PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

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Junior Member
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ougoah said:
Chinese long range SAMs that can fit on existing fighter fleet is HQ-16. Which is 5m in length iirc and the longest ranged one is around 70km claimed. Let's suppose it is 100km due to HQ-16 range being understated especially considering its size and suppose you can even double that range when firing high altitude and high speed, that's barely better than a PL-15. (Which is partly why I'm convinced the latest HQ-16 variant far exceeds the claimed 70km range).

HQ-22 might be a better missile to convert but that's about 3x the volume of PL-15 and definitely not over 600km in range when fired in that airborne position.

The SM-6 is a good missile. It's one of the US best SAMs. For its size and range, it must be using the best energetics available. Contrast to HQ-16C with a claimed 70km despite being almost as massive as a SM-6 with booster. That's less than half the range (as claimed).

I think the US went with a cost saver route with this conversion. Albeit it must be said that this is a good missile to convert. China has had the funds to develop optimised AAMs from the ground up as opposed to retrofitting a SAM onto a fighter. ALBMs though... well that's a different user case lol.
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How far can a SM6 without booster even go?

The "normal" target range for HQ16 is 160km.

I think SAMs from China in general have more artificially "capped" ranges, because the missiles are supposed to have a heavy focus on anti-EW and anti-jamming. HQ9/19 is massive sized relative to its range, but we know that they're also amazing at hitting any targets at any altitude.

You can see that because some of the AAMs are much slimmer and still have way better ranges. I would guess that a HQ16 can go further than 160km, but it wouldn't fulfil the level of tracking (esp counter terminal phase BM) that the manufacturer expects from it.

I think US getting a reliable 200-300km AAM, even if it probably has a lot of drawbacks to launch without booster that they're not saying, is a gamechanger for the USAF. But only because AIM120 is so bad.

Like if USN got brahmos instead of harpoon, it would be a gamechanger, not because brahmos is wunderwaffen, but because harpoon is outdated trash.
 
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pevade

Junior Member
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plawolf said:
If China did this they would absolutely be claiming China cannot innovate.

Speaking of China, these Americans have no idea about Chinese SAM capabilities at all if they think strapping SAMs to aircraft will give them any sort of advantage against China. Because if this works remotely as well as they are wet dreaming, the PLAAF will get a far bigger boost doing the same with PLA SAMs.
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HHQ-9 strapped to a J20 will probably have some ridiculous range.
 
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montyp165

Senior Member
ougoah said:
Chinese long range SAMs that can fit on existing fighter fleet is HQ-16. Which is 5m in length iirc and the longest ranged one is around 70km claimed. Let's suppose it is 100km due to HQ-16 range being understated especially considering its size and suppose you can even double that range when firing high altitude and high speed, that's barely better than a PL-15. (Which is partly why I'm convinced the latest HQ-16 variant far exceeds the claimed 70km range).

HQ-22 might be a better missile to convert but that's about 3x the volume of PL-15 and definitely not over 600km in range when fired in that airborne position.

The SM-6 is a good missile. It's one of the US best SAMs. For its size and range, it must be using the best energetics available. Contrast to HQ-16C with a claimed 70km despite being almost as massive as a SM-6 with booster. That's less than half the range (as claimed).

I think the US went with a cost saver route with this conversion. Albeit it must be said that this is a good missile to convert. China has had the funds to develop optimised AAMs from the ground up as opposed to retrofitting a SAM onto a fighter. ALBMs though... well that's a different user case lol.
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The PL-17 already matches or even exceeds the AIM-174B in performance characteristics based on the conservative estimates publicly available (and actually somewhat smaller dimensionally too), plus the PL-17 can be carried internally on J-31Bs, which is something the AIM-174B can't be on either F-35s or F-22s.
 
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ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
montyp165 said:
plus the PL-17 can be carried internally on J-31Bs, which is something the AIM-174B can't be on either F-35s or F-22s.
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1. Apart from the erroneously-made CGI, there is no factual information suggesting that China's 2nd 5th-gen fighter will have the J-31B designation. Only the J-35 and J-31 are the (presently and) officially supported designations for said fighter.

2. The PL-17 is actually longer (~6 meters) than the weapons bays of the J-20 and the J-35/31 (~4.5 meters). So the PL-17 has to be carried by underwing pylons (i.e. externally).
 
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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
montyp165 said:
The PL-17 already matches or even exceeds the AIM-174B in performance characteristics based on the conservative estimates publicly available (and actually somewhat smaller dimensionally too), plus the PL-17 can be carried internally on J-31Bs, which is something the AIM-174B can't be on either F-35s or F-22s.
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We don't have any info on PL-17 apart from out-ranging PL-15 and serving as PLAAF's ultra long range AAM. No photos or diagrams. Is PL-17 the missile seen on the J-16 nearly a decade ago?

And yes PL-15 can be internally stored on PLAAF stealth fighters but PL-17? Surely not.
 
Wrought

Wrought

Junior Member
Registered Member
ougoah said:
We don't have any info on PL-17 apart from out-ranging PL-15 and serving as PLAAF's ultra long range AAM. No photos or diagrams. Is PL-17 the missile seen on the J-16 nearly a decade ago?

And yes PL-15 can be internally stored on PLAAF stealth fighters but PL-17? Surely not.
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The PL-17 was spotted on a couple J-16s
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. It's a huge missile, there's no way it can be carried internally.
 
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montyp165

Senior Member
ACuriousPLAFan said:
1. Apart from the erroneously-made CGI, there is no factual information suggesting that China's 2nd 5th-gen fighter will have the J-31B designation. Only the J-35 and J-31 are the (presently and) officially supported designations for said fighter.

2. The PL-17 is actually longer (~6 meters) than the weapons bays of the J-20 and the J-35/31 (~4.5 meters). So the PL-17 has to be carried by underwing pylons (i.e. externally).
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Double checked the source of the source, which conflated the PL-21 with the PL-17, so a strong reminder to measure twice, cut once.

The points in reference to the PL-17's performance vis a vis the AIM-174 however does correlate with some of the estimates presented in the
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so that's not without some logical basis to it; at the very least the PLAAF has counters to whatever the USAF chooses to field among others.
 
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