Please be nice, if you can help the blind men, then please do.
J-20 5th Gen Fighter Thread VI
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Please be nice, if you can help the blind men, then please do.
Brumby
Major
The overarching point wasn't about labor content per se but whether in the scheme of things the labor component is relevant and significant enough to derive a comparative cost advantage between the two programs. It would be so lame on all us to go about a dozen posts or so just to argue whether there is labor content in cost.
Of cost labor is a significant component especially downstream within a supply chain. That fact alone doesn't mean country A necessarily can benefit from a cost advantage against country B. For instance taking the gold example you invoked. At raw material level such as gold it would include the labor component of mining it. Problem is gold is traded as a commodity and I can buy or sell gold at the spot price the same as a Chinese buyer if buying for China. China doesn't derive any cost comparative advantage whether labor cost is 1 % or 90 % in mining gold.
Cz4z
Well if you had read your own AFM article, (excellent as usual), you would have read that "Gen "Hawk" Carlisle, raised eyebrows". Why did his statement "raise eyebrows", because it is outside the realm of actual fifth gen knowledge, in other words, "Hawk" was "rallying the troops" telling the F-35 crew they had an awesome bird, that was at least from some aspects, and in certain situations, "stealthier than an F-22, the acknowledged "queen of the alien birds".
PCA/NGAD may at some point in the distant future replace the F-22, but today, tomorrow, and in the next 15 years, the F-22 is and will remain "numero uno"! there is no real money, and most definitely NO REAL AIRFRAME, and with DR DING DONG! aka willy roper running the procurement process, its unlikely to ever happen.....
So for all intents and purposes, the F-22 is indeed irreplaceable, it will be maintained and SLEPed into the far distant future... the J-20 will indeed need to be very worried about the eventuality of going up against the F-22, in fact they will be extremely worried about the F-35 as well...
So the real difference is the F-22 is deadly as a two ship, and the F-35 is deadly as a four ship, as you should well know the F-22 continues to upgraded and will eventually move to more user friendly coatings such as are on the F-35....
The J-20 is a wonderful airplane, and a serious airplane, no one who knows will argue otherwise..... on the other hand anyone who is arguing the J-20 will have a 2-1 kill ratio against the F-35???? that's complete and utter non-sense, and at present it appears that there are likely 18 serialed J-20's in service, some of those are no doubt part of a small test fleet??? that leaves the balance for combat training and developing tactics.... fans of the J-20 are no doubt hoping at some point that production batches will be ramped up far beyond the present rate, in fact that may be happening even now?? but we don't know that with any certainty...
I'd be very interested in any perspectives on how the PLAAF will fight and utilize the J-20?? and numbers do figure into that equation very prominently...
Well if you had read your own AFM article, (excellent as usual), you would have read that "Gen "Hawk" Carlisle, raised eyebrows". Why did his statement "raise eyebrows", because it is outside the realm of actual fifth gen knowledge, in other words, "Hawk" was "rallying the troops" telling the F-35 crew they had an awesome bird, that was at least from some aspects, and in certain situations, "stealthier than an F-22, the acknowledged "queen of the alien birds".
PCA/NGAD may at some point in the distant future replace the F-22, but today, tomorrow, and in the next 15 years, the F-22 is and will remain "numero uno"! there is no real money, and most definitely NO REAL AIRFRAME, and with DR DING DONG! aka willy roper running the procurement process, its unlikely to ever happen.....
So for all intents and purposes, the F-22 is indeed irreplaceable, it will be maintained and SLEPed into the far distant future... the J-20 will indeed need to be very worried about the eventuality of going up against the F-22, in fact they will be extremely worried about the F-35 as well...
So the real difference is the F-22 is deadly as a two ship, and the F-35 is deadly as a four ship, as you should well know the F-22 continues to upgraded and will eventually move to more user friendly coatings such as are on the F-35....
The J-20 is a wonderful airplane, and a serious airplane, no one who knows will argue otherwise..... on the other hand anyone who is arguing the J-20 will have a 2-1 kill ratio against the F-35???? that's complete and utter non-sense, and at present it appears that there are likely 18 serialed J-20's in service, some of those are no doubt part of a small test fleet??? that leaves the balance for combat training and developing tactics.... fans of the J-20 are no doubt hoping at some point that production batches will be ramped up far beyond the present rate, in fact that may be happening even now?? but we don't know that with any certainty...
I'd be very interested in any perspectives on how the PLAAF will fight and utilize the J-20?? and numbers do figure into that equation very prominently...
