Future PLAAF fleet procurement and composition

TK3600 said:

I apologize if I misunderstood you. What I am trying to say is I am decisively leaning to retire 4th gen as soon as replacement comes. No waiting for life span wear out. Almost no point even keeping them mothballed. By early 2030s. J-11B is the J-7 of today. J-16 is J-8 of today. Using them ever is act of extreme desperation that world is about to end. And if you agree then I am definitely on your camp in this.

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Yes, you have completely misunderstood me. I am amazed at how much you misunderstood me to be honest.

My position is fairly well established -- I am saying it makes sense for 5th gens to replace 4th gens and then 4.5th gens, as soon as possible as production of 5th gens allows for their replacement.
They are paying for the personnel and the bases anyway, so if they want to increase capability without greatly expanding the fleet size of fighters, they will have to qualitatively improve the aircraft. And that would of course occur by replacing 4th and then 4.5th gen aircraft, with 5th gens.

My position has been fairly consistent -- start from here if you want to understand the full context, and read through continuously to the current pages:

For others catching up with the discussion:

I advise to specifically ignore the "value" of those 4.5th gen aircraft, in a 2030 onwards era.
Instead, recognize that the PLAAF/PLANAF are now operating in a situation where the growth in their overall capability for manned fighters may no longer be bottlenecked by technology and industrial output -- rather they are bottlenecked by personnel and basing.

So the conundrum the PLA are facing, is how to maximize and grow their capability in context of a finite (or "fixed") quantity of personnel (pilots, maintenance, command) and air bases, come 2030 when all of their "old/early 4th gen" fighters are replaced between now and 2030 with 5th gens... because by that point 4.5th gens will be their "oldest and least capable" fighters, but they will likely still be building 5th gens and will start building 6th gens... and both 5th and 6th gens will still be many times more capable than 4.5th gens.

Maximizing capability is the first and primary aim that overrides others -- and by maximizing capability while retaining the same quantity of personnel and bases, you improve cost effectiveness, because you are still paying for the paychecks of personnel and still paying money for the upkeep of bases regardless whether they're flying superior 5th gen or inferior 4.5th gen aircraft. So why make them fly inferior aircraft?

Everything else -- preservation of 4.5th gen airframes in mothball to return them to service if needed, etc, comes secondary or tertiary even.


So if the goal is to maximize capability of your manned tactical fighter force (i.e.: assuming that 5th gen aircraft can do the same missions as 4.5th gen aircraft, while ALSO being able to do the additional missions that only 5th gens can do) -- then if the capacity and funding to buy new 5th gens is there, then it makes no sense to not replace your 4.5th gens with 5th gens.

Whether the 4.5th gens are mothballed or buried or scrapped is a minor, relatively unimportant question, because getting them out of the way to replace them with much more capable 5th gens is the main goal.



(UCAVs and CCAs of course will play a role in this overall capability growth as well, but it actually doesn't affect the question/rationale of replacing 4.5th gens with 5th gens, because ultimately the UCAVs and CCAs will still have to operate along some number of manned fighters. And a 5th gen fighter+UCAV force will be much more capable than a 4.5th gen fighter+UCAV force, so the same driving rationale for replacing the 4.5th gens with 5th gens still exists regardless of a UCAV/CCA component in the overall force composition)

J-10C might actually be the first to be replaced if a willing second-hand buyer (e.g. Pakistan, Iran?) can be found.

Blitzo said:

1. Operating costs do not necessarily have to be dominant per se, because obviously procuring 5th gen aircraft over 4.5th gen will have its own upfront costs. What is relevant is that 5th gen aircraft are much more capable than 4.5th gen aircraft, while the human operating costs remain largely unchanged.

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Blitzo said:

2. That just sounds like one is content with operating a significant fraction of the fleet which are incapable of credibly operating outside of PRC airspace, and to be relegated only to either internal policing missions or bomb truck missions. If the finances dictate it, then fine, but why on earth would one want to not have a fighter fleet which is all fully capable of high end combat as well?

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Yes, 5th Gen aircraft are much more capable in the air superiority role, but the requirement is air superiority overmatch as fast as possible.

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Look at the notional military balance in 2033.

By 2033, we'd be looking at 1600-1900 Chinese 5th Gen fighters in service (based on production of 160-200 per year)
That potentially isn't enough for a long war against the combined 5th Gen fighter fleets of the US+Allied countries.
Call it 1500 5th Gen fighters in the US military by itself.

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Therefore I'd keep the ~700 4.5 Gen Fighters (J-10C and J-16)
At the beginning of any conflict, the 4.5Gen fighters would be conducting rear area homeland defence and bomb/missile truck roles. Plus there probably isn't enough airspace available to operate many 4.5Gen aircraft, given that there are already 1600+ 5th gen fighters on the frontlines.

