Future PLA combat aircraft composition

Totoro said:

J-20, which is not likely to be produced at more than 40 or so per year even at its highest. That's the rate of J10 production, which is supposed to be a cheap-ish plane for mass production.

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thanks for your analysis. But why would not J20 production be more than 40 over the long run? maybe that is related to how big will PLAAF be in the future and how many of them will be J20.
And politically speaking, SAC gets the naval fighter, CAC gets the AF fighter and Xian gets the bomber, that is as fair as it can get. Is it really necessary to throw in J16 just to get SAC going? I mean it is simply impossible to ensure everyone get same size of the pie.

Because J-20 is not F-35. It is not conceptualized as a fairly cheap, compromised fighter that can be affordable in big numbers. Even if J-20 gets a strike variant, that variant too will not be a cheap plane.

US has never planned to produce tons of F-22s, even when threat levels were highest. At best, they wanted 750 planes, out of roughly 5000 toal combat planes they had at the end of the cold war.

At 60 or 70 J-20 per year, China would be aiming at making J-20 populate over half of its combat entire air forces. That includes bombers, strikers and carrier fighters.

Of course, one can say: but maybe china intends to increase its overall force from today's 2000 combat planes to 3000 combat planes by 2030. That... is debatable. I personally find it unlikely, though a certain increase does seem evident from current numbers.

But a cheaper stealth plane than J-20 will most definitely have to be produced at one point. Perhaps even J-31 is not going to be simple enough and cheap enough to make up the remainder of the force. It's much more likely we'll still see a new variant of J10 to make up a sizable chunk of the production. Hypoethetical example: 40-ish J20 (both fighter and strikers), 30-ish J31 (for navy and AF) and 30-ish J10s to fill up the numbers in an affordable fashion, per year. With ten or so H20 bombers on top of that. That's a lot of stealth planes, but to get to that point - I do believe we'll have to wait another 10 years to see it.

SAC will in my opinion definitely be awarded with much more than a dozen or so fighters per year. One can't divide the pie perfectly, of course, but there will not be a huge disbalance.

Totoro said:

But a cheaper stealth plane than J-20 will most definitely have to be produced at one point. Perhaps even J-31 is not going to be simple enough and cheap enough to make up the remainder of the force. It's much more likely we'll still see a new variant of J10 to make up a sizable chunk of the production. Hypoethetical example: 40-ish J20 (both fighter and strikers), 30-ish J31 (for navy and AF) and 30-ish J10s to fill up the numbers in an affordable fashion, per year. With ten or so H20 bombers on top of that. That's a lot of stealth planes, but to get to that point - I do believe we'll have to wait another 10 years to see it.

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This is reasonable to me. J31 as the low end stealth fighter, and some J10 variant as low low end.
But this basically means PLA wont seek to achieve air power parity with US in west pacific before 2030. Is that plausible?

Why is the J31 not simple and cheap enough? Other than having 2 engines I feel like it basically fills the same role as the F35, aka a cheaper low end 5th gen fighter. Depending on how well the J31 turns out, I could see it becoming the main fighter of the PLA.

If the AF decides to get more 4th gen fighters, I think a J16 would probably be more suitable, since it has better strike capabilities than either the J20 or J31 or J10, kind of like the US's F15EX, and will be very useful for long range interception and strike, or any place where it won't have to face off with another stealth fighter.

Low low end J10s would still be useful but what would be the point of producing more of them? Might as well just use and upgrade the hundreds already produced and focus more on the J20 and J31

I think the planned PLAAF and PLANAF aircraft inventory in the short and medium-term might change because of it.

ILikeChina said:

I think the planned PLAAF and PLANAF aircraft inventory in the short and medium-term might change because of it.

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I don't think current aircraft production or plans will change because of this development ... the only thing that will change (if there is any change at all) is perhaps even faster acceleration of CAC's sixth generation fighter aircraft. Previously, the head of CAC had said the 6th gen aircraft will be operational by 2035 or earlier.

Totoro said:

This is a copy paste from the J-20 thread. So the discussion can be continued here.

Right now we know about the navy contracting new, stealth fighter. That'd be the notational J-31. We have no news yet that the air force wants J-31. Which means the air force has the following at its disposal:
J-20, which is not likely to be produced at more than 40 or so per year even at its highest. That's the rate of J10 production, which is supposed to be a cheap-ish plane for mass production.
J-31 for the navy is likely going to be capped at 10 or 15 per year. There's no demand for more as carriers can be built only so quickly, UNLESS there will be new ground based navy units standing up, which will also feature J-31s. Existing ground based navy units all have quite recently produced planes so they won't need replacements. Either that or they have JH7 strikers which are quite specific in their role and can't be really replaced by J-31.