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
The aircraft is in LRIP, so the cost that the media labelled is by far most likely to be the LRIP, because that's all that exists. I wouldn't even think it might be something else unless they specified it. Just like if a salesman gave you a price menu, you would assume that's the current cost to purchase, not what it cost in the past or what the product should cost in the future. You really don't understand this or is this your way of weaseling the J-20's cost as presented by a source of questionable reliability into what you think it should be?
I want a number that's not made up by you. I want a number from a reliable source. And if there is no such thing, then don't imagine what it is, but if you did it for fun, then don't present it as if it was the truth or definitively close to the truth. How hard is that to understand?
The F-35's stealth isn't a matter of coatings, as with the F-22, but something baked into its composite structure. Without overhauling the F-22's structure, you can't upgrade it to F-35 RAM. Moreover, given the limited number of F-22s in action, why bother? The thing is not going to come back into production, if F-35s get shot down, Lockheed, at worst, is going to add more production lines and build more F-35s.
I'll also point out that if you read the article, there's zero mention of Carlisle in the article.
You're claiming I made up a number, I sourced the number. What, do you want me to go finishing on this forum for the direct source?
What is your problem with a 110 million J-20? Does it somehow make the J-20 a bad plane, or does it make China a bad country? It's cheaper than the F-22, definitely, even if you adjust for inflation and then adjust for experience curve effects.
Like I said before, if the J-20 is expensive, perceptionally, it has to be a better plane. Lower costs get you something along the scale of the Su-57, whose manufacturers have, incredibly, even weaker composites manufacturing than China does (China IIRC recently mastered T800, whereas T1000 etc are aerospace grade used mainly for military affairs). Put along the other lines, if the J-20 ends up being around 80 million or 60 million, then it becomes an analogue for the F-35, a stealth STRIKE fighter, whereas the J-20 is China's sole stealth fighter that will be employed to knock out enemy fighters
As for J-10CE, the rumored, and I emphasize rumored, export cost is 40mn, presumably not including spares, support, and maintenance. The planned JF-17 Block III cost is 32 million. The comparable Western system is the F-16V, which has a flyaway cost of about 60-70mn. We will have to wait until the J-10CE is exported to have an affirmative notion of its production cost.
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Put another way, AFB doesn't believe that the J-20 can 2:1 F-35s. My point isn't whether the J-20 can or cannot, because it depends not only on airframes, but on supporting elements (EODAS B-21 / H-20 support and counterstealth AEW&C) and subsystems (interception XVRAAMs like the PL-21 / PL-15 and AIM-260, laser point defense on future F-35s, micromissiles and active chaff on the F-35), but whether the J-20 NEEDS to do so.
What people arguing for lower prices (China's cheap, labor is cheap [but getting more expensive!]) basically want to say is that the J-20 shouldn't need to 2:1 F-35s. Which gives you a huge problem, because China is going to be facing 1200 F-35s (60% tilt of total production into East Asia theater), implying that China has to build 1200 J-20s to counter.
Moreover, on a symbolic level, managing to 1:1 or resorting to 1:1-ing a lightweight-equivalent / middleweight fighter just says your technology is garbage. It's as if you couldn't take out T-34s on a 1:1 ratio except with Tigers.
We're no longer in a People's War era wherein China is committing to taking 10:1 casualty ratios to deter an enemy, the overall game is a technological race. Getting 2:1 with heavyweight vs lightweight is the ideal circumstance, and getting 4:1 or 8:1 by having a generational advantage is also the ideal circumstance.
==
Put another way, AFB doesn't believe that the J-20 can 2:1 F-35s. My point isn't whether the J-20 can or cannot, because it depends not only on airframes, but on supporting elements (EODAS B-21 / H-20 support and counterstealth AEW&C) and subsystems (interception XVRAAMs like the PL-21 / PL-15 and AIM-260, laser point defense on future F-35s, micromissiles and active chaff on the F-35), but whether the J-20 NEEDS to do so.
What people arguing for lower prices (China's cheap, labor is cheap [but getting more expensive!]) basically want to say is that the J-20 shouldn't need to 2:1 F-35s. Which gives you a huge problem, because China is going to be facing 1200 F-35s (60% tilt of total production into East Asia theater), implying that China has to build 1200 J-20s to counter.
Moreover, on a symbolic level, managing to 1:1 or resorting to 1:1-ing a lightweight-equivalent / middleweight fighter just says your technology is garbage. It's as if you couldn't take out T-34s on a 1:1 ratio except with Tigers.
We're no longer in a People's War era wherein China is committing to taking 10:1 casualty ratios to deter an enemy, the overall game is a technological race. Getting 2:1 with heavyweight vs lightweight is the ideal circumstance, and getting 4:1 or 8:1 by having a generational advantage is also the ideal circumstance.
