Shenyang FC-31 / J-31 Fighter Demonstrator

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
As I said in my last post, with modern shipping and globalised trade, you cannot pick and choose whose shipping lanes you are closing down, since all ships can carry cargo to and from pretty much anywhere, owned by pretty much any country and crewed by people of any nationality.

Either all shipping lanes are open, or none are.

The last time anyone tried anything like this in a globally important waterway was the Iranians in the Strait of Hormuz, and look at the sh!tstorm that brought down on their heads.

The only way to minimise the impact of any blockade attempt to a remotely acceptable level is to confine it to waters where only shipping to and from a specific country are going to sail. And you need to have both the soft and hard power to weather all the inevitable freedom of navigation challenges other major trading and military powers are likely to pose to you over such a move.

For anyone wanting to cut China’s sea lanes while not shutting down global trade, the furtherest from China they could set up a no-go zone to isolate Chinese shipping is the SCS (forget about trying to screen shipping. The numbers involved will make that unmanageable and a total non-starter).

Closer to China would make it less disruptive for others, but exponentially increase the risks and costs involved. Further away and you make it impossible or prohibitively expensive for neutral shipping to go around your no-go zones.

Chinese carriers will only need to fight the IN in the Indian Ocean if China was trying to blockade India. That just doesn’t seem remotely likely since China just doesn’t care enough about India to divert and expend that much military might and political capital.

It is also likely that in the event of conflict between India and China, the likes of the US and Japan might try to indirectly help India, but more so screw which China, and stir up tensions in the Korea, Taiwan or the SCS during any military clash between China and India to force the Chinese to keep assets on its East coast.

The recent Indian provocations in Donglian and tensions in Korea would be a classic example, only in reverse, where the US and/or Japan could do or say something most of the world would find rather innocuous, but which would have Fatty K foaming at the mouth, thereby creating enough tensions as to require China to keep enough of its best forces and assets in the region in case things kick off.

It would be a brave PLAN Admiral indeed who decides to order the bulk of the PLAN’s best fighting forces to the Indian Ocean with trouble brewing in Korea/Taiwan/SCS.

If China really wanted to hurt India, it has plenty of land based military options and easily generated excuses to start a war and cause India serious damage while minimising the impact to other nations and not needing to deploy key naval assess through American controlled natural chock points.

If the PLAN does forward deploy assets to the Indian Ocean region, it will be the likes of 056s, 022s and maybe some older SSKs or some of the smaller model new gen SSK China has recently offered for export rather than carriers and 055s.

But, my main point is that India is so far down China’s priority list that it will take something extra special for India to provoke China into war. So such eventuality is unlikely to be a core concern for the PLAN when they are drafting their future carrier and fleet planning. It’s something they would have considered, but only as an aside, and not something they would sacrifice core capacity and/or goals to address.

I agree that interdicting a single nation's shipping in this day and age would be very difficult and would likely result in significant international outrage.

However, I believe that merely an attempt by India or another nation to do so against Chines shipping in the IOR means China will have to consider honouring the threat with a naval response of their own.

Whether a contingency with India in the Indian Ocean will result in tensions with US or Japan seeking to brew trouble in westpac is a debatable matter, but I think it would be a rather big assumption to think that the Chinese govt would not have a naval response for the IOR ready if their analyses deem the "risk" to demand it, depending on what kind of trouble actually ends up brewing in the westpac during such a hypothetical crisis.


As for the likelihood of a hypothetical IOR conflict with India, I am saying that the requirements for such a conflict on Chinese carrier fighter requirements will likely be complementary with requirements for carrier fighter requirements for high intensity westpac operations involving the US.



This discussion is a bit of a tangent, and it is about what the mission of the Chinese Navy will be, both including carriers and their overall fleet. I believe that going into the 2030 era, where the Chinese Navy will likely end up with something like at least 5 CSGs, they will have two primary missions, that can be divided based on geographical region:

A: deterring and fighting a high intensity conflict in westpac. This will involve all manner of blue water capable ships and submarines (carriers, destroyers, frigates, SSNs etc), shorter range ships and submarines (corvettes and SSKs), and carrier based and land based aircraft, in conjunction with air force, rocket force and the rest of the military overall.
-for this mission, during peacetime I envision the bulk of the blue water capable order of battle to remain at home in westpac to remain as a "fleet in being" and "home fleet". The entirety of the short range fleet (corvettes and SSKs) of course will remain based at home in the westpac as well.
-during wartime, the order of battle will likely remain the same, possibly with some ships from primary mission B operating in blue water during peacetime to return home in the leadup to war.


B: deterring/escorting and fighting a low to medium intensity conflict in the rest of blue water, but mostly in IOR and around the horn of Africa/Middle East. For this mission, only blue water capable ships will be used along with replenishment ships (carriers, destroyers, frigates, SSNs, AORs and AOEs). But the size of the force that is operating in the IOR and the rest of the non-westpac blue waters of the world will depend on the nature of the threat
-during peacetime, I envision that at most an SAG's worth of ships will be permanently round the clock deployed in IOR basically as a slightly expanded anti-piracy escort and naval presence that the Chinese Navy has maintained there for the last few years. I also envision occasional multi-month long deployment by a Chinese CSG or ARG in the region, say, once a year, to show the flag and to maintain familiarity in operating in the area, during peacetime.
-during wartime, depending on the nature of the enemy (whether it is a medium intensity near peer nation state or a more low intensity non-state actor), I expect at most a CSG (or ARG) + SAG to be deployed to the region, depending on what the level of tension is like, at home in westpac. But I expect even during a medium intensity conflict scenario in the IOR, the majority of the Chinese Navy's blue water capable assets and all of its short range fleet to remain in westpac as a deterrence force. Obviously if strategic intelligence and analyses suggests that the level of risk of a conflict in westpac is very high or very low, then the proportion of the blue water fleet that is deployed to the IOR for an IOR-conflict can be scaled down or up.
 

timepass

Brigadier
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ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Yikes that last image. It may be exaggerated to mock but it does make a fair point. RD-93 on J-31 is a joke. Decent engine and provides as much thrust as the best Europe has to offer but it's cold war era stuff. If WS-13 program is going all the way, they better be capable of becoming smokeless or don't bother. Smoking engines is a big deal even for LO fighters doing mainly BVR missions.
 

jobjed

Captain
Are these parts of the J-21/31 ?

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Deino

I think after more than four years it's time for a definitive answer. And the answer is yes, they are from the FC-31.

The defining features are the two parallel ridges and the one offset. There are also two "ears" at the top of the structure for attaching to the vertical stabiliser's support beam.

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