How many fighters does China have?

planeman

Senior Member
VIP Professional
I pulled these figures together from various sources. What should the latest estimates be?

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Semi-Lobster

Junior Member
Off the top of my head it looks alright, although I would have to check my sources (I'm not at home right now) but the number of J-10As, J-8IIs and J-7s looks right to me. At least with the Flankers you pretty much have an exact idea of how many aircraft there are. Also, why not include the JH-7?

The JH-7 is a strike aircraft but no more than other strike fighters aircraft like the Panavia Tornado or F-15E.
 
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planeman

Senior Member
VIP Professional
Yeah I was thinking air-combat aircraft. Many of those included do have strike capabilities but in a scenario where China was trying to get air superiority, all those types would/could play an air-defence role.

400 J-8-IIs? 500 J-7s? 130 J-10s? How good are these estimates?
 

King_Comm

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Too many J-8II I think, China had less than 300 J-8II just 5 years ago, it would be tragic to see the number of J-8II's had increased over the years.
 

Semi-Lobster

Junior Member
Too many J-8II I think, China had less than 300 J-8II just 5 years ago, it would be tragic to see the number of J-8II's had increased over the years.

Production of the J-8F has never actually stopped as far as we know (although 2008 is believed to be by some observers the final year, so maybe it has ended). Afterall, the aircraft was only introduced into the PLAAF in 2004 and has also recently been spotted in PLANAF service as well so its safe to assume that production of the J-8F, while on a much lower scale, might still be continuing, especially with the introduction of the J-8T reconnaissance variant just entering service. I think the J-8IIs, while reaching the end of it's production life, probably has many years of service left in them, especially the newly built J-8Fs, and J-8Ds refurbished into J-8Hs.

Also planeman, are the 30-50 old J-8I based J-8Es included with the J-8II list? They are actually still in service.
 

Lion

Senior Member
I personally think J-8II number of 400 is a bit too high too although its production is reported continue. Nearing 300 will be a much reasonable number.
 

planeman

Senior Member
VIP Professional
Maybe if we break J-8 down into the various versions?

J-8-I / J-8-E <recce only now?

J-8-IIA: ???
J-8-IIB: ???
J-8-IIH: ??? <current main version?
 

Semi-Lobster

Junior Member
I personally think J-8II number of 400 is a bit too high too although its production is reported continue. Nearing 300 will be a much reasonable number.

The J-8II numbers were greater than 400 in 2006 or something IIRC from a very old Crobato posts from another forum. But this is all off of menory because I can't for the life of me remember the URL. With J-8II production continuing at a small rate since 2004 I wouldn't be surprised if it hit around 500. Frankly there are probably more, in 2007 Crobato said in the previous year that 120 new J-8Fs were built in four batches meaning in 2 years since 2006 when presumably J-8F production has ended and has been dropping off since really, another 40-80 could have been built.

As for the J-8Es, they are actually in active status as fighters IIRC but as I said before, this is all off of memory, sorry I can't be more useful.
 
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