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Let's lay off the pricing speculations and return to topic please.
I knew I would bore the pants off you guys! lol
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
You just don't get it. I don't have a problem with any number for what it is; I have a problem with every number that is not substantiated. Your false logic is that if something sounds about right and can't be debunked, let's accept it as true, which is the ancient Greek approach to science. The modern approach that I ascribe to is that something needs to have sufficient evidence of its truth for it to be considered true. Here, all we can say is, "A media report of uncertain reliability claimed that the price of J-20 is around $110M. This report was made during early LRIP phase." That's it. Nothing less, nothing more. It's a small side-note of what we might or might not know to be true of the J-20. And here, your're treating the number like a direct statement from Chengdu specifying it's the expected final cost, and that's what I don't like. Accept that with the limited information we have, some things are better left as unknown or rumored, and stop obsessively trying to confirm things that we do not have the information to confirm. That's all; it has nothing to do with whether or not I like the number itself.
The media source, as far as I'm concerned, is basically a CCTV source stating that the J-20 had a flyaway cost of $110 million, and that this claim was made in 2017 during the LRIP period.
Whether it's the LRIP or target price is another question altogether, and it's one we debate on.
The question is whether the $110 mn price is reasonable within the context of general price speculation, when you consider that the modern price of the F-22 is roughly 180 million once adjusted for inflation, and 85% experience curve implies that 400 units a la the lower range of J-20 rumors puts the price down to $150 million. In either case, the J-20 is more expensive than the F-35 (and experience curve implies that the marginal cost of the F-35 will eventually drop to 60 million at the end of its run) and less expensive than the F-22.
My perspective is that it's reasonable, given that, first, it's cheaper than comparable Western aircraft, but not by much, and that we can work off this given the likely role of the J-20 (anti-air fighter in heavyweight configuration).It is, of course, not fully authoritative, but consider that the J-20, under present Chinese policy, will never be exported, it will be rather hard to get a full price unless the PLAAF decides to disclose it.
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Lastly, if we're going to talk about epistemology, Greek logic applies to mathematics. Science isn't even based on Greek deductive logic as the real world is ultimately an inductive space. In reality, what we work with is probabilities ("the sun has come up for all of recorded history, as well as for my life experience, it stands to reason it'll come up again tomorrow", high probability, "the J-20 will have TVC", medium probability, "the J-20 is made out of cheese", low probability). I'm giving you a source and a stated claim, which you're not even rejecting wholeheartedly because somehow (and this is obvious based on your tone) the idea that the J-20 is a heavyweight fighter that has heavyweight fighter costs, even China-reduced, is offensive.
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@siegecrossbow
I will mention that J-20 pricing is highly relevant to the J-20 and that manqiangrexue decided to continue the conversation. But let's split off the PLAAF flyaway costs onto another thread.
Whether it's the LRIP or target price is another question altogether, and it's one we debate on.
The question is whether the $110 mn price is reasonable within the context of general price speculation, when you consider that the modern price of the F-22 is roughly 180 million once adjusted for inflation, and 85% experience curve implies that 400 units a la the lower range of J-20 rumors puts the price down to $150 million. In either case, the J-20 is more expensive than the F-35 (and experience curve implies that the marginal cost of the F-35 will eventually drop to 60 million at the end of its run) and less expensive than the F-22.
My perspective is that it's reasonable, given that, first, it's cheaper than comparable Western aircraft, but not by much, and that we can work off this given the likely role of the J-20 (anti-air fighter in heavyweight configuration).It is, of course, not fully authoritative, but consider that the J-20, under present Chinese policy, will never be exported, it will be rather hard to get a full price unless the PLAAF decides to disclose it.
===
Lastly, if we're going to talk about epistemology, Greek logic applies to mathematics. Science isn't even based on Greek deductive logic as the real world is ultimately an inductive space. In reality, what we work with is probabilities ("the sun has come up for all of recorded history, as well as for my life experience, it stands to reason it'll come up again tomorrow", high probability, "the J-20 will have TVC", medium probability, "the J-20 is made out of cheese", low probability). I'm giving you a source and a stated claim, which you're not even rejecting wholeheartedly because somehow (and this is obvious based on your tone) the idea that the J-20 is a heavyweight fighter that has heavyweight fighter costs, even China-reduced, is offensive.
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@siegecrossbow
I will mention that J-20 pricing is highly relevant to the J-20 and that manqiangrexue decided to continue the conversation. But let's split off the PLAAF flyaway costs onto another thread.
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