J-31 variant MAY be decided upon by the air force as well. But even IF that happens, who knows WHEN it could happen. Maybe the decision won't come before 2025. Which is, coincidentally, pretty much the earliest the navy variant may see first units standing up. And that's providing the next 5 years of development are lightning fast and that there is no big difference between 00031 demonstrators and the serial J-31. If a decision comes by 2025, again a few years will pass until air force starts getting new planes.

J-31 in its current form is not a good replacement for all the remaining air force planes. It lacks range and is likely more expensive to procure and run than a J-10.

A single engined stealth plane maybe waited for by the air force. IF that happens, it means no such plane before 2030 at the earliest.

JH7 replacement is needed but it may be a J16.
It may also be a whole new plane. Probably stealth one then. But that'd mean, even if we see a prototype fly in 2021 (dubious, as there'd be more chatter incoming in the years before the first flight) actual production volume would unlikely be more than 20 per year before end of 2020s. Developing planes just takes a long time.

H20 might start serial production after 2025 but as it's a bomber, and there are plenty of new H6K to go around, overall production volume is most likely going to be under a dozen per year.

So J10 (in some new variant) and J16 are still the best bet for mass production in the next 5 years. J20 might ramp up and might even get a whole new variant (to be fielded in strike role in place of JH7, JH-XX or further J16) but such a variant would again take 5+ years to appear after first evidence of development. J-20 numbers per year are bound to increase either way - but I find it unlikely Chengdu would be given two thirds of the entire production (J20 and J10), and Shenyang and Xian to pick up the crumbs. Politics of the production distribution don't work that way. That's evident even in the US.

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I think this was discussed over on CDF a little while back, and or the purpose of discussion, I directly quote what I wrote back then, I think in early/mid 2019:


- J-10 production, to continue until 2025. Between 2019 and 2025 I see another ~250 airframes built
- Flanker production, to continue until 2027. Between 2019 and 2027, I see another 300+ airframes built
- J-20 production, to continue until the early to mid 2030s. Between the start of J-20 production (i.e.: the year 2016-2017) to 2025 I see 150-200 airframes built, and between 2025 to 2035 I see up to another 400+ built.
- FC-31 derivative production, to start at 2025 and to continue by the mid to late 2030s. Between 2025 and 2030 I envision up to 150 airframes built (more likely only 100).

- 5th generation fleet size goal: by 2025 to have 150-200 airframes (all J-20s), by 2030 to have 500-600+ airframes (mostly J-20s, perhaps up to 100 FC-31 derivatives the latter of which are likely to all mostly be carrier based variants). By 2035+, I'm not going to guess. But I will say that I expect the PLA's 6th gen to emerge by 2030 and to start production around 2035 which is when Dr Wang said it would enter service -- for a few years after 2035 I expect J-20 to still be in production at CAC while production of the 6th gen fighter starts to ramp up.


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Basically, the main characteristics of my suggestion for PLA fighter procurement going into the 2020s will be:

A) ending 4/4+ gen fighter production sooner rather than later once 3rd gen aircraft are all replaced (and/or when sufficient "D" variant and carrier based airframes are built), and converting 4/4+ production lines for 5th gen production. For J-10s this will mean ending it by 2025, for Flankers by ~2027

B) avoiding continued production of 4/4+ airframes into the late 2020s when such aircraft are many times qualitatively inferior to 5th generation aircraft and will serve a limited role in a modern air war if unsupported by a sufficient number of friendly 5th gens. The goal is to avoid the late 90s/early 2000s situation where the PLA was still procuring new build 3rd generation aircraft when the rest of the world was only buying 4th gens.

C) perhaps the most difficult to entertain idea -- J-20 production will reach the high hundreds. I don't think we've heard too many rumours about how many J-20s the PLA will seek to build, or how long its production run will be. Back in the late 2000s when we talked about J-XX many people said how it probably wouldn't exceed F-22 numbers by much.
-However I think since then it's been demonstrably shown that 5th gen aircraft are many times superior to older aircraft and that the F-35 is in many respects as capable or more capable than the F-22 including in the A2A role not to mention it will be produced in very significant numbers. Given the time it will take for the medium weight FC-31 derivative 5th gen to enter full scale production, I imagine the PLA will instead seek a relatively large production run of J-20s to maintain a sufficient mass of 5th gen aircraft in the mid to late 2020s.
-While a large production run of J-20s may seem rather hard to believe given the USAF's procurement of F-22s, it is important to remember the political, financial and projected opfor capability circumstances the USAF was facing at the time. Originally during the Cold War, the USAF had a requirement of 750 ATFs, which I think is closer to the number of eventual J-20s the PLA will want -- again, the PLA is under no illusion of what kind of projected opfor capability they will be facing in the APAC region and that will likely translate to few political roadblocks. The only issue with a "long" J-20 production run is the cost of the aircraft (in terms of procurement and operating costs) -- if the aircraft is somehow massively flawed and unable to enjoy benefits of upgrades to make it a less expensive aircraft to operate and maintain, and/or if the overall Chinese economic situation is unable to keep up with military modernization demands, then I can certainly see overall J-20 production will be limited.

