J-20 fighters now in every Chinese Theatre Commands, overtaking F 22 in numbers soon, making it the world's largest fifth-generation fighter force.
May 30, 2022 In May 2022
Western analysts believe that the J-20 fighter has entered service in all Chinese Theatre Commands.
This is a major milestone of the only Chinese stealth fighter, the J-20. The latest development is an indication that the Chinese Air Force has achieved a healthy combination of stealthy J-20 fighters and more traditional J-16, J-11 and J10 fighters.
China's J-20 fleet is rapidly expanding and has already reached or surpassed the size of the U.S. F-22 Raptor fleet, meaning that by the end of 2022 or mid-2023, the J-20 number could exceed 185, overtaking the number of U.S. F-22 fighters. The J-20 fighters are rumored to be deployed to seven aviation brigades so far. They are the 176th, 172nd, 9th, 1st, 5th, 56th and 111th air brigades, covering all Chinese Theatre Commands.
Actually, you're already over the number of F-22, which has been lowered down to about 150...
Some enthusiasts have speculated that by the end of 2023, at least 12 aviation brigades of the Chinese Air Force will be fielding J-20 fighters. In addition, by the end of 2025, the Chinese military will have between 285 and 360 J-20 fighters deployed to about 20 aviation brigades, making it the world's largest fifth-generation fighter force. It is worth noting that both the two-seater version of the J-20 and the upgraded variant with the WS-15 turbofan are likely to enter service around 2024, which adds more capability to the J-20 fleet.
Let's hope they do so without understanding why USA cut the program to the quarter of what was planned...
A healthy combination of the stealth fighter and more traditional fighters are also vital in the progress of Chinese military. The first Gulf War was a good example of this. The most advanced fighters back then, the F-15 and F-16 fighters worked with the F-4 electronic warfare aircraft, forming a much more fearsome strike force.
There was no F-4 electronic warfare asset used, only old RF-4C doing tactical recon for USAF, while Saudis used RF-5E and Italians the RF-104G in this role. In fact, such a F-4 has never been built or it would have been named EF-4. F-16 was so advanced that when F-16 f*cked with Mirage-2000, F-16 went down... US-Navy had F-18 Tomcat and F-18 Hornet which weren't sub-par, it didn't prevented a F-18 from being shot down by a MiG-25, Iraqi Mirage-F1 achieved kills too, and, BTW, during the Iran-Iraq war, Iranian F-14 were removed from frontline role to an AWACS-like use when Saddam received Mirage-F1 with its AAM that was designed to... go after SR-71 (!!! Yup, France had no Foxbat to use as a sparing partner when the Super-530 was designed, and the Foxbat was thought being far better than it really was!). Saddam lost numbers of Miage-F1, misusing them : he mainly used them as bombers thanks to the 6t payload and using the MiG-25 for air superiority... But when the F-14 faced the MF1 in air superiority config, the Tomcat went down : The Mirage-F1 could dodge the AIM-54 easily, which is a no go with full bombs load, then the Tomcat faced the devastating Super-530 while the MiG-25 flying at high altitude was dead meat. In fact, Saddam would better have modified MiG-25 to do strikes, the Mirage-F1 carrying supersonic drop tanks, they could have come with fully supersonic strike packs... The Mirage-F1 was the worse nightmare for NATO, but again, Saddam and his staff weren't great for air warfare, Mirage-F1 could have devastated US-Navy using the Exocet, especially when the ships entered the Hormuz Strait. The truth is Saddam thought that the UNSC and NATO were posturing, frankly, had he acted like Israel at the star of the 6 Days War, not waiting the end of the ultimatum in a defensive posture in Kuwait, he would had made it way more difficult!
The strike force used in the first Gulf War is well documented, you should do your home work, and was more a rag assembly of anything NATO-owned at the time :everything was sent into and IQAF had to fight at 3 vs. 1...
It was only in the past two years that the PLA Air Force began to form such a capability with the H-6 bombers, KJ-500 early warning aircraft, refueling aircraft, intelligence gathering aircraft, and a few models of fighter jets.
