Future PLA combat aircraft composition

Defense News recently reported that the PLAAF has already taken delivery of 15 H-6Ks back in June. I don't know if they will need 100 of these things as their range is limited and I don't know if they will ever need that kind of sortie rates for the SCS and ECS.

In June, according to the report, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force accepted 15 new H-6K bomber aircraft. An improved variant of the H-6, the K variant has extended range and can carry China’s new long-range, land-attack cruise missile (LACM). “The bomber/LACM weapon system provides the PLA Air Force with the ability to conduct conventional strikes against regional targets throughout the Western Pacific,” including Guam.

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Actually, In my production assesment of flanker variants, i already included j15. So I'm not sure how realistic it would be to have another 200 j15 on top of those previous numbers.

While anything is possible in the future, to have any sort of anchor in reality one needs to stick to something known. And in my opinion that should be production rates that seem to have been steady for decades now.

What combat aircraft producers do we have in china? Xian, Shenyang and Chengdu. One could also include to a lesser extend Guizhou which did trainer jj7 and Hongdu, which also seems to be done with combat aircraft now that even trainer q5j version is done for and they're moving on pure trainers. In a way, Shaanxi could also be put in combat aircraft manufacturer with armed mpa version of y8, but that's a very specialized aircraft so i'll leave them out of it.

Xian produced some 200 jh7 in 11 years, perhaps a bit more. I'll round it out to 20 a year.
They also seem to have produced these two regiments (or nearly two, if second one hasn't formed fully) of h6k from early 2011 until now, that is around 3 years or roughly 10 per year.

Shenyang produced some 150 or so j11b/bs/j15 since 2007 or so, so that'd round up to 21-22 per year.
While before it did j11a and j8, we don't know how much work that was on j11a, perhaps it was mostly assembly. Even the last recce variants, j8fr, have been out of production for a few years, right? Overall, i won't count on more than 24 combat planes per year from Shenyang.

Chengdu, like i said, seem to be producing a bit more, 26-28 planes per year. and it got to those rates only after basically ceasing all production on j7. Ironically, it would seem Xian is in fact china's biggest combat plane producer by absolute numbers.

Will 4-5 carriers be achievable by 2035? With one operational from 2015. or so, second building from then on, in service perhaps by 2021. or so. Third not built simultaneously but consecutively yes, meaning 2024. or so. But then probably a hiatus before a new carrier design is ready. No new carrier before 2030s. I guess 4 carriers are likely, 5 possible but it'd be quite close by 2035.

Like I said, I too don't really see j-21 in PLAAF use, except on carriers only where the trade off between range and other capabilities seems justified.

Missions "well into china" are suicidal for US even today, and will get only more dangerous in the future, f35 or no f35. I don't think that was ever US plan, to have an aircraft to pull something like that off. Strike near the coastline, yes, release stand off weapons from there to strike some 500-1000 km into china, sure, but anything more than that would be occasional missions of opportunity and extreme risk. that's not even really about fuel, bases and range, its about pure power projection and air defense.

When i mentioned j11d i meant that purely as a j11 with next gen avionics, not a plane with airframe modifications. I don't think such a modified plane would happen. flanker is simply too old design to invest in it so much past 2020. Even silent eagle kind of modifications seem like a waste of investement really and that's far from a stealthified j11 some suggest.

I did mean a total of 100 strikers (i wont call them h18 but jh18, to accentuate their role and size) but as a minimum. Production should ideally be bigger by 2035., but if the latest is true that the project has recently been moved to a new institute then it may not be realistic to expect more produced by 2035.

H6k production may continue into 2020s really. Perhaps even some tankers will be produced, though y20 based tanker is certainly a potent rival there, even if inefficient. h6k based tanker would also be inefficient in other ways so it's really anyone's guess.

JSDF operates around 80 Orions in mpa form, 120 would really be an overkill. Not to mention that with all the other versions and the fact that in the last 10 years there's been maybe 40-50 y8 variants produced, not more, such high numbers are unlikely. Especially since a lot of old transport y8 may require replacements.

