That's great mate, can you tell me every fighter wing equipped with F-22A's in the USAF? Well until you do I wont consider you fit to comment on 5th gen platforms...
Irrelevant. We're talking of the PLAAF here.
Really? How many E-3 equivalent AEW platforms have the PLA deployed? The US fields 34, NATO fields a further 18. How many rivet joint esk platforms??? How many proper tankers (not badger conversions)??? The fact is the lack of force multipliers (and by that i don't just mean tankers and AEW) is a significant constraining factor for the PLAAF, and the IAF, compared to the Russians or USAF.
Excuse me, but you are grouping the entire NATO into one group as it is one country. How many countries are there in NATO and tell me how do you intend to share those platforms?
I can tell you that the PLAAF has two flights of KJ-2000s. At least that is 8, but this isn't the end of the production line. In addition there is probably a flight of KJ-200s. As for SIGINT/ELINT platforms, they do exist among the Y-8GX variants, but the numbers are not discernible. There is also a number of planes disguised in civil garb but act as ELINT platforms. We're talking of regiments here that collectively keep, maintain and fly the Y-8GX variations into one place. And like I said, these include not just AEW, but also ground ISR, ELINT, SIGINT, ECW, and C31.
Well even the Swedes deployed an active phased array based AEW platform in the 90's, simply putting and AESA on a Y-8 hardly world leading. Pluss the fact that PROC has precious little experience in radar design and has not demonstrated capacity through previous gen systems means they are probably not going to be fielding world beating systems. I wouldn't be surprised if the Y-8 "Balance Beam" is comparable to erieye in terms of classic radar performance (it is clearly physically based on said system), but then again that's hardly MESA is it?
How do you define world leading? The PRC does have radar experience that goes back at least to the eighties. They have learned pretty quick to produce what they have---multimode fighter radars with GMTI already started appearing before the turn of the decade; antiship missile seekers using spread spectrum; search radars with pulse compression as early as the 90s.
The PRC didn't know much about telecommunications before the 2000s, and now two of their companies are in the world cutting edge of telecommunications technologies and are doing 4G contracts.
They're able to radar map the moon for god sakes. That would have required a Ka band AESA with SAR; you need the GaAs for radiation hardening against cosmic radiation.
I come across this argument over and over again with emerging powers, "we don't know what the capability of brand new XXX form of tech is but there's no reason it wont be as 'good' as US/EU/Russian (world leaders) equivalent"... The fact is that becoming a world leader in a form of technology isn't a sure thing just because you have the $$$, and doesn't happen overnight. The first time your nation has deployed a system that's domestically developed, without help from outside, its very, very unlikely to be world leading tech.
They did get their help from outside, the fundamentals are learned from the eighties to the early nineties. all stemming back from graduates from Russian universities. Today a lot of the fundamentals can even be found in open source. You think countries cannot send their students abroad to study in the best engineering universities. You think corporations don't come in and invest into joint ventures, and thereby teach or license various dual use technologies?
This company for example, is a leading source of SAW components, and this is a fundamental component in radars. This company tops in my list as those that can manufacture an AESA module due to published papers from engineers connected to that institute.
http://www.ndsaw.com/
Remember the USAF has deployed the F-22A in squadron strength, and they are the world leaders.
We're only talking about the PLAAF here.
All a full generation behind (R-27 equipped flankers are arguably further behind technologically).
Nope. These Su-27s and J-11s are photographically confirmed to have R-77s, and media confirmed as well (go talk to Jane's Missile news editor, Robert Hewson).
R-77 capable makes them almost competitive with AIM-120C5 equipped F-16's. (still a full generation behind the F-22A by the way).
That's still better than most countries that still don't have AMRAAM, or carry the C5 or earlier versions of AMRAAM. In addition, the PRC does manufacture the PL-12, which they believe is better than the R-77. They don't rely on a fixed quota of slammers.
I would say the J-10 is competitive to any 4 and 4.5 generation aircraft that is packing a MSA. It certainly has HMS and ARH missiles. They're already testing the next main variant of the J-10 by the way, if you didn't catch Jane's following up on the news reported on the forums. Do note and you can see it visually, that the radome bulkhead of the plane is canted this time.
As for the JH-7A, it does have stand off missile capability, not just antiship missiles. Similarly to the Su-30MKK, we're talking of SLAM and SLAM-ER type missiles, basically YJ-83 converts with an electro-optical seeker using image contrast recognition. The range is better than the Kh-59ME (at least 180km vs. 115km).
See this is the problem with quantitative analysis, it rarely (if every) illustrates real capability, and the fact that you think real world capability is comprised of x number of ARH equipped platforms or y number of HOBS equipped platforms tells me that you dont understand the substance of the argument I'm making (that you are in fact replying too).
If you got force multipliers but sending fighters without ARH, without HOBs against fighters that do, is just vectoring fighters to their doom anyway.
Sure the PLAAF will probably move up my list in 10 years time, it may even make it into the 'global' category. But the PLAAF will not be able to match the Russians or Americans in 10, 20 or even 30 years, in my opinion.
I'm not trying to compare this with the US who has an airforce still at least five times the budget. But the Russians? Why don't you go ahead and tell me how many ARH ready aircraft they currently have, then match that to their operability rates.
I'm debating you about this stereotype that the PLAAF is nothing more than a vast antique MiG-21 force with little force multipliers. Far from it. Their modern aircraft alone currently is more than enough to be a separate air force on their own, and they have a growing number of force multipliers.
