An image of China Air Force Plateau Airport, which was taken by a foreign civilian satellite, appeared on the Internet. Although the image quality is not very high, we can still distinguish the new fighters stationed at this plateau airport, including two J-20 s, three Airbus P -500 s and 16 J-16 (mislabeled as J-7 in the figure). This huge fleet of 2 1 aircraft, 歼 16, 歼 20 and Air Police -500 joined forces, and the specific location of the airport on the plateau made the outside world have great expectations for the deep meaning behind this rare big move of the Air Force. In a sense, this will be a public appearance of the most common and powerful combat unit of the Air Force in the next few years.
In 2005, the American F-22A stealth fighter completed the research and development for more than 10 years, initially formed combat effectiveness, and declared that the world officially entered the era of stealth fighters. However, at that time, other air forces other than the US Air Force still stayed away from stealth fighters. Therefore, exploring new tactics in the stealth era was once the exclusive patent of the US Air Force. However, on the first flight of 20 10, 1 and 20 1,1,Russian Su -57 and Chinese J -20, the Russian Air Force and China Air Force also crossed the threshold of stealth technology.
Su -57 is subject to the stagnation of the overall level of Russian aviation industry, and its technical status is not perfect, but the number of service is very small, and the overall stealth combat power is still at a low level. On the contrary, China Airlines, which entered this door at the latest, is now equipped with 100 heavy stealth fighters. How these advanced stealth fighters play a role in the air force and how to ensure the maximum combat power has become a very critical issue.
Although China's navy and air force are equipped with large-scale fixed-wing fighter groups, the naval land-based forces are still dominated by the early models of the third generation, such as J-10AH, J-1 1BH, Su -30MK2 and so on. The performance of J-15 carrier aircraft running on two aircraft carriers is slightly better, but its third generation and semi-improved version have not been put into service in batches.
In contrast, in addition to more than 100 J-20s, the Air Force also received more than 500 third-generation semi-fighters, including J-16, J-10B, J-10C and Su -35SK. If more than 600 third-generation improvements such as J-10A, J-1A, J-1B and Su -30MKK, which are still in service, are added, the equipment scale and combat effectiveness of China Air Force fighter units are actually far higher than that of the navy, even in
From about 2005 to 20 16, China's air force began to face the threat of stealth fighters, but limited by its own technical and equipment level, it could only deal with it with third-generation aircraft, and the pressure was not too great. During this period, China not only developed high-performance airborne radar and medium-range air-to-air missile represented by Thunderbolt-12, but also introduced S-300P and S-400 long-range air defense systems from Russia for many times, introduced domestic Red Flag -9/9B and unique advanced meter-wave anti-stealth radar, and initially established an anti-stealth combat system with certain countermeasures.
However, the whole combat system is basically passive, and it still lacks the initiative and preemptive ability. After the service of the J-20, the situation has changed fundamentally. In the early years, the air combat defense system with land-based radar and air defense missiles as the core began to gradually change to the operational mode with J-20 as the "sharp knife" and advanced early warning aircraft commanded from the rear. After continuous technical upgrading and quantity accumulation, the combat capability has finally undergone a qualitative change.
In March, 2022, senior generals of the US Air Force revealed the news that the US F-35A had contact with the J-20 during patrol, and was deeply impressed by the air police -500 who cooperated with the J-20, believing that the threat of the air police -500 was no less than that of the J-20. According to the description of the US military, the American media summarized China's combat system as follows: the J-20 conducts reconnaissance in advance, and the air police -500 is centered, thus guiding the J-20 16 carrying lightning-15 and even other ultra-long-range air-to-air missiles, killing the US early warning aircraft and even stealth fighters, which caused quite a shock internationally.
On the surface, the 2 1 fleet that recently appeared at the western plateau airport consists of 歼-16, 歼 -20 and air police -500, which can not help but give people a feeling of verifying the US media's guess, but this is not necessarily the case.
In the prediction of American media, the greatest significance of J-16 is that as an advanced air-to-air missile carrier, it solves the shortage that J -20 stealth magazine has small capacity and cannot carry large-size ultra-long-range air-to-air missiles. In addition, the J-20, which is active in the front-line high-intensity area, will inevitably destroy its stealth state once it opens the magazine to launch air-to-air missiles, thus being discovered by the opponent's advanced reconnaissance system.
However, the problem is that if the hunting target is set as a high-value target such as the other side's early warning aircraft, even if the detection of the other side's stealth fighter and ground (sea) radar is not considered, the J-16 without stealth capability must be at least 350 kilometers or even 400 kilometers away to ensure its own safety. With the current level of science and technology, it is almost impossible to develop an air-to-air missile with such an amazing range.
As for the stealth fighter against each other, it is even more impossible. Because the fighter's radar power and search range are destined to be lower than that of the same generation early warning aircraft, it is indeed possible for the J-16 to launch air-to-air missiles with coordinates provided by J-20 and Air Police -500, which is beyond the detection range of F-22/35 radar.
However, the four generations of fighters all fly at supersonic speed for a long time and are super-maneuverable. Even the F-35 series, which is the least optimistic, is not as good as the third-generation semi-fighter. Therefore, it is generally considered that advanced air-to-air missiles such as thunder and lightning-15, AIM- 12D, meteor, etc. When attacking a typical stealth fighter target, the inevitable distance is about 30-40 kilometers. If J-16 launches an air-to-air missile at least 150 km away and flies to the vicinity of the other stealth fighter under the relay guidance of the air police -500, the remaining energy is simply not enough to meet the needs of attacking stealth fighters.
