AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
And you have to resort to complaining about things that aren't against any law.
And you have to resort to complaining about things that aren't against any law.
Actually it absolutely made sense.
I'm not sure when you started keeping tabs on J-XX/XXJ, and what the state of the discourse was like in the 2000s.
But back then, at least as late as the mid 2000s, there was very little belief that China could be able to make a 5th generation fighter anything like what J-20 currently looks like. The overwhelming consensus was that they would build something like a moderately stealthier Rafale or Typhoon, or perhaps build something like the F-117 first.
Certainly there was very little serious belief that China could be able to build a fighter that was a peer to F-22 or the capabilities of the (then projected) F-35, and I do not recall reading anything about the US military community considering XXJ/J-XX to have the ability to rival F-22 or F-35 until much later in late 2000s.
So yes, I absolutely believe that for a long time the declassified US military reports did not actually know how advanced the XXJ/J-XX would end up being.
The very fact that they did not explicitly state that such an aircraft would be a 5th generation aircraft intended to counter F-22 and F-35 is unfortunately quite important to whether they actually knew in the 90s and early 2000s what this plane would end up being
Just because they were able to get a programme designation and make an estimate for when the aircraft might enter service shows literally nothing.
I know that the USAF is developing the next generation PCA with intention to have it in service by the 2030s, but I know nothing about the extent of its future capabilities.
Given the way events have ended up unfolding in the J-XX/J-20 saga, the burden of proof to demonstrate that the US knew what the J-20's capabilities would have been is on you.
But why is the burden of proof on our side of the argument?
We all knew how events ended up unfolding WRT J-20.
If the US military really did know in the late 90s what kind of aircraft XXJ/J-20 would be, then there should have been much more noise made about it being an F-22 or F-35 competitor earlier on.
You ask "where is the evidence that the US didn't know what XXJ would end up looking like" --- but my counter, which I believe is very much reasonable, is "where is the evidence that the US did know what the XXJ would end up looking like"?
Because they were certainly awfully vague about it until the years immediately leading up to J-20's unveiling, if they had such a clue about it then why not release such information, especially considering they were happy to do so for other projects from rivals like PAK FA.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
SecDef Gates was off by roughly ~7 years (which is not bad considering how early the predictions were). The US intelligence groups had expected the J-XX to be comparable to their US fifth generation counterparts which is also reiterated in Mr. Gates' statement.
I'd also warn against assuming that the J-20 can "rival" the F-35 or F-22 without further light being shed on these systems. Just because the J-20 comes with one or two additional gadgets does not mean it possesses an equal or greater level of modularity or sensor capability than the F-22/35.
All of this (bolded) sounds like you're referring to forums or general articles. If there are publicly available sources that show US intelligence underestimating the J-20, feel free to post them.
I can't demonstrate what they knew about it because such things usually aren't publicized. My basic position is (among other things) that they aren't less competent than SDF posters, even after allowing for the amazing professionalism and all-around brilliance on display here.
In this part
you seem to be saying there are declassified reports that underestimate the J-20. If you post them, I'll gladly take a look. Otherwise, people simply asserting something remains unpersuasive.
(If the moderators delete or move this post, hopefully the action will be consistent for other offending posts.)
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Interesting how this all started because someone didn't want to believe China was developing a refueling boom... And then it turns into a debate on whether or not US intelligence services knew about the J-20 before it was first revealed "publicly." Is refueling boom technology some precious secret that intelligence services would have to warn the world that the sky is falling because China is working on one? But since there has been no word from intelligence agencies of such a development, the refueling boom pictures must be a lie and China must quit posting pictures of a lie or else some people are gonna get really really mad.
Yes China is so backward that it's impossible to believe that China can develop a refueling boom but they knew the J-20 was good enough to be up there with the F-22 and F-35 before it even showed up.
Yes China is so backward that it's impossible to believe that China can develop a refueling boom but they knew the J-20 was good enough to be up there with the F-22 and F-35 before it even showed up.
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Can you move the posts to the j20 thread or a different thread?
I want to continue this discussion later
"Principles of PLA watching" perhaps?
I can kind of understand the rationale considering how few air refuelling tankers they have had to begin with, and that it would take a while until they were able to acquire a sufficient number of tankers to make their non-combat aircraft (including force multipliers and transports) air refuelable a worthwhile exercise.
However, IMO it would have been an oversight if they had not designed Y-20 and Y-9 to both be capable of modification for air refuelling without significant modifications.
Fortunately, the fact that KJ-500 seems to have an air refuelling probe suggests to me that it shouldn't be a big issue for the rest of the Y-9 family to have it as well either through new production or MLU.