He made the entry level noob error of being a Westerner commenting on the Chinese military.
Good on you for making it through the video, though. The second the words "Justin Bronk" were mentioned I noped out.
PLA Air Force news, pics and videos
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Good on you for making it through the video, though. The second the words "Justin Bronk" were mentioned I noped out.
He at least acknowledge that J16 is batter than Russian counterpart，and WS10B is a decent engine，unlike many others often claim that J16 is an inferior copy of Su-30
“The structure is very rigid, the army still dominates the military”
*Said as Air Force and Navy budgets and personnel grow relative to Army, and basic command structures are reorganized to emphasize joint operations that actually reduce the prominence of army operations*
This is how these guys get blindsided during wars.
well, not nesseccary, this is an open program on the internet, cross certain line, the political correctness will be voilated, then his position in the think tank as well.
Even in PLAGF the structure is anything but rigid. Correct me if I'm wrong but it was only quite recently that PLAGF changed the structure so that divisions are eliminated and replaced with mixed brigades (same firepower, less head count more high tech hardware).
I’ve met these sorts of people personally. They’re usually true believers of what they say.
The PLAGF is using the Combined Arms Brigade structure, which is similar to the US Army's Brigade Combat Team. Basically, it "produces" a brigade that consists of the infantry or any other combat battalions with the needed support (artillery, engineering, and etc) battalions to facilitate a more effective form of combined arms warfare. In short, it is more efficient due to the ease of command and control along with higher deployment and organization speed; however, it has less combat battalions than before, in which a brigade may consist of purely infantry or tanks (This is from the US perspective).
There is even an English timeline of the Chinese's drive for joint operations that started in the 1990's:
"Both complementing and driving this growing PLA emphasis on ICT is the rising importance of joint operations. In the 1990s, the PLA hoped to be able to effect “coordinated joint operations (xiediao lianhe zuozhan; 卸掉联合作战).” This would involve bringing group armies, military region air forces, and fleets into the same general battlespace. By the 2000s, this had shifted to “integrated (or unified) joint operations (yitihua lianhe zuozhan; 协调联合作战).” Joint operations would now occur at lower levels, involving ground force divisions and brigades, air force divisions and naval flotillas".
At this point, I feel like these Western Youtubers are just making these poorly researched videos just to catch the attention of the anti-China crowd like a light attracting flies and increase their ad revenue. You don't have to be an expert to do some research on this topic.
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And on that point he might not be wrong.
Bronk has adapted his thinking FAR more than many other military watchers. He's views have been on the conservative side throughout this time on China but with this latest one, the snapshot of his views are slightly more accurate than before. This meets the pace of development of China we all know.
I think their "why should we care" section is entirely on point. Well as far as accuracy on youtube discussions go. I generally share their view on Chinese and Russian military "status" and long term goals. However, I disagree on how the view is presented within that typical context of "it's either us or them" and the absolute assuredness of military conflict between the US and China. I can understand why they would prefer to stay on top of competition.
On J-10 again I agree with his view. It's extremely fair from a western pov and shows knowledge. Probably reads a lot of Chinese forums and intel on China, not limited to just reading material from this forum and watching many Chinese state videos on exercises and that sort of stuff where you can pick up what the J-10 is generally capable of. It's interesting to note he thinks J-10 will continue developing and receive engine upgrades (as in replace the WS-10 with something more powerful). What he said is basically 1:1 what I'd say about J-10 :O but without the further developments. I feel J-10C may represent the end of the cycle. I don't doubt older frames will receive software and some internal upgrades as they age but I don't see PLAAF remaining so invested in acquiring what will always remain as a 4-4.9th gen platform. J-10C already benefited from J-20 avionics and sensor fusion developments during the 2012 to 2017 time. PLAAF understands the US is going to be moving towards 6th gen and already the US have at least 3 times as many 5th gen fighters flying. We know China is developing 6th gen as we speak and will be introducing at least two new combat aircraft J-35 and H-20. The budget will have to make room as the PLAN-AF receive a major boost in the form of J-35.
400 or so J-10s is a lot of short range fighters. That's their current role as more of a supporting fighter. This role will increasingly become more befitting for new combat drones since that is certainly one direction the future is taking air combat. For these reasons I feel it won't be worth investing so much effort and funding to develop new J-10 variants when they will always be <5th gen in a region that is filled with 5th gens and technologically moving towards the future faster than any other region.
