Z-21/Z-X heavy attack helicopter

plawolf said:

You mean like how the USAF is buying F15s again in 2024?

Numbers matter, having something operational in the field matters because no amount of paper drawings will win wars for you.

The Z21, like most contemporary Chinese designs, are evolutionary, not revolutionary in approach, and I think for the next decade or so, this ruthless focus on practicality and deliverable outcomes will be redoubled as China enters its period of greatest danger of being sucked into a major powers direct war before its comprehensive power becomes too overwhelming for the west to have any chance in a direct war.

China will seek to play it safe for the most part to ensure a baseline product can be delivered on time and on budget and in sufficient quantities. They can then roll out upgraded variants later to fully realise the platforms full potential. Just look at the J10 and J20 develop journeys as great examples.

So while the Z21 might not be as ‘sexy’ as US next gen attack helicopter concepts, that very fact is a strength, not a drawback. Because the Z21 is drawing on a mature technology (Z20) to design something along a well trodden and proven conceptual path of a heavy conventional attack helicopter. This should ensure smooth and quick development and delivery of a platform with a ready made playbook for operational employment.

The risks of going out of the box with next gen designs is that you may spend a lot of time and money and end up with nothing, just the latest example.

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I would argue both the US buying F15 in 2024 and China buying J16 in 2020s are money spent to maintain factories and technical knowhows rather then good investment for the air fleet.

On the subject at hand , Z21 , I for one does wish for a revolutionary design , I think prototyping is good , but wide spread adoption of Z21 would be a wrong use of resources .In a future where the role of manned attach helicopter is uncertain adopting any new manned attack helicopter might be a wrong investment ,since these platforms needs to fit into a picture for the next 20 years not 10 years.
We are at the brink of a new paradigm of how war should be waged at a tactical and strategic level , there is a lot of fuck around in the mean time to find out what works , over investing on any one doctrine especially the existing doctrine is a bad idea.
Sure you fight the war with the army at hand not the one you wish for , but I don't think it is wise to invest into what might turns out to be absolute or worse job-less (think US navy LCS program) is a good idea.

wssth0306 said:

I would argue both the US buying F15 in 2024 and China buying J16 in 2020s are money spent to maintain factories and technical knowhows rather then good investment for the air fleet.

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J-16 is basically the core of the current Chinese multirole fighter fleet(certainly the largest and most important of pillars), cmn.

wssth0306 said:

On the subject at hand , Z21 , I for one does wish for a revolutionary design , I think prototyping is good , but wide spread adoption of Z21 would be a wrong use of resources .In a future where the role of manned attach helicopter is uncertain adopting any new manned attack helicopter might be a wrong investment ,since these platforms needs to fit into a picture for the next 20 years not 10 years.

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Vehicle isn't an iPhone, it covers certain required capabilities.
While we can't say for sure how important Z-21 actually is - it may very well be that Z-10/19 experience clearly shows they don't do what PLAF wants them to.
We are ultimately outsiders.

wssth0306 said:

We are at the brink of a new paradigm of how war should be waged at a tactical and strategic level , there is a lot of fuck around in the mean time to find out what works , over investing on any one doctrine especially the existing doctrine is a bad idea.

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Helicopters get into manned-unmanned teaming just as good as all other air vehicles.
We actually saw it to some degree in Ukraine already.
Of all countries in the world, China is probably one of the most capable of benefitting of a manned platform(s) capable of keeping up with unmanned helicopters of all sorts...

ACuriousPLAFan said:

Where did you get the max payload figures for the JH-7 and J-16?

The H-6K/J/Ns can carry upwards of 12 (some claimed 15) tons at most.

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I should have said payload + fuel. To compute the "max payload" numbers I just did (max aircraft takeoff weight - empty aircraft weight).

Aircraft combat payload depends on a load of factors. It depends on the distance the target you want to reach is at for example. If you do aerial refueling or not. Etc. At ferry range the combat payload is effectively zero. And if you just drop the bombs right after you takeoff the payload will be much larger since you need to carry much less fuel with you.

wssth0306 said:

I would argue both the US buying F15 in 2024 and China buying J16 in 2020s are money spent to maintain factories and technical knowhows rather then good investment for the air fleet.

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Not the case with America, because they already allowed that know how to atrophy and now Boeing is struggling to rebuild it again.

wssth0306 said:

On the subject at hand , Z21 , I for one does wish for a revolutionary design , I think prototyping is good , but wide spread adoption of Z21 would be a wrong use of resources .In a future where the role of manned attach helicopter is uncertain adopting any new manned attack helicopter might be a wrong investment ,since these platforms needs to fit into a picture for the next 20 years not 10 years.
We are at the brink of a new paradigm of how war should be waged at a tactical and strategic level , there is a lot of fuck around in the mean time to find out what works , over investing on any one doctrine especially the existing doctrine is a bad idea.
Sure you fight the war with the army at hand not the one you wish for , but I don't think it is wise to invest into what might turns out to be absolute or worse job-less (think US navy LCS program) is a good idea.

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You do realise that the LCS is a perfect example of the risk one takes to attempt to do a revolutionary paradigm shift and introduce a whole new class of warship to perform a whole new kind of mission right? That’s also what the FARA programme, and the Comanche before it tried to do. All cancelled.

