Let's put it this way -- it is entirely reasonable and logical that 6th brigade is not receiving J-20s right now, and instead getting converted or augmented with other modern Flanker types.
China Flanker Thread II
- Thread starter sumdud
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Let's put it this way -- it is entirely reasonable and logical that 6th brigade is not receiving J-20s right now, and instead getting converted or augmented with other modern Flanker types.
Ok, fine, that's why i said 6th brigade could 'stop dreaming about J-20' in the first place...
but given their history and power/influence, I would always expect them to be 'on the list' of been one of the unit to get J-20, despite
does make some sense
Going with composite fighter airwings is a better solution, assuming you are willing to eat the additional operating costs.
In a real operation, you would have to bring together different aircraft types anyway and it's a lot easier to do this from a single airbase.
Plus in the event that PLAAF airbases are attacked, the effects are limited to just that airbase.
For example, even a large airstrike with 40-50 aircraft will only have a maximum of 4 J-16D assigned for electronic warfare. If J-16D are concentrated into a single Brigade of 24 aircraft at a single airbase - any disruption would affect the operations of 6 airstrikes (240-300 Aircraft in total) operating from many other airbases.
So it's logical to disperse J-16Ds across more airbases, and existing airbases with Flankers are the best option because there are points of commonality in terms of operational characteristics and maintenance.
make sense, but you probabaly haven't aware of the location of where Suixi is...
suixi county is part of Zhanjiang City, facing Hanoi, Vietnam, which is also the location of the headquarter of South Sea Fleet...
my impression is each brigade of heavy fighters have some ～24 PMAI, and some additional (6～12?) PTAI of the same or similar type, latter of which are usually in separate training units in case of USAF
It's about 1000km from Suixi to Taiwan. So a fighter-bomber trip is just about doable, but they don't have time to wait for other aircraft to turn up.
The other operating locations are potentially the Philippines and the SCS.
Again, given the distances, the Su-35 and Su-30 based at Suixi don't have excess time to loiter in the air.
emmm, I don't think suixi is going to be used for strike missions near Taiwan or Philipine, PLAAF is trying to learn from USAF since the reformning in this manner, that the airbase is only the home of a brigade during none operational time, airbase are expected to host and support any random brigade under operation requirement. This required much stronger logistics to each airbase, that's become one of the major reason more the airbase upgrade in the recent years, for example the 9th brigade moved to Quzhou for several months during to Wuhu airport upgrade.
That said, if an operation towards Taiwan or Phiplipine is commissioned, the 6th brigade is expected to move forward to other airbases close by, like in Fujian or East side of Guangdong
In fact, it is already ... if you look, the base has been dramatically expanded in recent years now having two run-ways available. Nearly constantly it holds a H-6-detachment and several of their missions were flown into the SCS and Taiwan ... and so you need many Flankers for escort!
until 2022
August 2022 (unfortunately not the whole base visible)
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