With all these new conclusions and the fact i didn't even count chengdu production from 2030. onward my new list for end of 2035. is this:

j10b produced from today until 2030 or so, with some further modifications/variants. Single engined successor produced from 2030. onwards.

j20 produced from 2018 or so onwards, certainly all the way up to 2035.

J11b produced for a little bit more but really i expect j16 to come in its place completely. No need to have a pure fighter if one can have a multirole plane. Occasionally, instead of j16 batch, a batch of j15 will be produced. (rather than have simultaneous inefficient j15 production that would then yield no more than several planes a year) Production of those two will last until something new from shenyang is ready. Now, while j21 doesn't necessarily seem perfect, lets say there will be a modified version of it, ready for production by 2025. So some notional j21b produced onwards, no more flankers.

New striker, if its not going to be produced by shenyang, might then just be produced by xian, since possibly y20 production will require a whole new factory anyway. some roughly 200 could be produced from 2025. to 2035. but lets assume its a more complicated and costly platform and lower than to 150 pieces.

With y20 project mostly done with development and into testing, creation of h-x probably commenced. But that's a huge leap. Not unlike b2 was for US. several years of development before first flight seems too little. Realistically, i wouldn't expect prototype to fly before 2020 and production to start before 2027. or so (when h6 production might cease). by 2035. i wouldn't expect more than 50 or so produced.

150 j10a (modernized)
480 j10b
130 j10 successor (be it highly modified j10b or something new)
150 j11b (modernized into D models?)
80 j15 (probably also modernized by 2035.)
150 j16 (probably also modernized by 2035.)
200 j21b (up to half possibly for carrier fleets?)
100 jh7 (modernized to B by then)
350 j20 (to use flanker production levels)
150 jhx
120 h6k or tanker variants (so maybe 90 bombers and 30 tankers?)
50 h-x

now this does come together to 1790 planes without 150 hx strikers, total of 1940, but that's still not counting bombers, so overall maybe even 2080 or so.

With regards to H-X, I wonder how long it would take to get the prototype developed.

It all depends on whether the PLAAF have already listed requirements and if XAC has already done detailed research or even design, which may substantially cut down on time.


And for Y-9 and GX variants, I think holding their production rate of the past few decades as standard for the projected future is selling them a little short.

This presupposes that the export of war planes will not become more important than it is today. Otherwise an aircraft in production might be continued for export and a new plant built for a new aircraft for PLAAF or PLANAF, thus uncoupling the production of the several aircraft types. Of course the number of people working in the plants is very important, but changes in production technology will change the needs for differently trained people anyway.
There is also the possibility of people moving from war plane production to the production of civil aircraft or in the other direction as military and civilian needs change.

Very interesting number crunching again, been playing with it myself. A few things.

Don't forget to add up the USN and USMC aircraft numbers, something like 1000 and almost 400 fighter-bombers respectively, they must be faced by PLAAF and PLANAF as well. Given that, the americans already have a significant numerical superiority, something like 3500 to 1700 chinese combat aircraft or maybe even a bit more today. Would the leadership be content with a drop of these already defavourable numbers, even if quality will be increased?

Imo it is very difficult to predict what will happen in 20 years time, but 10 years it is a bit more palatable, here's this possible scenario. For me it is pretty clear that this decade will belong to all or most of JH-7B, J-15 for PLANAF, J-16, J-11D, J-10B, H-6K and towards the end of it J-20 and J-21, and slightly after 2020 MAYBE JH-X and H-X.

Now, what needs to be replaced in the next 8-10 years? There are about 200 Q-5, most of the 500 J-7 (perhaps 2/3 as E/F models can soldier on a little past 2020 in secondary roles), the early JH-7s, any J-8s bar the F and similar upgrades and the early type H-6s, plus the early Su-27SK/UBK.

There are still some question for me though, like for instance what is replacing the Q-5? Is it the J-10 or the JH-7? Are the speculated JH-7B and J-16 going to be produced side by side considering they do the same thing, only that J-16 is a top class fighter as well? Is the J-11D an upgraded B (very logical imo, adding airframe refinements like IFR, the ESA from J-16, new weapons etc.) that will replace it in production? What would be J-10C?

