J-20... The New Generation Fighter

[MwRYum]

Re: New Generation Fighter

I doubt it's big enough to house AShM's, but revealing its position temporarily isn't the end of the plane. The missiles needs to be able to track its position, not just know where it was at one point of time.

China have better tools against large surface combatants than risking its aircraft assets - long range cruise missiles fired from mobile land launchers and H-6 platform far inland. What'd they need then is to deny the OpFor aerial assets from carry out pre-amp strikes, AWACS and ECM. That's where the J-20 can provide its service.

Then there's the tactical strike missions. While J-20 not big enough for cruise missiles without using external pylons, with availability of Chinese version of SDM, JDAM, JSOW and other ground attack munitions, it'd be a headache to all its potential foes until they get their own 5th-gen fighters online.

And I can bet Chinese progress on J-20 would make India push Russian harder in the T-50 R&D, since they got a stake there as well.

 

[plawolf]

Re: New Generation Fighter

I doubt it's big enough to house AShM's, but revealing its position temporarily isn't the end of the plane. The missiles needs to be able to track its position, not just know where it was at one point of time.

Active scanning a large area is one thing, you if a defender with ESA radars knows where abouts a stealth target is, they can focus their radar energy in tight beams and specifically target the area the stealth target was.

A good analogy would be using a magnifying glass to focus solar energy. If you want to cover a large area, the energy delivered per area of target is small. But if you focus all your energy on an area a fraction of the original, you can deliver far more enemy to that area. If this was radar energy, chances are you would get a stronger return, chances are, that the stronger return may well be strong enough to get a target lock on.

 

[plawolf]

Re: New Generation Fighter

@ Plawolf -- I think your PL-12/ARM idea is very interesting. The first generation of US ARM, the Shrike, was developed from the Sparrow air to air missile -- one of its limitations was that the warhead wasn't very suited to blowing stuff up which was corrected with successive generations of ARMs.

But a passive homing PL-12, or the future PL-21 with ramjet could make very good, "mini" ARMs.
I've always wondered why the US hasn't modified their latest AMRAAMs to act as ARMs -- it could very easily increase the SEAD punch of the F-22...

Half a dozen air to ground with 100+ km range with high speed and high kinetic energy loadded on a supercruising stealth platform would be no fun for the IADS side.

Exactly! In addition, China would be able to draw on the experience of the Americans (and everyone else) as there is a wealth of open source information readily available to all.

On top of that, China can also learn fro the Kh31P ARMs they imported from Russia, and IIRC, there are ARM versions of C80X missiles, which would also provide valuable experience.

Up till now, the size of China's ARMs was only a minor concern, and it was more economical to use existing missiles to make ARMs and the PLAAF also put a big premium on the range of the missiles and so was willing to accept a large missile so long as it reduced the risk to the launch platform.

The J20 could well change the equation and make a new generation of compact, and maybe even stealthy, medium ranged ground attack missiles a much more attractive prospect.

If there is a requirement, it would not be pushing any technological boundaries for China to develop such missiles.

 

[Jovian]

Re: New Generation Fighter

What would the J-20's role be in the future PLAAF? How will the PLAAF use this plane? Air superiority or is it too early to tell?

If the size of the plane has to do with bigger fuel tank (and thus longer range), is it plausible that it (the J-20) was designed with the South China Sea in mind? ... perhaps there is a similar interservice rivary between the PLAAF and the PLAN? J-20 vs aircraft carriers argument?

 

[rhino123]

Re: New Generation Fighter

What would the J-20's role be in the future PLAAF? How will the PLAAF use this plane? Air superiority or is it too early to tell?

If the size of the plane has to do with bigger fuel tank (and thus longer range), is it plausible that it (the J-20) was designed with the South China Sea in mind? ... perhaps there is a similar interservice rivary between the PLAAF and the PLAN? J-20 vs aircraft carriers argument?

J-20's main mission and role would be air-superiority... what we do not know is what will be her secondary mission or if she had a secondary mission.

Actually everything was a if at this moment, so we will just have to wait and see.

As to if J-20 was bigger so she could carry more fuel and assuming that was one of the reasons for being that big, might be because, China is a big country and so it would need more fuel for an aircraft to travel sizable distances... even within the country.

 

[Blitzo]

Re: New Generation Fighter

What would the J-20's role be in the future PLAAF? How will the PLAAF use this plane? Air superiority or is it too early to tell?

If the size of the plane has to do with bigger fuel tank (and thus longer range), is it plausible that it (the J-20) was designed with the South China Sea in mind? ... perhaps there is a similar interservice rivary between the PLAAF and the PLAN? J-20 vs aircraft carriers argument?

Air superiority is definitely the main role. (and other air to air missions such as interception)
Secondary strike and SEAD along the lines of the F-22 will be probable too. The large size of the aircraft will mean it can hang on station for a long time so it's very persistent.

Depending on the avionics it could also act like a mini awacs deep in enemy territory, and could guide BVRAAMs from friendly non stealthy aircraft like how the F-22 will be able to do with AMRAAMs. But that's a few years away yet.


I think it will be very capable of operating in the South China Sea environment and possibly penetrating enemy air defence systems in that region as well. I imagine J-20s range would be greater than the F-22, and comparable or superior to the T-50s simply due to its size.

 

[antiterror13]

Re: New Generation Fighter

That is not very realistic. I think 4th generation fighters are going to make up the bulk of most air forces for the next 20-30 years. The expense of maintaining a purely 5th generation fleet is going to be astronomical.

lol ... I think you got it wrong, that's not what Roger 604 suggesting ....

 

[EdT586]

Re: New Generation Fighter

lol ... I think you got it wrong, that's not what Roger 604 suggesting ....

I don't know how accurate this is, but the net is full of buzz of the leak of blurry photos of the J-20.
Can anyone confirm ?

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[kyanges]

Re: New Generation Fighter

I don't know how accurate this is, but the net is full of buzz of the leak of blurry photos of the J-20.
Can anyone confirm ?

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Confirm what? Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I'll just say that the past 20 pages of this thread are full of those images.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Re: New Generation Fighter

lol ... I think you got it wrong, that's not what Roger 604 suggesting ....

He suggested skipping out on 4th gen fighters and moving straight to 5th gen. That is not very likely.

Does anyone know where huitong got the NATO callsign "Firefangs". Sounds like something he made up.