SinoDefence Forum

Totoro

Sometimes I get a feeling people are saying Chinese are building/buying new planes too slowly. Well, I've been checking out some procurement rate numbers... From 1995 until today, PLAAF and PLANAF seem to have procured over 950 newly built combat aircraft, which is something like 76 planes a year. And that is my very conservative estimate. Some stuff i had to basically guess, for rest i used figures given on sinodefence and huitong's site.

Breakdown would be something like this- remember from 1995 till today:
at least 343 newly built J7 (D, E, G models)
at least 275 newly built/bought su-27/30/j11 (included a token number of j11b)
at least 80 newly built j10 (interpolation from most often mentioned figures)
at least 80 newly built jh7/7a (same as above)
at least 72 newly built j8 (pure guess, i'd say very conservative)
at least 72 newly built q5 (again, pure guesswork)
at least 36 newly built h6 (this would be enough for two new units, even though usually it's said there's 2 units of H model alone, plus a unit of M model)

Now, that's a very fine procurement rate, though, i'm guessing, unsustainable, in light of new gen planes, increasing costs, etc. Future procurement rates are likely only to be slower, not faster. Now, if we accept a fact there are at least 1000 old combat planes to be replaced (500 old gen j7, 200 old gen j8, 400 q5, 50 old h6) that would take, realistically, not less than 18 years from now (with a 30% slow down in procurement rate in a 10 year period), not including possible replacements for the likes of current su27s etc.

I know some are going to say that future fleet size is bound to shrink, but i'd say the shrinking has already been done (from an onetime fleet that featured 3000 j6 alone) and in light of vast area to cover and combined china's neighbors fleets (SKorea, Japan, Taiwan, let alone the US) it would be a grave mistake to keep shrinking it further, certainly not under 2000 combat aircraft.

dollarman

The PLAAF is not following a "shrinking" trend. Production now may be slowed, but I believe it will pick up. Although the the fleet size has diminished since the mid-90's, virtually all of the aircraft retired are J-6's and similar generation planes. These planes, of course, are all outdated and wouldn't do much good except consume gas. I'd rather have 10 J-10 in my regiment than 100 J-6's. If you notice, the number of more modern aircraft in the fleet is growing and that growth rate only seems to be picking up, not slowing.

In addition, the switch from merely importing Russian planes to indigenous production willl temporarily decrease the procurement, but not for long.

Finally, not all aircraft are'nt ment to be replaced. For ex., the U.S will NEVER produce enough F-22's to completely replace its fleet of F-15's and F-16's. Similarly, the PLAAF knows that can't procure enough J-10/11 to completely make up for the number of older planes lost. Besides, it doesn't need to. With SAM units and a lack threats to most areas of China, you don't need top of the line fighters everywhere.

crobato

China has not build any J-7D past 1990. Since 1991 all the J-7s have been J-7Es. The peak rate is assumed to be around 60 planes a year around the 1990s, but probably falling around 32 aircraft a year around the time the J-10 got into production and the model changed to J-7G. The quota appears to be fixed. What the PLAAF gets is the balance of planes that did not end up being exported. If you assume 32 planes are made in a year, and 16 were exported to a country, the other 16 ends up in the PLAAF. At least two regiments are known to have upgraded to J-7G.

Since 1995, J-8II production has switched to the J-8D type with the beefed airframe and modified tail. At least six to eight regiments are equipped with this type prior to production switching to the J-8F starting in 2001. Like a J-7 regiment, the numbers of planes appears to be high, around 32 per regiment. At least four batches of J-8Fs have been built, with each batch filling one regiment, so at least four regiments. These are in the 21st, 1st, PLAAF unknown, and PLANAF unknown. J-8Ds now appear to be subjected to an upgrade program that puts their systems into J-8F standards.

JH-7 appeared to reach IOC by 2000 with 81x6x regiment number (PLANAF 6th Divison) with around 20 aircraft. Around 2003, 82x6x regiment came to be with the 2nd block of JH-7, and later 83x9x (PLANAF 9th division) came to be with the first JH-7A. This is followed by one regiment of the 28th Division PLAAF, and now the 14th Regiment of the PLANAF 14th Division. That is five regiments all in all. In the meantime, size of JH-7A regiment have increased in size past 20 aircraft (24 likely).

All the green Q-5s in the 28th Division appear newly built. At least two regiments nearly 40 aircraft each.

4 regiments of J-10 (FTTC, 44th, 3rd and 2nd Division)

7 regiments of J-11 and Su-27 (1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th, 14th, 19th, and 33rd). Around 24 to 32 aircraft each.

4 regiments of Su-30MKK (19 aircraft). 3rd, FTTC, 29th, 18th.

1 regiment of Su-30MK2 (24 aircraft). PLANAF 4th Division.

At least 3 regiments of PLAAF H-6H (20 aircraft or so).

At least 1 regiment of PLANAF H-6M (20+ aircraft).

Not sure about H-6D and H-6 Tanker.

Probably at least 25 J-10 prototypes made.

Probably at least up to 26+ J-11B prototypes and evaluation planes made. This based on the serials 523 to 525. 5 = fifth batch. 23 to 25 being the 23rd to 25th plane. Grey J-11B is most likely after this. Early J-11s are made from Batch 1 to Batch 4, the last J-11/J-11A plane being made is 0423.