On J-16, another refreshingly sober and well informed view. This guy is pretty on point again! I dunno about EW of J-16 but he attributes it to just the 2nd gen Chinese AESA and how much we don't know about it. There is no doubt on systems the J-16 beats Russian flankers. The Su-35 however beats it in performance but he wasn't referring to it. PL-15 also is at least a gen ahead of even R-77 and probably superior to R-77M as well based on superior seeker (AESA) and available technologies. Both are capable of long range missiles PLxx for J-16 and R-37 for Su-35. Engine advantage is definitely there since WS-15 is not as ready for full service.
He is entirely right on Su-35 deal and China wanting to check out many aspects of Su-35 but he mostly focuses on the engine. I don't think the 117 is going to be copied by China. There is no point. WS-15 is superior generation of engine and far more powerful at least the design goals. The 117 was for evaluation of Russian engine tech status, lots of perhaps minor details as well, and of course evaluating the value of TVC for not just a flanker platform. Before Su-35, China's only TVC flying would at most have been J-10B TVC demonstrator (which I'm confident has been flying in China well before it was demonstrated in public only about a year after receiving Su-35s). Which means China had it's own TVC on a J-10 as a testbed and wanted to try out the Su-35's as well. The Su-35 deal has been ongoing since the 1990s and was partly a way to secure the next best back in the 90s and early 2000s. Then became a hedge against China's own 4.5th gen and 5th gen programs (J-11D and J-20). Since the J-20 was determined to be an overwhelming success, there was no need for massive Su-35 purchase. J-11D also did not feature BVR advantage over J-16 and did not feature kinematic performance advantage over Su-35 and so was entirely pointless and scrapped. The radar on the J-11D was reportedly also not to PLAAF's satisfaction during the earlier years when the J-16 was developed. And the rest is history. J-20 is the all in project. Su-35 purchase was scaled down. China wanted just a few for evaluating Russian tech and TVC. Russia and China compromised and settled with only 24 units.
On J-20 We don't know enough to properly evaluate his opinion although Justin Bronk given credentials would have access to more and possibly better intel than we do here. J-20's information we get is limited to what some Chinese state media interviews with pilots hint at. Those being, it is an incredibly good supersonic peformer. They don't comment that much on stealth although I would agree with Bronk's view here. J-20 is clearly less stealthy from the rear and possibly slightly more from the side due to ventral fins. That's it though. It all depends on materials after that and we simply don't know enough. Top and bottom and also slightly less stealthy due simply to larger surface area with all factors equal but all factors are probably not.
The rest on command and crews I personally don't know enough but feel China's methods and attitudes on training and operations seem backward with focus on discipline and procedure. So it seems to me it is less flexible in thinking from the higher ups who command but again I honestly don't know much about whether I'm accurate or if I am, which approaches are more advantageous and appropriate for respective forces.
Overtaking Russia is a given. You cannot maintain a lead if you are a fraction of the economic size. It becomes too difficult to keep and cultivate your talented scientists and engineers. Russia would suffer from far greater brain drain than even China (since China can afford to lose a certain amount and yet have enough nominal remaining talent pool to bring desired projects to completion). Russia also is far behind on several important spheres of technology in comparison to China already to say nothing of the US. Those include computing, software, and semiconductors, the core technologies of even late 20th century warfare and MIC. While Japan may have a craftsmen culture that places a slight but significant enough cultural disdain for software and "novel" things, China doesn't and knows that computing and software are the foundations of 21st century industries and MIC. The US have known this for as long as China realised it and have been doing it for longer than China albeit with much less manpower behind it nowadays. Russia is in a worse position than Japan in both cultural attitudes and available resources. It still values raw mechanical power over digital sophistication and it sometimes shows too. While the Americans forged ahead with "let you missile do the turning" in the 1990s the Russians were playing with new wing layouts and were 100% invested in kinematic superiority with almost no attention given to electronic capabilities until it became overwhelmingly clear this is the domain wars are lost and won. China looked at Desert Storm and did almost 180 turns in all 5 key war sectors and changed its thinking. Check out the increase in space launched from year 2000 that are military related. It takes roughly 10 years from realisation to putting new satellites serving new doctrines into orbit.
He made a schoolboy error in saying H6 was developed from Ilyushin 28 rather than Tupolev 16.