PLA next/6th generation fighter thread

[tphuang]

One thing we should all be mindful of here is that a test demonstrator flight and a public test flight are not the same thing. This means that we should not get overly excited if we see a J-XD demonstration flight ahead of the US NGAD (as the US has likely flown an NGAD as early as 2022).

What flew in 2022 sounded like just a X-plane. At this point, NGAD program still hasn't even picked the main contractor and they are going back to changing requirements to something else.
PLAAF must have picked a primary contractor by this point. So whatever comes out will be like J-20 2001. It took 7 years from 2001 until J-20 joined service.

 

[Gloire_bb]

(1)when US went from 3rd to 4th, and from 4th to 5th generations - there were multiple failed and half-failed attempts in-between; either tech just wasn't there yet, or concept wasn't advanced enough, or whole programs were just butchered.
US may needed to replace F-22, but they may very well have realized that replacing the flawed thing f-22 has become (it wasn't meant to be a silver bullet) by doubling down on flawed result may actually bring a flawed outcome.

(2)China going onwards with its new fighter isn't a sign of definitive advantage *just because*, though it certainly seems this way: US problems are clearly money-related, and articles about horrible shape of Chinese economy don't really stop it's growth.
Still, too early to celebrate in this case.

(3) Switch for range in NGAD to extreme and back is indeed partially a recognition that there will be bo safe basing from PLARF/PLAN. But it is also sensible - if it will have to be so far that it's meaningless from a rotation point of view: maybe a squadron or two of fighters available on stations from Seoul to Singapore doesn't sound very superior.
Not even talking about politics: you can move fighters to Guam and Hawaii, but you can't take Philippines, South Korea and Japan there with you, and using allies as rocket sponges isn't very ally way.
Smaller fighters can be easier hidden in far larger land mass and number of airstrips, primary or improvised, even within Chinese engagement radius. Yes, losses will happen for USAF - not the end of life; at stated super-NGAD procurement numbers, I'd argue that air dominance was already out of question that way.

(4)Chinese fighter may or may not be even aimed at new generation air dominance. Like, closest things to replace in PLAAF are JF-7s(maybe less relevant), J-11s(can be done by J-20), and, more importantly perhaps, hundreds of J-10As. One way to do it Is of course to do it with heavy fighters. But another one is actually a new fighter, and it just so happens that early 2030s fit just perfectly for that exact scenario and timeline.
When we celebrate PLARF, we keep in mind that said vulnerability goes both ways; either Chinese superfighters have to be moved deeper, or a new fighter, one that can be based in a threatened environment, is needed. And while you can move fighters inland, you can't move coastal China to the inner provinces. Civilians should hide behind fighters, not fighters hide behind civilians.

And much like with smaller US NGAD, being smaller, more attritable and more to the same scale as ground infrastructure - helps.

 

[Blitzo]

(1)when US went from 3rd to 4th, and from 4th to 5th generations - there were multiple failed and half-failed attempts in-between; either tech just wasn't there yet, or concept wasn't advanced enough, or whole programs were just butchered.
US may needed to replace F-22, but they may very well have realized that replacing the flawed thing f-22 has become (it wasn't meant to be a silver bullet) by doubling down on flawed result may actually bring a flawed outcome.

(2)China going onwards with its new fighter isn't a sign of definitive advantage *just because*, though it certainly seems this way: US problems are clearly money-related, and articles about horrible shape of Chinese economy don't really stop it's growth.
Still, too early to celebrate in this case.

(3) Switch for range in NGAD to extreme and back is indeed partially a recognition that there will be bo safe basing from PLARF/PLAN. But it is also sensible - if it will have to be so far that it's meaningless from a rotation point of view: maybe a squadron or two of fighters available on stations from Seoul to Singapore doesn't sound very superior.
Not even talking about politics: you can move fighters to Guam and Hawaii, but you can't take Philippines, South Korea and Japan there with you, and using allies as rocket sponges isn't very ally way.
Smaller fighters can be easier hidden in far larger land mass and number of airstrips, primary or improvised, even within Chinese engagement radius. Yes, losses will happen for USAF - not the end of life; at stated super-NGAD procurement numbers, I'd argue that air dominance was already out of question that way.

(4)Chinese fighter may or may not be even aimed at new generation air dominance. Like, closest things to replace in PLAAF are JF-7s(maybe less relevant), J-11s(can be done by J-20), and, more importantly perhaps, hundreds of J-10As. One way to do it Is of course to do it with heavy fighters. But another one is actually a new fighter, and it just so happens that early 2030s fit just perfectly for that exact scenario and timeline.
When we celebrate PLARF, we keep in mind that said vulnerability goes both ways; either Chinese superfighters have to be moved deeper, or a new fighter, one that can be based in a threatened environment, is needed. And while you can move fighters inland, you can't move coastal China to the inner provinces. Civilians should hide behind fighters, not fighters hide behind civilians.

And much like with smaller US NGAD, being smaller, more attritable and more to the same scale as ground infrastructure - helps.