Regarding J-15, how many should be allocated for Liaoning, 24? Also, how many carriers are planned by say 2022, one or two? Would they be Liaoning type or american type, able to hold more aircraft? That would of course affect how many J-15 and possibly J-21H are needed.

Anyway, say all of them will be built and considering known yearly production rate, it will be reasonable to expect in the next 10 years say 200-240 J-10B(/C?), 120-160 J-11D, 120-160 J-16, 120-160 JH-7B, 60-75 H-6K, 48-60 J-15 and the first 48-60 J-20 and 48-60 J-21/21H, this on top of whatever numbers of JH-7A and J-10A and possibly J-11B/BS will be delivered this year and maybe next .

After 2022, imo i see the last J-7 and J-8F plus the J-11As replaced by J-21 and J-20 respectively, and then the JH-X starting to replace JH-7A, and the H-X any H-6s bar K.

Btw, i see the J-21 being produced in large numbers, maybe a 2 to 1 ratio compared to J-20 all the way up to 2030 and even beyond, eventually replacing J-10A. The fact that F-35 doesn't live up to it's promise doesn't mean J-21 wouldn't do what is supposed to do.

Would be nice to hear more informed opinions.

Like said before, it is alleged by others who follow this more closely than I that all the Q5 regiments throughout 2000s and onwards were replaced by jh7, not su30. Scramble.nl's plaaf orbat corroborates that. Also, su30 have replaced fighter regiments, such as j7. J10 is also seen as a fighter, with plaaf evidently satisfied with keeping its a2g capabilities pretty limited. As such, it has replaced j7 regiments and at least one j8 regiment.

With that in mind, it seems likely jh7 will continue to replace q5 regiments while j16 will replace j7s, alongside with new j10, as there are far too many j7 left for just one type to replace them in time.

It is also worth noting that planaf is very close to modernizing their complete force, compared to plaaf. They have replaced all of their q5 with jh7, they have a single j7e regiment left which may get replaced by j10 fairly soon. they have two j8h/f regiments, but they're of earlier vintage than j7 regiment and may have some life in them, enough so they wait several more years before replacement. Their h6 bombers are all fairly new, G models. All in all, when it comes to maritime strike force, i don't even see any more additions to planaf. PErhaps j15 regiment will be an add-on, soemthing newly formed. (or theoretically it may replace one of the existing regiments after restructure into a carrier air wing?)

If true, that'd mean xian is free to divert all of its jh7 production into replacing remaining q5 for plaaf. Since they produced 8 regiments worth in last ten years, they should have little problem replacing the remaining q5 regiments in time for plaaf. One has to note that q5 regiments/brigades are actually pretty big, some holding near 40 planes. That was the practice in the past too and jh7 would replace the unit not on plane for plane basis, but 24 jh7 would replace 36 or so q5. So 220 or so current q5 in plaaf is unlikely to be replaced with same number of jh7 but with something like 170 jh7.

It is interesting to note that, unlike planaf, plaaf hasn't received a new j11b since 2011. Since then it was planaf getting them. While j11b may have some slight edge over j16 in wvr combat, overall its effectiveness should be surpassed by j16 is almost all areas. Therefore it is my personal opinion plaaf won't even be ordering any more j11. From now on j16 will be its main large fighter, until j20. while j16 does seem to have developed strike capabilities, in reality its still a multirole fighter, and plaaf seems to be regarding similar type (su30) as primarely fighters, replacing fighter regiments.

In that regard, i expect plaaf to continue regarding jh7 regiments as its main striker force, with new j16 regiments as companion to them, not a replacement. strike capabilities are a weak spot of plaaf anyway, so it also makes sense to accelerate their expansion. And with simultaneous additions of jh7 and j16, isntead of just j16, that will greatly increase the pace of plaaf's strike capabilities.

j10c, as far as i am concerned so far, is a fanboy designation. While there certainly may be another variant in the pipeline, it won't happen anytime soon. j10b has been in testing for full five years now and seems to be adding a whole lot of capabilities over j10a. i just don't see another variant flying in the next 10 years and entering service before 2028 or so. And by that time it may really be much more prudent to go with a completely new model, rather than another rehash of j10 airframe.

