With the growing strength of our country, the specific number of advanced fighters of the Chinese Air Force has become the focus of attention of all military forces around the world. Recently, the British "Jane's Defense" released a report, saying that the Chinese Air Force is accelerating the equipment of advanced heavy fighters such as J-16 and J-20A for front-line troops, and believes that from January 2023 to the present, the Chinese Air Force has obtained 15 J-16 fighters and 11 J-20A fighters (I don't know how Jane's Defense got the data). Jane's Defense believes that the modernization of the Chinese Air Force is accelerating, and the overall combat capability is accelerating to increase. So, is Jane's Defence's statement accurate?What is the combat effectiveness of our Air Force today?
Jane's Defense accurately pointed out the scale of China's Air Force J-16, J-20A and other fighters in the report. It is believed that the Chinese Air Force is currently equipped with 233 J-16 fighters (excluding J-16D electronic warfare racks J-20A fighters. The author is very skeptical about Jane's defense data** for two reasons: first, Jane's defense data is too accurate, specific to single digits, and such an accurate figure is obviously impossible for the UK to get;Second, our Air Force has publicly equipped more brigades with J-20 fighters than with J-16, and from the perspective of Air Force needs, the total number of J-20A seems to be more than J-16. Therefore, Jane's Defence's data is definitely wrong.
Perhaps, Jane's Defense wants to use these data to confirm and "exaggerate" the threat of the Chinese Air Force;Unfortunately, the erroneous data actually backfired, on the one hand, making Jane's defense argument no longer credible;On the other hand, in fact, the strength of the Chinese Air Force is even stronger than described by Jane's Defense, and Jane's Defense uses the erroneous data of "shrinkage", not only does not "exaggerate" the Chinese Air Force, but "underestimates" the Chinese Air Force!Why?
You must know that our Air Force has publicly equipped the number of aviation brigades equipped with J-20A fighters, and the number is 11;At the end of last year, there were 10 brigades, and this year one more brigade has been added. If the J-20A fighters of these brigades can be fully staffed, then the scale of the J-20A fighters of the Chinese Air Force will be at least about 250;Of course, even if it is not able to be fully staffed, it is estimated that there are more than 200 J-20A fighters in 11 brigades. Jane's Defense said that the Chinese Air Force has 127 J-20A fighters, which is obviously "underestimating" the strength of the Chinese Air Force.
In addition, China's Air Force has now made public, equipped with J-20 fighter aviation brigades, in fact, more than equipped with J-16 aviation brigades, many ** has estimated that the brigade equipped with J-16 is about 7, if it can be full, then the number of J-16 fighters in China's Air Force should be about 150-200. Of course, there are also some ** who believe that the number of J-16 fighters should be more, because the J-16 fighter is actually a supplement to the insufficient number of J-20 fighters, and the J-16 fighter is equipped with the navy and naval aviation, and the total number should be about 200-300.
No matter what the total number of J-20 and J-16 is, it is impossible for Jane's Defense to grasp it, and from a practical point of view, Jane's Defense estimates may be lower than the actual equipment of the two fighters. From here, it can be seen that the Western military ** has always been unreliable.
As Jane's Defense said, the strength of our air force has grown rapidly in recent years. However, this increase is very reasonable, because the pressure on our country to fight in the air is also increasing. In recent years, the U.S. Air Force has strengthened its layout around China, and the combat strength of the Japanese and South Korean air forces has also been upgraded. For example, the U.S. Air Force currently has about 120 F-16C D series fighters and more than 50 F-15C D series fighters deployed at bases in Japan and South KoreaIn addition, there are F-22A and F-35 fighters stationed in the country, and the system of rotation deployment is implemented, so that the number of fifth-generation aircraft of the US Air Force in the direction of the Western Pacific has been maintained at about 50, and the carrier-based aircraft of the US Navy have not been counted here.
In addition, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force is currently equipped with about 200 F-15J DJ series fighters and 91 F-2A B fighters, which is also very strongThe ROK Air Force is currently armed with 59 F-15K fighters and 169 F-16C D fighters. Including these planes and the carrier-based aircraft on the US Navy's aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and other countries are still very strong in their aviation combat strength in the Western Pacific, which is enough to pose a serious threat to a world-class military power.
Of course, the current Chinese Air Force is equipped with more than 1,200 fourth-generation fighters such as J-10A B C, J-11A B C, J-16, Su-27SK, Su-30MKK, Su-30MK2, Su-35S, etc., as well as more than 200 J-20A fifth-generation fighters, which seem to be enough to deal with the aviation combat power of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the Western PacificHowever, considering that Japan has a large land area and many neighboring countries, and needs to deal with threats from multiple directions, it is actually difficult to concentrate all of its air combat power in the eastern direction, so it is still very difficult for us to deal with a strong enemy from the western Pacific direction.
Therefore, although the Chinese Air Force is now strong, it has not exceeded its actual needs, and it is still a certain distance from ensuring stable national defense security. Moreover, there are even some units in China's Air Force, equipped with J-7, J-8II and other fighters, this old second-generation fighter has completely failed to meet the needs of modern air combat, and can only play a role in maintaining scale, rapid volleying, daily cruises, filling the battle line and other needs, and can not be used as a real "fist force".
Therefore, although the J-20 fighter and J-16 fighter have been equipped a lot in recent years, they still meet the rigid needs, and even the speed of their service cannot fully keep up with the needs of the Air Force fighters to be redressed and upgraded, after all, there are still hundreds of second-generation fighters in the Chinese Air Force waiting to be reequipped. As far as China's air force is concerned, there is still a huge gap between the US Air Force and the US Air Force in terms of large air tankers, air transport planes, early warning planes, reconnaissance planes, electronic warfare planes, and so on.
All in all, although Britain's "Jane's Defense" has publicized the improvement of the combat strength of our Air Force, and also expressed awe of the increase in the number of China's J-20, J-16 and other fighters, we still have to be calm, we must not be too excited about these existing achievements, and we must continue to work hard with perseverance, and strive to erase all the gaps between our Air Force and strong enemies as soon as possible!