The Z21 is minimal risk because it uses proven tech to design something to do a well defined task, a task which the PLA needs doing because it doesn’t yet have a heavy attack helicopter, like the US or Russia. Your argument would apply to the US or Russia, but not to China, because the Z21 fills a blank for China.

The way the leaks have happened also smacks of an officially endorse reveal instead of a genuine breach. That means the project is very well advanced and almost certainly achieved all of its main design objectives and is well on its way to certification and mass production. You will need a major Chinese company to do an unprecedentedly bad job to not bring this to a successful conclusion from here.

Also, while the war in Ukraine is proving to be something of a watershed moment for the Russians and the west, its biggest impact is on ground armoured vehicles. Helicopters have suffered losses on both sides, but those losses are from conventional weapons like MANPADS and traditional air defences, so Ukraine doesn’t really change the dynamics much at all when it comes to attack helicopters.

Given the massive impact drones and mines are having on conventional ground vehicle combat, it actually makes air assault more important.

plawolf said:

Not the case with America, because they already allowed that know how to atrophy and now Boeing is struggling to rebuild it again.

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Yeah. Boeing are having more trouble ramping up the production of the F-15EX, a warmed over F-15, than Russia is having with doing the same for the Su-57. Tells you a lot about the state of Boeing as a company today.

The US continues throwing money at these wonder weapons programs which go nowhere. The Russians produce the actual wonder weapons. And the US can't even produce upgrades of older weapons on time and budget but at least those do come out. Like the CH-53K helicopter.

plawolf said:

You do realise that the LCS is a perfect example of the risk one takes to attempt to do a revolutionary paradigm shift and introduce a whole new class of warship to perform a whole new kind of mission right? That’s also what the FARA programme, and the Comanche before it tried to do. All cancelled.

The Z21 is minimal risk because it uses proven tech to design something to do a well defined task, a task which the PLA needs doing because it doesn’t yet have a heavy attack helicopter, like the US or Russia. Your argument would apply to the US or Russia, but not to China, because the Z21 fills a blank for China.

The way the leaks have happened also smacks of an officially endorse reveal instead of a genuine breach. That means the project is very well advanced and almost certainly achieved all of its main design objectives and is well on its way to certification and mass production. You will need a major Chinese company to do an unprecedentedly bad job to not bring this to a successful conclusion from here.

Also, while the war in Ukraine is proving to be something of a watershed moment for the Russians and the west, its biggest impact is on ground armoured vehicles. Helicopters have suffered losses on both sides, but those losses are from conventional weapons like MANPADS and traditional air defences, so Ukraine doesn’t really change the dynamics much at all when it comes to attack helicopters.

Given the massive impact drones and mines are having on conventional ground vehicle combat, it actually makes air assault more important.

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I agree with the easement that Z21 will be mass produced ,but that what I think it is wrong use of resources.
To rephrase my argument , my point is that the capability gap between Z10 and Z21 is not big enough to justify mass procurement , not because the risk of the program is low , it because even given the off the shelf nature of the Z21 prototype , I think it is not future prof enough.

Every choice has upside and downsides , I might be wrong here ,but I think PLA army aviation would benefit more from more units of an existing upgraded Z10 , instead of the Z21 , given it is unlikely that PLA has also a stealth heavy attack helicopter and a tiltrotor in the coming decades. Basically Z10 is good enough now , and better things then Z21 is coming along soon.

wssth0306 said:

I agree with the easement that Z21 will be mass produced ,but that what I think it is wrong use of resources.
To rephrase my argument , my point is that the capability gap between Z10 and Z21 is not big enough to justify mass procurement , not because the risk of the program is low , it because even given the off the shelf nature of the Z21 prototype , I think it is not future prof enough.

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Except it is. You saw the PLAN test the WZ-10 on the LHDs. And then we had rumors that the tests were considered to be a failure because the WZ-10 wasn't able to carry enough payload to carry viable anti-shipping missiles. The purchase of naval Ka-52 heavy helicopters from Russia was considered. With this helicopter they have a viable platform that could launch anti-shipping missiles.

wssth0306 said:

To rephrase my argument , my point is that the capability gap between Z10 and Z21 is not big enough to justify mass procurement , not because the risk of the program is low , it because even given the off the shelf nature of the Z21 prototype , I think it is not future prof enough.

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Do you have a way to be sure?
we recently saw Z-10ME - and to keep up with the requirements of the time it is now quite....stuffed.
Which is good for capability, but overall shows that the platform starts to struggle.

gelgoog said:

anti-shipping missiles

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I see, PLAN dislikes shipping costs as much as we do (just joking)

gelgoog said:

Except it is. You saw the PLAN test the WZ-10 on the LHDs. And then we had rumors that the tests were considered to be a failure because the WZ-10 wasn't able to carry enough payload to carry viable anti-shipping missiles. The purchase of naval Ka-52 heavy helicopters from Russia was considered. With this helicopter they have a viable platform that could launch anti-shipping missiles.

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would we consider attack helicopter for anti ship role as it's core mission set that it needs to fulfill ? combined warfare doesn't mean a single platform needs to do everything ,
Even given the context of contested beach landing , is the landing force are expected to operate without fixed wing naval aviation ?
Under what circumstance is the mission set of anti ship warfare are expected to be carried out be attack helicopter ?