Re: New Generation Fighter
I'm thinking along similar lines PLA Wolf. Of course, as I've conjectured that the Black Silk Stocking could be used in anti-carrier strike, I chomping-at-the-bit to see the lengths of the main side weapons-bays. I'd have a heart-attack if there's a long central weapons-bay behind the nose landing gear and running the length of this monster, and I don't think I'd be the only one to do so.
I have always wondered why the designed the J20 to be so very long.
One explanation would be for better range. I'm not yet entirely convinced on the arguments about better trans and supersonic performance. Maybe if someone who supports that view could better explain how being longer helps, I might change my mind.
Anyways, a possible explanation for the seemingly excessive length might well be that it was designed around a very long central weapons bay that might just be big enough to hold a pair of small AShMs side-by side.
That would be a very remote possibility mind. As many people has already pointed out, using the J20 to do anti-carrier attacks would be very risky. But it would also have the greatest chances of success as its stealth design should allow it to penetrate deeper into a CBG's defense perimeter than conventional designs.
However, given the limited number of missiles it could carry, the one or two AShMs it can take internally (under the most optimistic assumptions) would need to be very fast to have any chance of getting past the carrier's point defense even if the J20 somehow managed to evade all the picket ships and CAP (which is unlikely). I was thinking of something like the KH31P here. But such a weapon would not cause enough damage to cripple let alone destroy a carrier.
As I have already demonstrated, even if one get within under a hundred miles of a carrier, it will not carrier a heavy enough punch to do that much damage even if 100% of its AShMs hit home.
Bare in mind that once the J20 shoots, it will expose itself and will probably have a swarm of SM2/6 missiles coming after it, you will be realistically trading a J20 for at most two small hits on a carrier. Which is not worth it by a long way.
Thus, following this line of thought to its logical conclusion, it would seem unlikely that the J20 would not make a very effective anti-carrier weapon even if it was designed with carrier killing in mind, so the chances of that mission influencing its design seems unrealistic.
However, something the J20 may be very useful at would be SEAD and DEAD missions against enemy picket ships.
Now, I know the PLA's ARM of choice the Kh31 or a C80X ARM version would not be able to fit into the weapon's bay (and even if it did the J20 would not be able to carry enough to make it worth while), however, the PL12 has recently been revealed to have a passive homing capability. With only minor modifications, they should be able to make it into a HARM like weapon. Even designing a HARM equivalent especially to fit the bays of the J20 would not be that unrealistic.
Now, if the J20 indeed has rear fuselage weapons bays, it should be able to carry at least a dozen PL12 sized missiles internally (potentially more depending on how many and how big its bays are). With AWACS support and data-link, the PLAN could co-ordinate an attack.
J20s would be running deep penetration sorties to get close to a picket but still stay outside detection range. At the same time, massed JH7 and Su30/J11BS and sub (optional) and surface - 022s (again optional) would launch a massed saturation attack against the CBG focusing on the picket or pickets J20s have been positioned close to.
When the picket starts firing off all its SM2/6s to intercept the incoming AShMs, the J20s would unleash all their ARMs against the picket ship from relatively close range. The J20s then turn tail and supercruise to safety.
The picket ship is suddenly faced with a difficult choice (that is assuming that even AEGIS can handle tracking hundreds of incoming missiles and guiding dozens of its own SAMs to intercept and can still detect and target small, maybe stealthy, ARMs coming from close range in time to do anything about them).
If they turn off their radars, all the missiles they launched are likely to become wasted as the passive SM2s won't have a chance and even the active SM6s may not have gotten within seeker range of the incoming missiles to independently acquire targets if the J20 timed its attack well and especially if the SM6s were using a lofted flight profile to maximise range and end game energy.
Even if the ship had enough SAMs to launch another volley later, would the captain dare turn off his radars knowing there is a swarm of AShMs maybe minutes away? Even if he evaded the ARMs, would he have enough time to re-light his radar and launch a second wave of SAMs against the AShMs in time to do much good?
Bare in mind that the J20 should be launching its attack from the same direction as the incoming AShMs, even if one ARM gets through ESSM, RAM and Phalanx and hits the array facing the incoming missiles, the ship may well be mission killed as it will struggle to bring another array round to face the incoming missiles in time (provided an ARM exploding inside the main superstructure doesn't mission kill the ship outright as it is quite likely to be the case).
At the same time, other J20s could fire passive PL12s at hawkeyes and active PL12s at CAP to keep them busy and make sure the launched SAMs have little chance of getting third party guidance.
That is, of course, just a very crude hypothetical example. But it is there to illustrate my firm belief that 5th gen stealth fighters are scapulas, not sledgehammers. You use them to distract, degrade, blind, disable or locally overwhelm key or specific elements of an enemy's defense, to maximize the chances of your real sledgehammer hitting home, and to maximum the effects of that blow if it does land.