By the time they might be required for air-to-air missions, most of the opposing 5th Gens should have already been destroyed, so the 4.5 Gen fighters will be competitive.

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My view is that they should increase from ~2000 to ~3000 manned aircraft.
So call it an average increase in fleet size of 100 fighters per year until 2035.

(The following is based on the assumption of the PLAAF intending to maintain the overall fighter fleet size into the 2030s and beyond, instead of embarking on a significant size expansion.)

Honestly, the idea that China should reduce the production rate of their 5th-gen fighters just because "muh China still has a lot of 4.5th-gen fighters with service lives in their airframes" sounds pretty stupid.

Of course, that is actually one level below the idea of China should immediately mothball 5th-gen fighters that are fresh off the production lines just because "muh China still has a lot of 4.5th-gen fighters with service lives in their airframes", which is just plain and outright stupid when talking about fighter jet procurement.

The simplest way of dealing with this is to always come back to these two questions:
- Are 5th-gen fighters capable of doing everything that the 4.5th-gen fighters do?
The answer is YES.
- Are 4.5th-gen fighters capable of doing everything that the 5th-gen fighters do?
The answer is NO.

And frankly speaking, how many more weapon pylons do 4.5th-gen fighters have over 5th-gen fighters, alongside weaponry loadout adaptation, shouldn't even become the primary consideration factors when it comes to fighter jet procurements. In fact, those factors very much pale in comparison to the overall development and progression of aerial warfare for the coming years and decades.

The fact is that going forward (i.e. late-2020s, 2030s, and beyond) for the same set of missions, 5th-gen fighters are capable of conducting 90-100% of them at all times, whereas 4.5th-gen fighters are only capable of conducting 40-60% of them at all times. I don't really see why people should struggle to understand this.

And as for ground-attack and anti-drone swarm capabilities - Like, why even bother trying to make a mountain out of a mole? 5th-gen fighters aside, even the UCAVs (which are only going to get better) will eventually become capable of performing the same tasks, all while eliminating the risk of exposing pilots to the enemy's close-in air defense systems that didn't get knocked out during the preceding SEAD/DEAD missions. That recent hit on an F-35 in Iran is already a definite proof of that possibility.

Furthermore, people need to understand that for the 1980s, 1990s, and even the 2000s, the PLAAF was known as "The Largest Flying Museum in the World" precisely because the PLAAF's fighter fleets are predominantly made of 2nd-gen and 3rd-gen fighters, whereas 4th-gen fighters didn't become a major (let alone dominant) component of the PLAAF's fighter fleet until the late-2000s at the earliest. On the other hand, 4th-gen fighters have already become a major component of the USAF's fighter fleet back in the 1990s, if not in the mid/late-1980s.

In addition, given the persistent threat of Taiwan separatism, China has every reason to procure as many fighter jets as possible, which resulted in the PLAAF having a large number of 4th-gen fighters that are broadly younger than their American counterparts, considering the ramp-up in 4th-gen fighter jet production in China only occurred in the late-2000s and early-2010s.

On the other hand (and once again, a reminder that) the F-14, F-15, and F-16 entered service all the way back in the 1970s, with the F-18 doing the same back in the 1980s. China only started the serial production of the J-10 and J-11 in the 2000s. That's a good 20+ years' gap between the two countries.

Furthermore, had there been no termination of the F-22's production in the late-2000s + repeated problematic delays plaguing the F-35 family's development, the USAF + USNAF + USMC could've been operating as many 5th-gen fighters back in the 2010s as they are currently (mid-2020s). Those many 5th-gens would've already started replacing the early units of their 4th-gens since then, if not because of the associated development, production, and cost-induced hiccups.

Therefore, any talk of China is somehow "procuring too many 5th-gen fighters right now", and/or that China "should keep massive numbers of 4.5th-gen fighters in active service, and in exchange, reduce the number of 5th-gen fighters being produced" is just plain ignorant, and should be stopped outright.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

In future "bomb truck" role may be handled by something akin to a further evolution of the GJ-11 platform. Stealthy, unmanned, networked, sufficient IWB capacity with adequate range and loiter capabilities. Homeland air patrol is another role that may be easily taken over by UCAVs in the near future.

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Air to air isn't the only mission. It isn't even necessarily the most important mission as seen in the real world.

Both Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated that an unstealthy heavy fighter is still useful as a striker and a fighter airframe is still much more survivable than a subsonic bomber as long as you have a dispersed air force and large terrain. This is done by all sides. There's a reason the US wants to keep buying F-15EX and the F-15 is still Israel's MVP. US still uses B-52s due to their payload but H-6K doesn't have substantially higher payload than a J-16 while being much slower, it just is physically larger.