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The above is only looking at manned fighter aircraft of course, and doesn't include H-20 bombers or potentially the production of stealthy UCAVs including both A2G UCAVs or loyal wingman/A2A UCAVs.

So I agree that J-10 production will likely continue to 2025 and Flanker production to beyond 2025, however I also expect them to try to move towards all 5th gen production sooner rather than later, likely around 2027 (producing only J-20 and J-XY/FC-31 variants), and to aim for 6th generation production at least by 2035 if not earlier.


Also, for the purposes of nomenclature regarding the naval 5th generation fighter can we all agree on a standardized designation?
I think the "J-31" designation is very useless because as far as we know that is not an official PLA designation, and seems derived from the FC-31 name.
IMO:
- FC-31 is the export proposal. "J-31" doesn't exist yet as a PLA designation.
- We don't have a confirmed name for the carrierborne 5th gen fighter derived from FC-31, but it has been variously dubbed by the Chinese boards as: "J-35" and here on SDF proliferated as "J-XY". I propose that we all agree that "J-35" or "J-XY" should be the name for the actual carrierborne 5th gen fighter that the PLAN is pursuing and being properly developed, until we have the official name.
- A notional land based/PLAAF variant therefore would be a "land based/PLAAF J-35 variant" or "land based/PLAAF J-XY variant".

Attempts at standardization are problematic as SDF isn't in a bubble. While here it may be most precise to label it J-XY, on other websites it seems J-31 is used more than other designations. I can't guarantee that I will remember to use one term here and other term on other sites. Certainly, I want to be understood everywhere, so it's best that I use the term that most people in a given location will understand.

(I personally dislike J-35 as i don't see it any more likely than J-31, at this point in time)

The J-16 is replacing the JH-7. It is basically superior in every aspect. Payload, speed, radar ground attack modes, and even air to air. It won't need replacement for like 15 years I think since it is supposed to operate after achieving air superiority to begin with. They will need to add some stealth bomber capabilities, perhaps to a J-20 variant, and once they have the H-20 that can also be used for bombing in less permissive environments.

I think the PLAAF will build between 100%-200% of the amount of the J-20s as the US has F-22s so between 200-400.
For two reasons. Because they will have no other stealth fighter for some time and because the fiscal and threat environment is different.

I also agree they need some stealth or semi-stealth single engine aircraft to replace the J-10. It might not take that long to develop since once they have the WS-20 engine they can basically use all the J-20 know-how they have to build it. The only new thing would be the airframe. So this aircraft could easily be developed in 5 years time I think as long as they simplify the initial requirements.

I think the FC-31 makes no sense for the PLAAF. Just looking at the MiG-29 vs Su-27 suggests you would get an aircraft with 50% the payload for 20% less cost. It simply isn't cost effective to have a twin-engine low end aircraft. For the PLAN the requirements are different since having the extra engine increases reliability while flying over the sea or in less permissive environments.

Totoro said:

Attempts at standardization are problematic as SDF isn't in a bubble. While here it may be most precise to label it J-XY, on other websites it seems J-31 is used more than other designations. I can't guarantee that I will remember to use one term here and other term on other sites. Certainly, I want to be understood everywhere, so it's best that I use the term that most people in a given location will understand.

(I personally dislike J-35 as i don't see it any more likely than J-31, at this point in time)

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I'm okay with not using J-XY, however I feel quite strongly about not using the J-31 designation because that is a J- designation which was applied from the FC-31 designation, and is now widely and imo incorrectly used in the English language domain which we should strive to discourage.

The Chinese language boards use J-35, and while I also personally feel like it is unlikely to be the real designation, we also should be taking our cues from them.

Alternatively calling it the "carrierborne FC-31 derivative" is slightly longer but more accurate.


I think there are a number of names which don't cause confusion to the relationship between the 5th gen carrierborne fighter and the FC-31, but the "J-31" designation certainly does create confusion.