For 1) and 3), I don’t think we have any clue as to what their previous/”flawed” vision of NGAD was to begin with, nor do we know what their new set of requirements are. The only thing we know for the new vision of NGAD is they want it to be cheaper but we don’t know how much capability the USAF is actually willing to part with. All of which is to say, there’s no guarantee the original vision of NGAD was flawed or larger or longer ranged than the new vision for NGAD.

2) I don’t think any new fighter is a sign of definitive advantage, and I don’t think anyone has argued that would be the case. If J-XD did fly in the near future in the form of a mature tech demo that led to a prototype, it would just mean the PLA’s vision for its manned next gen/6th gen fighter may be slightly ahead of where the USAF’s vision is.

4) This is actually the biggest and most ambitious point you’ve written and it’s hard to talk about it without knowing what the course of other major PLA tactical combat aircraft programs and procurement will look like.
Which is to say – the future of J-XD both in terms of characteristics and procurement size will be very much tied with what PLAAF procurement looks like wrt the J-20 family aircraft, the potential procurement (or lack of procurement) of the land based J-35/J-31, as well as the vast ocean of possibilities offered by CCAs/UCAVs/loyal wingman drones.
I for one could absolutely see J-XD being a large, very long range combat aircraft (“super fighter”) procured in moderate to large fleet size, while preserving the tactical distributed deployment factors enabled by a large tactical sized aircraft with organic A2A and sensing and command and EA capabilities, in turn complemented by existing large fleets of J-20 family aircraft and an even much larger fleet of distributed, attritible and non attritible UCAVs as well. And all of this is not considering whether the PLA are pursuing a theatre strike bomber of some sort to complement that “assumed to be still being pursued” strategic H-20.

 

[Red tsunami]

as the US has likely flown an NGAD as early as 2022

Since you are not sure if "NGAD" flight has been conducted in 2022, according to your statement, China may have conducted "J-XD" flight earlier than US (at least we have seen satellite images showing some aerodynamic shape that basically conforms to the general impression of 6th generation).

 

[SlothmanAllen]

Really interested to see what China comes up with for their next generation fighter! Given how vibrant J-20 production is and seemingly how much life the airframes should have left in them I wonder how much that might impact the design of their future aircraft? Maybe their 6th gen aircraft will be very high end, and thus had a smaller production batch while J-20's, J-35 and J-16 make up the bulk of their fighter fleet?

 

[tphuang]

4) This is actually the biggest and most ambitious point you’ve written and it’s hard to talk about it without knowing what the course of other major PLA tactical combat aircraft programs and procurement will look like.
Which is to say – the future of J-XD both in terms of characteristics and procurement size will be very much tied with what PLAAF procurement looks like wrt the J-20 family aircraft, the potential procurement (or lack of procurement) of the land based J-35/J-31, as well as the vast ocean of possibilities offered by CCAs/UCAVs/loyal wingman drones.
I for one could absolutely see J-XD being a large, very long range combat aircraft (“super fighter”) procured in moderate to large fleet size, while preserving the tactical distributed deployment factors enabled by a large tactical sized aircraft with organic A2A and sensing and command and EA capabilities, in turn complemented by existing large fleets of J-20 family aircraft and an even much larger fleet of distributed, attritible and non attritible UCAVs as well. And all of this is not considering whether the PLA are pursuing a theatre strike bomber of some sort to complement that “assumed to be still being pursued” strategic H-20.

Interesting that you mentioned this.

I wonder if the size and range of J-XD would be determined the expected range and endurance of loyal wingman. It seems to me at least you'd want the range of manned aircraft to be somewhat close to that of unmanned aircraft. Although since manned fighter jets typically economically cruise at higher speed than drones, I wonder how they get there together.

I don't think you need J-XD to carry attack munitions. That should imo be carried by drones. It needs to have AAMs to defend itself (or when it's acting solo) and I think much of the aircraft will need to be dedicated to carrying advanced sensors, EW suite, computation hardware, communication gears, heat dissipation/thermal management and a whole lot of fuel.

In my mind, the computation requirement and communication gears on this aircraft would need to be top notch. It needs to be able to have high bandwidth data transmission with drones directly or through satellites or other manned aircraft, do onboard computation to get a view of battlefield and then direct controlled UCAVs to do collective Electronic warfare or attack missions or whatever.

It can play the role of theater strike bomber through loyal wingman drones.

Basically, I like it that J-20 really hasn't pursued the traditional multi-role capability. You don't need the manned fighter to do that.

The successor to J-20 just needs to have significantly longer endurance/range, more interior space & power generation/dissipation, greater stealth.

 

[AndrewS]

(2)China going onwards with its new fighter isn't a sign of definitive advantage *just because*, though it certainly seems this way: US problems are clearly money-related, and articles about horrible shape of Chinese economy don't really stop it's growth.
Still, too early to celebrate in this case.

Well, part of the reason for the high cost of the US NGAD is because of that 3000km operating range requirement, which is dictated by the geography of the Western Pacific.