Strike planes are necessary and it's better to use a J-16 as one than a much less survivable JH-7 or H-6K in contested airspace. Payload isn't even all that much worse than a H-6K.

Blitzo said:

For others catching up with the discussion:

I advise to specifically ignore the "value" of those 4.5th gen aircraft, in a 2030 onwards era.
Instead, recognize that the PLAAF/PLANAF are now operating in a situation where the growth in their overall capability for manned fighters may no longer be bottlenecked by technology and industrial output -- rather they are bottlenecked by personnel and basing.

So the conundrum the PLA are facing, is how to maximize and grow their capability in context of a finite (or "fixed") quantity of personnel (pilots, maintenance, command) and air bases, come 2030 when all of their "old/early 4th gen" fighters are replaced between now and 2030 with 5th gens... because by that point 4.5th gens will be their "oldest and least capable" fighters, but they will likely still be building 5th gens and will start building 6th gens... and both 5th and 6th gens will still be many times more capable than 4.5th gens.

Maximizing capability is the first and primary aim that overrides others -- and by maximizing capability while retaining the same quantity of personnel and bases, you improve cost effectiveness, because you are still paying for the paychecks of personnel and still paying money for the upkeep of bases regardless whether they're flying superior 5th gen or inferior 4.5th gen aircraft. So why make them fly inferior aircraft?

Everything else -- preservation of 4.5th gen airframes in mothball to return them to service if needed, etc, comes secondary or tertiary even.


So if the goal is to maximize capability of your manned tactical fighter force (i.e.: assuming that 5th gen aircraft can do the same missions as 4.5th gen aircraft, while ALSO being able to do the additional missions that only 5th gens can do) -- then if the capacity and funding to buy new 5th gens is there, then it makes no sense to not replace your 4.5th gens with 5th gens.

Whether the 4.5th gens are mothballed or buried or scrapped is a minor, relatively unimportant question, because getting them out of the way to replace them with much more capable 5th gens is the main goal.



(UCAVs and CCAs of course will play a role in this overall capability growth as well, but it actually doesn't affect the question/rationale of replacing 4.5th gens with 5th gens, because ultimately the UCAVs and CCAs will still have to operate along some number of manned fighters. And a 5th gen fighter+UCAV force will be much more capable than a 4.5th gen fighter+UCAV force, so the same driving rationale for replacing the 4.5th gens with 5th gens still exists regardless of a UCAV/CCA component in the overall force composition)

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I don't see basing as a bottleneck actually.

There are already 150+ airbases located all over China, so there should be minimal requirement to build entirely new airbases.

Let's say they were to increase the fleet by say 1000 additional fighters, that would be 40 additional Brigades.
The worse case scenario is that existing bases are expanded with additional hangers and maintenance buildings.

For frontline bases, we already see existing bases being given an additional runway for a newly added Fighter Brigade.

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Personnel is a bigger issue, but I think they can handle 40 additional brigades over the next 10 years.
Remember that personnel costs in China are so much lower in both nominal and relative terms, compared to the airframes.

You people are underestimating the issue with maintenance. Even though J-20 is better than its peers in terms of reliability and readiness rate, flankers and J-10 still got it beat by a pretty significant margin. PLAAF is not so rich that it could blow J-20/A/S and J-35 on every intercept or menial tasks like ground pounding after acquiring aerial superiority.

siegecrossbow said:

You people are underestimating the issue with maintenance. Even though J-20 is better than its peers in terms of reliability and readiness rate, flankers and J-10 still got it beat by a pretty significant margin. PLAAF is not so rich that it could blow J-20/A/S and J-35 on every intercept or menial tasks like ground pounding after acquiring aerial superiority.

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AFAIK, thats where unmanned fighters and CCAs come in. Lower end patrols and escorts could literally be done by drones which likely offer much lower lifetime costs than trying to keep aging 4.5th generation fighters alive. There is no reason why the PLAAF in the 2030s would still need large amount of 4.5th gen for these lower end missions, which while being more expensive, offer less in mission flexibility and takes up valuable crews that could be flying something better.

Tomboy said:

AFAIK, thats where unmanned fighters and CCAs come in. Lower end patrols and escorts could literally be done by drones which likely offer much lower lifetime costs than trying to keep aging 4.5th generation fighters alive. There is no reason why the PLAAF in the 2030s would still need large amount of 4.5th gen for these lower end missions, which while being more expensive, offer less in mission flexibility and takes up valuable crews that could be flying something better.

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Given how frugal PLAAF has been with the assets and how new the latest J-10C/J-16 are I doubt that they will divest in meaningful way until 2040s.