What's more, the killing of high-level air battlefields has always been chaotic, and it is ideal to think that you can attack your opponents in a neat team. Therefore, in fact, only the Russian Air Force with a small number of Su-57s and several countries in Europe and East Asia with a small number of F-35s are seriously considering integrating the three-generation semi-fighters into the new generation air combat system.
As the only high-end players in the world, the scale, technical level and even the future improvement and development potential of stealth fighters of China Air Force and US Air Force are not comparable to those of those countries, and the road they choose is naturally higher.
Both the Chinese and American air forces have developed two stealth fighters, one light and one heavy, and continue to equip three generations of semi-heavy aircraft, electronic fighters and a new generation of early warning aircraft. Among them, J-20 and F-22A are the most important air combat missions, while J-16 and F- 15EX exist as transitional strike forces against the sea and the ground.
Specifically, the quality and quantity of stealth fighters of the Chinese and American air forces are quite large, and the auxiliary role of J-16 and F- 15EX in air combat is unnecessary and disdainful. The number of 4-6 air-to-air missiles carried by a heavy stealth fighter can actually meet the operational needs. After all, this configuration is actually the most common in the actual combat of the third generation machine.
It should be noted that due to the relaxation of the overall situation after the end of the Cold War, the pace of global military equipment renewal has slowed down significantly, especially the upgrading of airborne weapons of stealth fighters, which is far behind the development speed of stealth fighters.
For example, the domestic Thunderbolt-15 air-to-air missile is mainly to meet the needs of three generations and a half fighters, so when it is loaded into the J-20 stealth magazine, due to the limitation of length and wings, it can only carry up to four pieces. Although the US Air Force realized this problem earlier and specially developed AIM- 120C to adapt to the mounting environment of stealth fighters, so that the F-22A magazine can carry six medium-range air-to-air missiles, there are still obvious problems in using ground-to-sea weapons.
The most common circular cross-section design in sea-to-ground weapons is mainly to reduce windward resistance, increase weapon range and reduce fuel consumption of fighters when flying abroad. However, when facing the stealth magazine with limited thickness, this design becomes a very difficult problem. Except KF-2 1 non-mainstream semi-stealth fighter launched by Korean aviation industry uses semi-buried magazine to solve the problem, other countries invariably choose to carry small-weight precision-guided bombs for transition.
But this is only a temporary solution, not a permanent cure. So after repeated weighing, the US Air Force finally turned its face. /kloc-after receiving the last F- 15E in 0/7, it began to equip the F- 15EX. The logic behind it is that because the combat system of stealth fighter is not perfect, the heavy airframe and mature performance of F- 15EX are taken as the transition to form the main air combat force of F-22A, and F- 15EX is responsible for attacking the sea and the ground, and F-35 is assisted at both ends, which is the best scheme at this stage.
Although the average purchase unit price of F- 15EX is above $ 1 100 million, it looks terrible, but because the original training and logistics support system is relatively perfect, this economic cost is not particularly high compared with military benefits.
At the same time, in view of the incompatibility between stealth fighters and traditional airborne sea-to-ground weapons, the American aviation industry has continuously invested in improvement. At present, the road of developing heavy unmanned wingman to carry large caliber weapons and optimizing the aerodynamic structure and power configuration of sea/ground weapons to reduce the volume has been outlined. It is expected that around 2030, the airborne weapons that have been stagnant for many years will complete this round of updating, and the tactical strike system of the US Air Force will be optimized to the ideal configuration of the F-22A and the evolved F-35.
The development ideas of China Air Force and US Air Force in the stealth era are similar in essence, but there are still some differences between them due to their respective technical characteristics and historical factors. Specifically, the research and development of the medium-sized fighter 歼 35 cooperating with 歼 20 is not over yet, so 歼 20 and 歼 16 undertake tasks similar to those of F-22A and F- 15EX, but 歼 20 is used as a "lubricant".
However, J-16' s standard combination of giving full play to the advantages of large bomb load and long range will certainly not change. In the future, with the gradual service of J-35, the position of J-10C will be gradually replaced, and even the role of J-16 will gradually fade out of the historical stage with the improvement of the quantity and quality of J-20 and J-35.
It should be noted that since the F-22A heavy aircraft production line of the US Air Force has been closed, it is not only impossible to increase the number, but also difficult to carry out batch improvement and upgrading afterwards. Therefore, the future is actually a rare situation in which the medium-sized F-35 is the mainstay, supplemented by the heavy F-22A.
However, the J-20 is destined to be the absolute main force of stealth fighters in the future because of its abundant body space and high technical maturity. Moreover, compared with the F-35 series, the road of improving airborne weapons was chosen in the development process. The appearance of the J-20 two-seat type indicates that the domestic UAV group, which can be called science fiction, will actually be the key development direction.
At present, it is hard to say which way the two sides choose is better or worse, but what is certain is that the confrontation between the J-20 and the F-35 will be the highlight of the global air power struggle before the fifth generation fighters are put into service in batches after 2030.
Of course, it is still too early to talk about this. The combination of J -20, J-16 and Air Police -500, plus F-22/35, F- 15EX and E-3, is the most powerful air combat system in the world. Although there is no absolute advantage or disadvantage between the two, and it is difficult to distinguish them theoretically, it is certain that all air forces except the two have no strength to confront them.
The China Air Force has begun to deploy this high-end configuration in the western region where there is no threat of stealth fighters for the time being, indicating that the key areas in the east have been equipped with advanced enough combat power, and it is time to set it in the west as a routine arrangement to deter gangsters.