I have friends in certain circles in Beijing who heard that there are campaign plans for AR for as soon as 2024. I heard this three months ago and didn't mention sooner because this is way too sensitive (CMC origin), but since these sort of rumours have recently been already out and about...
As always, take with a grain of salt. I won't say any more.
Frankly I would be appalled if the PLA hasn’t been making AR campaign plans every single year like EA has been making FIFA games.
What might have changed is rather than designing campaigns around what assets, forces and munitions are readily available, the PLA planners are now being asked what procurements should be made starting now if AR is X years away. The more years the X is, the bigger the assets in question.
In this regards, I don’t think the hint guancha dropped about one big asset being dropped in favour of another is talking about 076 vs Carrier. Rather I think the 076 might be being thrown on the back burner in favour of more 075 production.
Trading carriers for 076 makes zero sense since carriers are useful and necessary in almost all AR scenarios, and are so far along the development path.
But realistically speaking, the 076 is not going to be relevant in any AR scenario before 2030. Whereas if they started mass producing 075s now, they could potentially all be operationally deployable by 2025 for a Taiwan scenario.
