of the world as we once thought we were," Hornburg said.

He said the results of the exercise showed the need for the F/A-22 Raptor and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Both aircraft are stealthier than the F-15, but the F/A-18 also has greater range and speed than the air force's existing fighters.

The air force has been battling the perception that the costly new fighters are a luxury at a time when the United States has dominance in the air.

"I thought it was a wake-up call for some things that we've been talking about before, and it provided validation," Hornburg said.

The trade journal Aviation Week and Space Technology reported last month that the exercises showed the SU-30s had a clear advantage over the F-15C in a long-range fight.

The US and Indian aircraft were seeing each other at the same time with their radars but the SU-30 pilots were able to simulate-fire their Russian-made AA-10 "fire-and-forget" Alamo missiles first, the weekly said.

Experts say the SU-30 has a more advanced radar than the F-15C.

Hornburg said the F-15Cs that took part in "Cope India" were not equipped with the latest US active electronically scanned array radar.

"We are going to put new radars, as much as we can afford, in the F-16s and the F-15Es, and my prediction is we will have to do for the F-15C as well in due course," the general said.

The exercise appears to hold lessons for the air force in east Asia, where China is acquiring SU-27 and SU-30 fighters and AA-12 air-to-air missiles.

"I see air forces across the spectrum and across the world becoming better and better as each year passes," Hornburg said.

"China is very formidable. It is a huge, collossal nation, and they are very technologically adept. Do I worry about the Chinese? I would say I worry about anyone who could be a possible threat, to include them and many others," he said.

Now, granted the place I got it from has articles about the occult ruling the world, but I have read other things about this and it is true. The US might be in for a suprise.

No doubt attacking PLA will be much more difficult than attacking Iraq. But it's not a linear relationship based on quantity alone. Why should USAF/USN attack those inland airbases near India or Russia? US only need to concentrate on the coastal bases. Different strategy aims have major impacts. EBO shows that different goals would usually means different effects required, and different operational means.

The increase use of cruise missile is also not a question of enemy capability, but of the performance improvement. More cruise missiles were used in Operation Iraqi Freedom because now they could be used in different ways such as attacking time sensitive targets.

EBO doesn't mean "smaller" operations, it means to accomplish goals by concentrating effects with whatever ways necessary. Destruction of targets isn't the goal, instead it would be achieving the effects on target.

Of course paralyzing airbases aren't easy, that has been my reply in another post. However, operation effectiveness will no doubt be affected severely. It was the case in OSD and OIF, it would be the case with PLA's missile attack on Taiwan, and it would be no different when USAF attacks either. Generally, first strike airbase attacks cannot kill the enemy air defense for sure, Israeli attack on Egypt isn't going to be repeat again. But enemy's reduced sortie generation rate will make the follow-on attacks much easier.

Simulation aren't "useless", if done right they give a baseline to the possible outcomes. RAND is mainly a USAF think tank, it didn't mention USN's Hornets in this case. But if you want to look at the rest, the link is

Trainings and force multipliers usually aren't assumed in aircraft comparison simulations. The goal is to provide a basic idea for aircraft performance, unless you are doing a specific scenario war gaming.

J-6s are mostly retired from PLAAF, not a factor. J-7 is also not very important overall because the short range and the lack of BVR weapon. If quantity conquers all, why did PLAAF make J-10 instead of producing thousands of J-6? Why did USAF buy F-22A instead of F-5? Quantity matters, but only when quality difference isn't too much. There is always a limit of what you could put in the airspace simultaneously. Lining up aircrafts to be enemy targets do not achieve operational objective.

I edited out part of my incorrect response, it's not important if you didn't read it.

Additional factors favor US, not PLA. Jamming, secure datalink, AEW, and trainings are all examples. The only exception is Flankers' endurance.

In simulations, F-15 exchange rates aren't that great. But look at its combat records, it has never been shot down in air combat with more than 100 kills.

Cope India limits BVR engagement, and simulations are usually under the condition that smaller number of F-15s attacking large group of Su-30K, MiG-29, Mirage 2000. This is specific scenario war gaming, not pure aircraft comparison simulation. F-15's AMRAAM is one of its biggest advantages, take that away and make sure F-15 is outnumbered, it's not a surprised India "wins" the engagements.

cabbageman said:

Additional factors favor US, not PLA. Jamming, secure datalink, AEW, and trainings are all examples. The only exception is Flankers' endurance.

In simulations, F-15 exchange rates aren't that great. But look at its combat records, it has never been shot down in air combat with more than 100 kills.

Cope India limits BVR engagement, and simulations are usually under the condition that smaller number of F-15s attacking large group of Su-30K, MiG-29, Mirage 2000. This is specific scenario war gaming, not pure aircraft comparison simulation. F-15's AMRAAM is one of its biggest advantages, take that away and make sure F-15 is outnumbered, it's not a surprised India "wins" the engagements.