Also, thinking about it, remember how there were indications that the H-20 programme was on hold?

Instead of building H-20s, it might be that the PLAAF have decided that it is better to go for outright air superiority with the Chinese NGAD. That would cover Guam and potentially Darwin in Australia, which are both isolated "island" bases.

(4)Chinese fighter may or may not be even aimed at new generation air dominance. Like, closest things to replace in PLAAF are JF-7s(maybe less relevant), J-11s(can be done by J-20), and, more importantly perhaps, hundreds of J-10As. One way to do it Is of course to do it with heavy fighters. But another one is actually a new fighter, and it just so happens that early 2030s fit just perfectly for that exact scenario and timeline.
When we celebrate PLARF, we keep in mind that said vulnerability goes both ways; either Chinese superfighters have to be moved deeper, or a new fighter, one that can be based in a threatened environment, is needed. And while you can move fighters inland, you can't move coastal China to the inner provinces. Civilians should hide behind fighters, not fighters hide behind civilians.

And much like with smaller US NGAD, being smaller, more attritable and more to the same scale as ground infrastructure - helps.

I don't see the Chinese mainland being that vulnerable to missile strikes.

We see overlapping bases in China, providing redundance and depth, so a lot of fighters can scramble against cruise missiles.
Plus the overlapping SAM networks.

For example, in the Shanghai region, I see 10? fighter brigades just within a 300km radius. If they scramble, you're looking at 1000+ AAMs against an incoming cruise missile strike. Remember that the US barely has any ballistic/hypersonic missiles, and we have the USAF general saying that in terms of equivalent hypersonic missiles in the Western Pacific, China has a 20x cost advantage.

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In comparison, when you look at the 1IC, you see many isolated bases and not much in way of fighter or SAM concentrations.

It's far easier for China to concentrate overwhelming force (like from the aforementioned concentration of 10 fighter brigades in the Shanghai region) against a single/pair of airbases.

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There are also a number of superhardened mountain airbases available in China. And it's a lot cheaper and easier to build such bases in China than elsewhere.

 

[AndrewS]

Interesting that you mentioned this.

I wonder if the size and range of J-XD would be determined the expected range and endurance of loyal wingman. It seems to me at least you'd want the range of manned aircraft to be somewhat close to that of unmanned aircraft. Although since manned fighter jets typically economically cruise at higher speed than drones, I wonder how they get there together.

If you have AETP engines on NGAD, you would 2 or a range of cruise speeds, depending on how the airflow is configured?

 

[phrozenflame]

I think the main issue for the US is that by switching the SRBMs and IRBMs to glide versions China is extending the range of what is the bulk of their ballistic rocket forces. By switching the DF-16 to the DF-17 for example they doubled the range of that missile and made it much harder to intercept. This probably reduced the warhead mass, but that is kind of irrelevant if you put a tactical nuke in it.
With that kind of range they can use their existing large amount of such launchers to strike targets which would require larger missiles before. And those large missiles can now be used to strike targets further away.
Oh and the larger missiles are also getting glide versions and high mobility launcher vehicles. Which means the replacement for the DF-26, the DF-27, won't just be able to strike Guam but all the way to Hawaii while penetrating the US Aegis BMD more easily.

This makes the usage case for NGAD that much harder. It will require specialized airbases and long airstrips which can be attacked by China with its Rocket Force. So now the US wants smaller platforms to be stationed in their many military bases close to China. And they want to increase the amount of such bases to make it harder for China to destroy all of them.

I still think the US whole game plan for 6th gen is kind of misguided though. The smaller fighters should instead be drones and it is a horrible idea to use a small fighter as a drone controller. You will need a two seater aircraft minimum I think. The best option is probably two 6th generation aircraft. A light optionally manned fighter, and a heavy drone control/fighter bomber aircraft.

I think China will aim to do both those aircraft designs. The only question is which will we see first.

We have all forgotten about F/A-XX in the past few pages. USN at this point in time is proceeding with a concept closer to OG NGAD.

USAF going for a cheaper and smaller version will add diversity to their mix, not eliminate NGAD type capability as USN will bring that to the table.

So they are already proceeding with two 6th gen programs today as you rightly estimated.

Frankly it makes sense, it wouldve been bit silly for both forces to end up with highly overlapping roles but different platforms, would've been enormous waste of time and money.

 

[Wrought]

We have all forgotten about F/A-XX in the past few pages. USN at this point in time is proceeding with a concept closer to OG NGAD.

USAF going for a cheaper and smaller version will add diversity to their mix, not eliminate NGAD type capability as USN will bring that to the table.

So they are already proceeding with two 6th gen programs today as you rightly estimated.

Frankly it makes sense, it wouldve been bit silly for both forces to end up with highly overlapping roles but different platforms, would've been enormous waste of time and money.

Carrier operations put hard limits on the size and number of aircraft you can field. The odds of USN unveiling something with a combat radius of ~3000km are extremely low.