Seriously, H-6 is nothing else than a licence-built
Soviet Tu-16 with only 12 tons of payload, which is what you can carry under a Rafale if you take off with half internal fuel and do the complement from a tanker and empty CFTs can be fit too... H-6 may have a 6000km ferry range, with payload, the combat range is limited to 1800km, Frankly, I'd rather customize any airliner with a cargo-version, in order to drop missiles (this is how the P-8 Poseidon is made : a bomb bay was installed) rather than bothering with 150 Tu-16/H-6... Requesting Tupolev to resume the Tu-22M production using the NK-321 engine and with the refuelling probes re-installed then ordering 75 units would have made sense, but licence building the Tu-16 and en masse, c'mon!!! The Tu-95 would also had made sense...
Same BS for the tankers : PLAAF has 14 tankers. The 3 Il-78 and the converted Xian Y-20 (a C-17 copy!!!) make sense, but 10 are nothing else than converted Xian H-6!!!!
Seriously, just convert the Shaanxi Y-8/9 (copies of Antonov An-12) and get something similar to a KC-130, the stretched/improved Y-9 has 25t payload added to 23t of internal fuel...
BTW,
USAF has MORE THAN 550 TANKERS !!!! 394 KC-135 (Boeing 707 with CFM56 engines), 51 KC-10 (DC-10), 48 KC-46 (Boeing 767, +42 on order), 64 KC-130 (+10 on order), 72 MQ-25 are planned for US-Navy (stealth carrier borne UCAV tanker) not speaking about buddy-2-buddy capability on the Super-Hornet
The J-20 fighter could be facing off with the F-22 and F-35 fighters.
You'd better pray your Confucius or the ghost of Mao or of Stalin that J-20 never has to fight against the F-22 :
This might be the first day of the end of your life!!!
Now listen carefully to me : PRC military build up in recent year is a terrible mistake : rather than doing business and big money, Xi is leading you on a clash-course with the cow-boys especially since power-projection means are being built
So, we're nearing a cold-war v2.0, which you probably haven't went thru or you'd be VERY afraid of what is in the pipeline...
And to be frank, considering the provocations on India in recent years I put my bet on a PRC provocation that would end with retaliation on the Hotan base in Occupied Tibet
The F-22A has been the best fighter in the world for two decades, but it would not be surprising that the J-20 has advantage in some areas.
F-22 is not in service for 2 decades (2005) and is not the best, it'd need SPECTRA, OSF-IT, DDM-NG, the Meteor BVRAAM, the MICA-NG, Dassault RAMs as these need no recoating, three M88 in 115kN version instead of two F119 and since these would make room for 5500L+ more internal fuel...
At the present day, it's the best at doing ADIZ interception. J-20 use is much less into air superiority at short/medium range, it's obviously designed for a job similar to MiG-31 : going after support aircraft like tankers, AWACS, using the PL-15 or PL-21, and, although it'd ruin its stealth, long range maritime strike. I'm somewhat dubious on some of the J-20 specs, especially in terms of maximum range : it's simply incoherent between the engines fuel consumptions, the fuel carried and the ranges.
Any way, what impedes the J-20 is the same thing that impedes the F-22 or the F-35 : the stealth coating, and it may be a much bigger issue with the J-20 since you can find pictures of it back to the base where the coating is gone in several areas revealing a direct view on the yellow "Kevlar"... Actually, you wouldn't be seeing this with a F-22 or F-35 as, between the thermoplastic (or the titanium parts) and the coating, you have plates of some hard black radar adsorbent material, so is it for Rafale and the new Gripen.
J-20 might not be as stealth as pretended... A quality recoating takes many hours : the new Lockheed-Martin ones has greatly improved : it reduces the F-22 and F-35 recoating times from 32 to 28 hours... peer flight hour...
Any way, 1st gen stealth is obsolete
It is worth noting the Chinese military have an keen eye on the latest domestically designed J-35 medium size stealth fighter, which could be the direct competitor to the American F-35 fighter
J-35??? I knew that CCP wanted to copy the Viggen long ago...But the J-35 Draken is about 60 years old...
Note that there wouldn't be a lot of efforts to do to re-design it as 5th gen, but the J-35, c'mon!
Are you sure you're not speaking about
THIS:
It's the FC-31. Shenyang says they started the production (of a pre-serie I suppose?). A naval version protoype did its maiden flight in 2021.
Visibly, the FC-31 designation makes think that it's intended for the export market and that PLAAF is not interested, thus, I think that PLANAF might have another advice...
Shenyang says the J-31 is now using stealth coatings instead of "baked in" fiber-mat stealth. Therefore, Shenyang has failed at creating a Rafale-like skin which is rather a good news for the region since PRC is bullying all its neighbours, even illegally occupying the territory of several.