While Liaoning may operate 24 j15 at a time, it is not unlikely there will be more j15s from the start. Just like USN and USMC operate literally twice the number of aircraft capable of carrier ops than the whole carrier fleet can support at any one time, it is prudent to have extra aircraft for such an unique asset like a carrier. without planes to replace ones lost in combat, whole carrier is useless, which would suddenly make it quite an expensive and overdesigned helicopter carrier.

Seeing how a completely new type of carrier is said to come after liaoning, and seeing how long the development of first of such class lasts, even for countries that have much more experience with carriers, i find it next to impossible more than one extra carrier (over liaoning) will be serving by 2022. I simply don't buy the rumors that two carriers will be simultaneously built at two different docks.

Then there's politics. For decade or two now orders have been more or less evenly split between xian, shenyang and chengdu. I don't see that changing anytime soon. And i don't see one institute's projects being built at another institute's manufacture plants. MEaning i expect it to remain as it was all these years - j15/16 (even if we include more hypothetical j11 variants) and j21 built at shenyang. j10 and j20 built at chengdu. jh7 and h6 built at xian. Who knows who got the jh-x project and when it will even fly, let alone start serial production. so i won't include it yet.

with that being said, i simply don't see the numbers alleged above. Even if i use just the lowest figures offered, that amounts to 250 airframes produced by chengdu, 340 by shenyang and 180 by xian in the next ten years. that's some 800 combat aircraft in 10 years, little more than plaaf and planaf received combined in the last ten years. While china kept its overall levels the same in the last decade, it did shrink its forces in the 1990s. I don't see them doing a shrink only to reverse it a decade later.

(when i talked about usaf, i forgot to include attrition. its overall numbers will indeed be lower than today simply because a part of 1740 f35 produced and fliyng during some 25 years are bound to crash. Even without any cancellation of orders and full 1740 f35 produced for usaf, in 2035 there is unlikely to remain over 1600 in service. Also, with a reality of 10 carriers, overall USN numbers are likely to drop a little bit.

Rather than numbers offered in the post above, i expect 48 or so j15, no j11 whatesover, 120-150 j16 (for plaaf only) and perhaps some j21. Though j21 is still a mystery and its unconfirmed even if it's plaaf's or planaf's project.

While it is certainly logical (and therefore likely?) there will be another stealthy project accompanying j20 in production throughout most of 2020s it remains to be seen if it will be j21 in its *current* form. If it does enter service with plaaf (as opposed to planaf!) it will almost certainly replace some models current in production or posed for production. Perhaps at first it will replace j15 for planaf, but since carrier aircraft aren't in such high demand, it may replace j16 production for plaaf quite soon enough, certainly before 2025.

Other alternative is that plaaf simply won't want a medium plane like j21 in its service and shenyang may try to go for another model completely. a striker, jhx would seem logical, though some recent rumors from usually trusted leaker did specifically say they aren't developing the striker. Smaller, new single engined design is also possible, though one'd expect chengdu has more experience with those.

Thanks for the input Totoro. I did actually missed the part where you talk about yearly production rates of Xian, Chengdu and Shenyang, and i was kinda doing some backflips to get the J-11D, J-16 and J-15 produced in logical numbers at Shenyang at the same time! Now, if J-11B will be replaced in productions by J-16, what is J-11D just an MLU? For which type, J-11A i assume as upgrading the J-11Bs at this time will make little sense? Of course the J-11Bs would be bound to get a MLU too late teens/early twenties, and also probably the greater part of J-10As.

So, if there will be no J-11D production, it is a bit "easier" to estimate a more or less equal output from these factories in the next 10 years amounting to perhaps 600-650 aircraft instead of the 800 that might be a little bit too high? Imo, i think it's possible each factory could deliver one full regiment of the types they build every year, with small variation (J-15s being the wild card here) Mind you, even the russians plan to build 600 combat aircraft this decade, so i don't see why China can't produce that or even a bit more than that.

Anyway, interesting times ahead.