Deino

Is that a typo ??? ...PLANAF 14th Division[/B]

crobato

Yeah typo. should mean 5th Division.

Totoro

Well, like i said, i used huitong's info where available, that's why there's j7D. Crobato, your figures add up to a much higer procurement pace. If i'm not mistaken, according to you, since 1995 china has procured:
around 350 J7s,
at least 320 newly built j8s (a huge number, in my opinion. Have most of the old j8s been scrapped then?),
100-120 jh7s,
close to 80 new Q5s,
around 100 or so j10s,
at least 280 su27/30/j11,
at least 80 newly built H6. (again, how many of the old H6s have been scrapped then? If none were scrapped, for example, totals would be reaching almost 200)

That adds up to over 1300 newly built combat planes over a period of little over 12 years. Thats over a 100 a year. At that pace, chinese air forces could transform to all-high tech fleet in some 15 years. Of course, question is how much will production of likes of j10, j11, not to mention jxx slow down the procurement rate?

crobato

The "procurement" of J-7 totally depends on the "leftover" from the quota. Remember, the quota is fixed. Whatever is not exported goes to the PLAAF. The problem is, China does not always declare what she exports. I thought I heard a rumor that some J-7Gs went to North Korea.

As the J-7As and J-7Bs goes into retirement as the J-6s (more like retired into caves so to speak), the J-7Es picked up on the pace until their retirement with the J-7G. The J-7G however, seems to have a grudgingly low acceptance pace. Pretty much the 'golden era' of the J-7E is before the turn of the decade. 350 J-7s seems quite reasonable.

There isn't really that much of the older J-8B built since the type had problems, considered an imperfect design and that prevented a large production run. The golden age of the J-8D production run was probably between 1995 to 2000, and this was considered the definitive and corrected airframe. The older J-8Bs were then upgraded to the same standard as the J-8D.

Most J-8s are still around, even the J-8I (J-8A). The latter is upgraded into the J-8E. The plane is a tough cookie, so its likely to be around for a while.


There appears to be quite a number of H-6Ds built, these are the ones that can launch the C-301 Kraken, which is a Silkworm with a turbojet and has a much greater range (over 200km). However for every H-6H and H-6M being made, they are replacing the H-6D. The H-6Ds are not being upgraded to H-6H and H-6M. As far as I know, the new planes are brand new replacements.

The production rate of the newer jets like J-10 and J-11 ain't exactly as fast like you can build the older frames. Electron beam welding, where you weld titanium and aluminum alloy sections together, is probably tedious and time intensive. A company can EBM a J-11 airframe at a rate of 1 per month, and there are allegedly two companies that can do this.

Much of this "newly built" planes are rehashed old designs (J-7, J-8II, H-6, Q-5), whereas the the newer designs, J-11/Su-30, J-10 and JH-7 is actually slow in relation to the retirement/attrition rate of the old aircraft.

None of the numbers include trainers.

But if you look at examples around the world, you cannot build modern fighters "fast" anyway. The latest F-16Cs for example, are much more meticulously built for example, than the F-16As in the Reagan era (the safety record of the F-16A isn't that admirable).

Totoro

Actually the golden era of f16 production was with the C model, like you said, second half of 80s. While A model topped off with 150 units a year, C model was produced at staggering 216 units from 1986-1989. If we argue that j10 and j11b are much more modern in construction than f16c (i woulnd't say that myself, but just for the sake of the argument) we can still use Superhornet as an example of state of the art plane produced at 48 units a year rate. f-35 will be produced at over 100 pieces a year. (scaled back from projections of almost 200/year) So, i would say it's definitely possible. Chinese manufacture just needs to ...well, perhaps not catch up tecnologically but the high tech base needs to broaden. In my opinion that's something quite doable in this transition period. By the time oldies like j7 and j8 are out of production, enough production lines should be capable of handling even the most demanding high manufacture proceses.

tphuang

according to a big shrimp, CAC can actually produce 400 J-10s per year. The assembly was designed to handle that kind of production. But, right now, they don't have the budget for that many.

FugitiveVisions

Really? Where do they get that many engines?

tphuang

whether they can get the suppliers to deliver that many sets of parts is a different story, but in terms of just assembly wise, the current production level is no where near what could be produced.

crobato

The latest from Mr. Fisher, which includes estimates for J-10 now (100 plus) and other stuff like JH-7/A (100 plus too).

http://www.strategycenter.net/resear...pub_detail.asp

He got five regiments of J-8F/H and 120 in number, same around as I said in the AFM and CDF forums.

http://www.strategycenter.net/imgLib...tMunitions.gif

dollarman

I don't like strategycenter at all, it exagerates like no other. Sometime in 2005, one of their articles claimed the PLAN already had 3 Type 93 SSBNs, which is BS.

I am willing to believe that there are more than 100 J-10, because I read reports that production had hit 100 early last year. Nevertheless, the paper does not take into account several developments, including the cancellation of the Zubr deal.

Is that picture of the 94 SSBM for real? It looks A LOT like the 92.

Chengdu J-10

Hmm...thought that the PLAAF had 300+ Su-27/30 & J-11A/B

Totoro

In absolute numbers - yes. But, like the text points out, here i was adding up only aeroplanes procured from 1995 onwards. 26 sukhois were already procured before 1995 and they did not get counted here.