I don't think FC-31 will compete the F-35 : F-35 has no competitor : it made Madoff jealous: had he knew, he'd have invested in F-35: it's the greatest swindle in human history and nobody will end in jail
In terms of US, Russia and China relationship, a major development in May 2022 is that the Chinese and Russian Air Force performed a joint patrol close to Japan, when Joe Biden was in Tokyo for the Quad summit.
Gratuitous provocation just showing the world that China condones the criminal acts of bloodthirsty tyrant Putler, as well as blatant violations of international laws and the UN Charter, thus, both Russia and China should be removed from their permanent seats at the UNSC. But don't worry, nobody had illusions about the Chinese regime since Tien An Men, 1989... Mark my words, it just make us feel the urge to stop buying things with the label "Made in PRC"
It is widely circulated that the J-20 fighters have started Eastern China Sea patrol, having close encounter with the F-35 fighters.This is the first time two stealth fighter jets facing off in patrol flights. In the Chinese and Russian joint patrol, China sent the H-6K bombers and J-16 fighters. Experts believed that this is the first time that China has disclosed specific information about sending fighter jets to escort the Chinese and Russian bombers.
Which experts?
F-22, Rafale and F-35 meet on a very regular basis : Atlantic Trident, Heifara-Wakea, Blue Flag, etc etc...
One 4.5th gen, one 5th gen and one 5.5th gen:
I have severe doubts about F-35 doing ADIZ interceptions, the only reported case is on Tu-95s in the Baltic: F-35 is banned from gong supersonic except in case of emergency. It's a strike aircraft, even USAF Air Combat Command boss said F-35 is NOT an air superiority platform !
Western stealth aircraft escorting Russian bombers is very common
Before we started to escort the cretins, they were violating the airspace of Baltic states dozens of times a day... We may have to take similar measures over Ireland
If JP does an ADIZ interception, it'll be F-15s, or USAF's F-22s in Japan will do it...
If your J-20s are detected, they're not stealth, and, BTW, if the JASDF's F-15s are attacked, they won't bother : they have AEGIS ships with long range SAMs that fly at 3km/s if not more and at ranges making S-400 looking as a toy...
Soon the Chinese J-20 might join in to pressure Japan, South Korea and the U.S. The J-16, together with the J-20 and J-10C, have been practicing in various drills in these few years. If the Chinese H-6K bombers and the Russia Tu-95 bombers have the J-20 as escort fighters, their long range strike capability and survivability will clearly increase to another level.
CCP or how to create enemies from your best clients
... DId uncle Xi took his lesson from genius master strategist Lt. Colonel Putin, Corporal Hitler, or yet another genius Tojo Hideki?
Survivability in an AEGIS-covered zone with only 1st gen stealth lasts the flight-time of a SAM...
Moreover, which is the interest to have a stealth aircraft escorting a bomber an OTHR like the Nostradamus "sees" from 7000km by a so-called 5h gen get that it can track from 3000km?
On the results of Putting pressure on democracies...
Well, maybe is it time we [democracies] go further with sanctions, something like... You do trade with Russia or you do trade with us...
Oh, BTW, would you put pressure on your neighbour by e.g. defecating on his doorstep knowing he's waiting for you with smth like that?
because...
Big Problem For China As Taiwan Has Nuclear Weapons
and guess what? They're not the only ones: Trump also gave the green light to South-Korea and Japan. In fact, TW didn't stopped the program in the 80's, they just slowed down and went into hiding...
Do, do you like this? :
ENJOY...
The J-20S two-seat heavy multi-role stealth fighter jet might be proved to be another key player in this multi-nation competition. It could become the airborne command center with two-man crew, working with all kinds of combat platforms to form a powerful strike force.
For sure, the J-205's WISO is a brigadier-general...
And... It's super useful to be stealth when you have datalinks in/out any 70's ELINT system can detect
One mission would be the escort flights to ensure the Chinese long range bombers, especially the future H-20 stealth bomber can reach Japan or even further away, striking key targets of the U.S. pacific forces.
Yeah, because you think the Yankees gonna stay idle and have no means of defence and intelligence... Dp you know what's a cow-boy's job?
Bringing the cattle to the slaughterhouse...
Then... You won't just have to fight the Yankees: you have territorial disputes with 23 countries including your 14 land neighbours... Once you attack one, all will imply because they know their asses are on the line of your tyrant.