Click to expand...

Double post.

I tried to send you a PM.

I think i'm going to say what popeye would say that certain training scenario's are unrealistic and thus you're
right that the USAF chose to fight this enagagement with one hand behind it's back

Thank you for the rand study link, cabbageman. I really do wish they did a broader comparison but one could try and interpolate the ratios for other US warplanes. Everyone, please do give your opinions on these.

10-15 flankers downed for every f35 downed. That ratio would, however, decrease in a combat where f35 is greatly outnumbered since f35 has no supercruise to or high top speed to escape and has fewer A2A missiles.

5-8 flankers for an aesa equipped super hornet.

1-3 flankers for a hornet and/or f16, circa block 50.

Those are great ratios for US in my opinion. And US can certainly afford them.

Of course that if US has for its mission just to destroy china's coastline assets - it will be more effective at it. That is why i asked what sort of confrontation we're talking about and what sort of goals US has in this hypothetical air caimpaign.

More capability means greater range of targets attacked for cruise missiles, i agree. And block IV tomahawks will continue to improve on that. I thought the discussion was about same relative effect on the enemy. And it is not the same relative effect if one has enough tomahawks to strike at all the airbases and lets say some additional targets that can be moved, like in iraq, or if one has enough tomahawks only to deal with the airbases.

Of course, realistically speaking, everyone prapares for a war they can fight, if not win. One wouldn't plan to supress 100 airbases if one has enough weapons for only 50 airbases. I am very well aware that in today's world US would not set itself as goal the mission we're discussing here. Similarly, china would choose to try to intercept and counterattack only when it feels it can achieve enough of an effect.

The most important point i was trying to convey is that there would just not be enough US planes available in any given attack to achieve simultaneous supression of all the enemy fighters and neutralization of their respective airbases. Just opposite of taiwan there are 13 major chinese airbases, close enough to each other to give good overlapping protection to each other, even with j7s, not to mention flankers.

So US could choose do they go after one airbase at a time with overwhelming force, while trying to fend off the intercepting fighters from other airbases, or do they water down their attacks, trying to strike at more airbases simulatenously, neutralizing more chinese interceptors on the ground but at the cost of weaker air protection and smaller amount of damage done to each respective airbase.

I am not saying US would not win. In my opinion it would neutralize those airbases and destroy good deal of chinese fighters in exchange for a certain number of its own planes. What i am assuming is that the number of planes lost would be much higher than US has seen in the last few decades. I gave the figure of over 600 planes lost for the total airspace domination goal. If US makes its goal to tackle just the coastal regions of china, that number would drop but some 200-300 lost planes would still be a huge figure.

As for quality over quantity - of course its better to have quality. BUT. Every single missile or bomb that US has to have equpped because of even a threat of an old j7 is a bomb or missile less to be used on more important targets. And in the scenario where US has to atack half the way round the world, with not that many ground based aircraft, and where the enemy enjoys such huge numerical advantage - that matters. Sure, a f18 strike group can choose to ignore an airfield with j7s and go straight to bomb an airfield with flankers. But what then when they go back and those j7s get airborne and f18s are already low on ammo?

Of course, nobody would let themselves get into such sitution, one would plan for a mission that youre confident you can pull off. But it illustrates that sheer numbers can hinder one's strategical options. It would mean that the said f18 flight would probably have to be made bigger, with mor planes. Which could perhaps mean less planes for other areas. If there were no j7s and j8s, US could perhaps strike at two flanker airfields simultaneously, not just one. Every little bit matters.

There is a limit to number of planes you can put up in the air at one time, yes. But that true cut off limit is not the issue. What i believe we are talking is the effectiveness of the planes in the sky. chinese may be able to effectively guide and command 10 or 100 or a gazillion planes within a small area. But at some point that effectivenss will start dropping until you basically come to a point where any additional plane in the air is left to itself, able to be guide itself only by following others within visual range. Yes, its awfully ineffective. But it can matter. Every little bit matters.

Once again, this is hypothetical, just for fun scenario. It calls for maximizing US casulties by any means necasarry. In real war china may decide the benefit of increasing US casulties by whatever margin is outweighed by the benefit of saving hundreds of its own pilots' lives.

Real war combat record of f15s so far do not have to mean it would stay that way. They were all achieved in a context of numerical advantage, technological advantage, etc. Whereas tech advatange would still exist, i believe it would be smaller than it was against, say iraq in 1991, and the numerical advantage would be on chinese side.

What i have read about cope india exercises is that they did include BVR engagements. The advantage that has been publicized was the fact indians did recieve info from awacs planes whereas f15s did not. That, combined with the fact missile range was favoring indians seems to contributed to the win. I didn't read anything about numerical advantages but it can be assumed since that is how US trains, most of the time. I wonder if indians had r-77 as well, it was written that at least some of the wins were achieved with sarh and ir versions of r-27 missiles.