Perhaps i phrased myself in an unfortunate way. I don't think the figure of 800 combat aircraft in ten years in unrealistically high, i merely thought that the breakdown of those 800 between manufacturers doesn't seem realistic - 250 by chengdu, 180 by xian and 340 by shenyang. Production in the last 10 years certainly was close to total of 800, but breakdown between manufacturers was different and more even.

Like i said, if china shrunk its forces in the 1990s, and if everyone else is shrinking their forces in the future years, i find it hard to believe china will suddenly increase its numbers. But it may be plausible the numbers will remain the same, as they have been in the last decade or so.

IF we start with that assumption, then the production numbers will surely be affected. Planes are designed to last longer nowadays. But at the same time china is flying their planes more than in 1990s. While 8, 10 or more thousands of hours that US fighters are being overhauled for may not be desired by plaaf/planaf, it would seem realistic at least a little increase in planned hours usage is planned. Perhaps to follow the russians which boast 6000 hours for su35? (and perhaps similar figures for their similar newlybuilt types?)

That's roughly 25 years of flying with western hours flown per year figures. Perhaps china will choose to fly a bit less, or will make their planes last a bit more still, but considering overall tech levels are still behind a bit, i don't see it in their interests to fly new planes more than 30 years. Even that seems too much if they want to catch up at some point.

In the last ten years there was some 680 tactical combat planes produced. If one takes those numbers to the next ten years and adds h6k production with assumption it remains at 8-10 airframes per year, overall combat planes per year will go over 75, perhaps 78. Meaning perhaps close to said 800 new planes in next ten years.

But what would such production mean for the fleet of the future? With 25 years of life per plane, that'd mean china planes to field some 1900-2000 combat planes altogether. With 30 years of life per plane, that goes up to 2280-2400 combat planes. For the reasons i listed above, i do think the latter is less probable and china will indeed aim to remain with the similar number of pilots, bases and ground crews and go for a 2000 combat plane base. Meaning i expect the planes to be built to last some 25 years, not much more.

Of course, it is also possible that with the advent of j20, j21 and other high tech planes the production rates will drop a bit (it doesnt have to be so, as f35 production plan is showing us). If overall figures end up being closer to 65 airframes per year, but average planned life closer to 30 years, then we still get to similar numbers of around 2000 combat planes for the entire fleet.

Comparison with Russia's production planes may not be prudent, in my opinion. China has had literally decades of steady production and steady retirement rates of older planes. Russia on the other hand kept its air force at pretty large levels for its economy in 1990s and 2020s, but without any real production. They will have to retire literally hundreds of planes in the course of next decade or so. Therefore they are not doing the steady and even multi-decade approach as china but they're suddenly pumping billions into rebuilding their numbers within the next ten years or so. I certainly don't expect russian air force to keep buying new planes in those numbers past 2020 or so. Such domestic demand is just not there in the long run. Part of the production is certainly going to linger on due to exports, but if russia buys an all new fleet in 2010-2025 period, then they will have close to zero need for added planes before 2035 or so. In reality i do expect a slow trickle, but nowhere near 600 a decade. Rather, closer to 100. Until they get to a point where they ideally do what china is doing and have a steady production planned decades in advance.

If russia wants to maintain, say, 800 combat planes, and their lifetime on average is 6000 hours, and they fly their planes (not pilots!) 200 hours a year, that's a 30 year renewal cycle. To maintain such a fleet 27 combat planaes per year, or 270 in a decade, is enough. If russia goes for a huge fleet of 1200 combat planes (in my opinion unlikely) then we're looking at 400 planes in a decade. But all that's applicable after 2035. Or, maybe the current rearmament plans will fall short a bit, maybe they will in the end do more like 400 planes by 2020, then the next ten years may also be closer to 300-400 added ones.

I don't think anyone has confirmed what j11d is, or if it is anything more than a rumor. while it may be a whole newly built model, it just doesn't make sense to me, as it'd signify j20 and j11d production side by side. Two fighters of same weight class and same mission produced at the same time? Why? is j20 really going to be so expensive? If so, then china won't really catch up technologically in 50 more years. Who knows, but i do believe such a move is not what plaaf desires. Better to just go on with j16 production, that way one at least has a multirole plane. While certainly a single seater can be made multirole as well, plaaf doesn't seem to want that. Otherwise there wouldn't be any j16 but we'd get straight to another, multirole single seat version of j11.

of course, all these numbers don't really add attrition replacements. F16 lost from over 1% to 0.2% of fleet per year. Though overall average is really under 0.5% as over the years the fleet became more reliable. 0.4% of fleet of 2000 planes over 25 years would amount to 200 planes lost in accidents and therefore a need to replace them. So actual production rates per year may need to be perhaps as much as 10% higher than stated here?

Maybe a stupid question - probably it's again only a feeling or my impatience - but if I'm not mistaken, then the last newly converted units were the 124. Brigade with J-10A and the second PLANAF-regiment with J-11BH ? Otherwise there's no information about a new J-11B unit within the PLAAF, no new JH-7A regiment, ... yes, a few more new H-6K for both the 8. and 10. BDs and a few more Y-8 special mission birds, but no new fighters ?

Is this simply due to a conversion of the production line at CAC (from J-10A to J-10B), at SAC (from J-11 to J-15 and J-16) and at XAC (from JH-7A to JH-7B maybe) ??? ... or is it simply due to the lack of information related to the new more secret information policy ??? ...

Thanks in advance,
Deino

Applying new logic to future builds up to year 2030 i came to some new conclusions.
Assuming that tactical combat planes in active service with plaaf and planaf will not be over 30 years old, we should be seeing really only j7g (and upgraded e to g standard), jh7a and j8f/fr left, previous generation wise. That should be, if i am not mistaken, some 120ish j7g, 120ish j8f/fr and 200ish jh7a, attrition not withstanding.

Current production rate of some 60ish tactical combat planes per year would mean overall numbers would fall to around 1500. Again, that's without regular attrition due to accidents.

But with Chengdu aircraft corporation snagging both J20 and j10b projects, and with SAC investing in j16 and j15 and possibly having some variant of j31 later on, as well as expected jh7 class (possibly even some new jh7 successor), as those q5 planes are nearly obsolete and will need replacements and even jh7 themselves would need replacements themselves - i bring you the following table:



Now, the list is pure speculation. Maybe j10b production won't be 30 a year. Maybe it will peak at 24 per year. In that case, some 55ish less j10b would be made for attrited total of 710-ish j10 or grand total of 2290 tactical combat planes.
The list assumes fairly small j31 production (lets say just for the navy). Mind you, this does not mean that SAC doesn't produce fc-31 for export at the same production lines. But lets assume j31 production doubles because, say, planaf wants to get rid of their older ground based planes with j31 variant as well. 24 per year peak for j31 would result in 70 or so more j31 produced for attrited total of 2400ish planes for the whole chinese air forces.
j20 production may also be higher, reaching 24 or so per year. That's 40 more in total or perhaps 2380 planes.

Of course, various variations are possible. So totals may range from less than 2300 to some 2450.

Then there's speculation about volume of jh7 production and its successor. Table assumed all remaining q5 to be replaced by jh7b, then the successor replacing early jh7.

Comparing these figures with todays figures: 750-900 j7 (all j7, including jj7 variants, assuming all regiments are up to strength and no planes are in reserve); 250ish j8 (including recce variants) 420ish flanker variants, 300ish j10, 250ish jh7, 200-250 q5 (including conversion trainers) for a total of 2070 - 2270

If one wanted to match current numbers in 2030, one would thus certainly assume less than 30 j10b produced per year. Perhaps even less than 20 jh7 produced per year. Maybe even j20 ramp-up would be even slower. Maybe jh7b successor would be produced at SAC, with j31 not entering chinese service, with XAC effectivelly ceasing tactical combat airplane production.

The table, as is, does seem a bit off, assuming larger production than necessary to upkeep current force levels. Then again, carrier borne planes may be added to today's force without PLANAF losing their ground based fighter component. To equip 4 carriers by 2030 increase of some 170ish planes may be realistic.