When it comes to the J-5 attack aircraft, the deepest impression may be its one-way Siberian express, or its identity as the only attack aircraft of the Chinese Air Force. So, after the retirement of the J-5 fighter aircraft, will the Chinese Air Force still need a strong attack aircraft, especially a strong attack aircraft similar to the A-10?
In fact, in terms of flight performance of the J-5, the J-5 can be said to be a very special attack aircraft, and it is essentially two types of attack aircraft with the A-10 attack aircraft of the US Air Force. What kind of model is the J-5? Just as everyone has the impression that it is the so-called Siberian one-way express train, the J-5 is actually an attack aircraft that uses low-altitude penetration to undertake penetrating attack missions.
The task given to it by the Chinese Air Force is to let it carry nuclear bombs, or anti-runway bombs, anti-tank bombs, and so on, and fly to the depths of other people's homes to hit stations, airports, and tank assembly areas in the depths of other people's houses. Why fly at low altitudes? At that time, the air defense forces of the ground forces could often only hit high-altitude targets, and it was very difficult to detect low-flying targets. Therefore, a strong attack plane flying at high altitude will definitely be hit by someone, but if it flies at low altitude, it is like a sharp sword, and people may not be able to hit it.
And why is the goal of the J-5 to hit other people's stations, airfields, tank groups and other targets? Because if you ask it to hit a single target, it won't hit it, and the Qiang-5 is equipped with a bombing sight that has long had the problem of bomb accuracy, and it has the problem of inaccurate bombing until the 80s. For example, the coordination between the U.S. Air Force and the Army was gradually matured during the Vietnam War, forming a standard 9-line command format, which has been used to this day.
It is obviously impossible for you to ask the Chinese Army in the 60s and 70s of the last century to engage in air-ground coordination in the style of the US Air Force, so since air-ground coordination is impossible, the Qiang-5 will not be able to undertake the task of striking a single target under the command of the army units, so it is better to follow the route of air force command, rely on aviation reconnaissance to find out how many tanks the enemy has assembled in depth, and which airfield or station is more important, and then bring bombs to blow it up.
Thus, the J-5 is an aircraft of this kind, although nominally a strike aircraft; At first glance, it seems that it is the same type of aircraft as the A-10 of the United States and the Su-25 of the Soviet Union, but in fact the three are very different. If the J-5 is most like, it seems to be a bit like the A-4 of the U.S. Air Force or the A-6 of the Navy, the MiG-27 of the Soviet Air Force, etc., which is a strong attack aircraft used for deep attacks.
And what is the function of the A-10? This is what we usually call a close air support mission. To put it simply, it is the air support carried out on the line of fire, our gang is here, the enemy is over there, and the two sides are fighting back and forth, at this time we need to shake a plane to help, okay, the ground guide can shake the A-10 over.
Therefore, the task undertaken by the A-10 is the opposite of that of the J-5, which requires low altitude and high speed, flying to the hinterland of people, bombing airports, bombing stations, bombing tank groups or something; The A-10 was required to be at low altitude and low speed, to go back and forth on the front line of engagement, and to strike at either a tank group or something, or a single point of fire. For example, if there is a T-72 on the opposite side of the ground forces bombarding your position, or several BMPs are running after your ass, or there is a fire point or something, the A-10 will fly over and knock out these tanks, armored vehicles, or individual fire points, opening the way for the ground forces to attack.
Therefore, the performance requirements of the A-10 are very different from those of the J-5, the J-5 has very poor performance in bomb dropping and aiming devices, and it cannot carry things like air-to-ground missiles, and it is full of cluster bombs, anti-runway bombs and even nuclear bombs. However, the A-10 is equipped with a complete bomb targeting system, including the CCIP CCRP function, and an optoelectronic radar that can guide air-to-surface missiles.
As for the ** equipment, don't look at the A-10 cannon is very powerful, but in fact, the A-10's most important air-to-ground ** is the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile, this thing is specially designed to fight tanks, and a Soviet tank can be powerful - to sum up, we first figured out a problem, A-10 and Qiang-5 two aircraft, it is not the same thing at all.
So, now that the J-5 has been retired, should we equip a successor to the J-5, or do we also follow the example of the U.S. Air Force to make an A-10? Actually, there is no need. The words are divided into two ends, judging from the tasks undertaken by the Qiang-5, as we said earlier, the Qiang-5 aircraft, its mission is to fly to the hinterland of people to make trouble in the heavenly palace, as for what to support the front-line troops or something, it is not within his scope of ability.
Then its successor model, I believe everyone knows, that's right - the J-7A is the descendant of the Qiang-5. In the same way, you can blow up people's runways with anti-runway bombs, you can blow up people's stations and docks with cluster bombs, you can blow up people's tank groups with terminal bombs, and so on. Of course, later, the task of going to the point with laser-guided bombs and air-to-ground missiles was additional, but how to say this point, how to say this point, how much is it still used to hit the most valuable combat target.
After all, the AKD-88 is still relatively expensive as an air-to-surface missile, and it can hit more than 200 kilometers away from people in the loop, so it is obviously overkill to use it to fight tanks. In fact, many troops equipped with Qiang-5 were later equipped with J-7A, and it was precisely because of the emergence of J-7 that the J-6 developed by Lu Xiaopeng was directly dismounted, which fully shows that the real successor of J-5 is J-7A, which is also a J-7A fighter-bomber that also undertakes the task of in-depth strike.
And what about such aircraft as the A-10? In fact, in addition to the Il-10 attack aircraft equipped in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Air Force has never had an aircraft similar to the A-10, and the tasks undertaken by the A-10 aircraft in the Chinese Air Force are solved by the army's artillery and the army's own firepower. Even the A-10 aircraft is a less popular role in the U.S. Air Force, and in the final analysis, the A-10 aircraft is actually the U.S. Air Force and Army seizing the dominance of ground attack missions.
In this process, the US Air Force has repeatedly looked at the A-10 aircraft and has always wanted to cut it, but it has failed because once it is cut, the ground attack mission will be transferred to the leadership of the army. After all, the A-10 plane is such a thing, and it's okay to deal with a guerrilla or something, but now in China and Russia, the field air defense is often Doyle M1 or Hongqi-17, and this thing is too strong, even if the A-10 plane has rough skin and thick meat, it has to be hung up if it eats a missile. Therefore, even the U.S. Air Force itself feels that the A-10 model is outdated, and every year it is trying to find a way to retire this thing and pull it down.
Therefore, after the retirement of the J-5 aircraft, we have our own genuine heir, the J-7A, and after the J-7A is retired, there will also be the genuine successor J-16, and there may be J-20 or similar aircraft in the future. As for such a thing as the A-10, the Chinese Air Force did not have such aircraft in the past, there are no such aircraft now, and it is unlikely that there will be such aircraft in the future.
After all, we now have long-range rocket artillery equipped by group armies, 155-mm howitzers of group armies, and air force reconnaissance and combat integrated drones, synthetic brigades themselves also have Red Arrow 10, anti-tank missiles that can strike beyond visual range, and in the future, it is estimated that there will be a large number of cruise missiles that can be equipped to the brigade level, and even FPV drones equipped with front-line individual soldiers, and ......so onWhich of these things is not better than the A-10 and which is not more powerful than the A-10 when performing fire support tasks on the front line? The U.S. Army's A-10 can only be shaken through cross-service coordination, and the artillery firepower of our group army can be shaken directly from the support of its own service
So a thousand ways and ten thousand, the J-5 and A-10 are completely two types of aircraft, after the J-5 is retired, there are other models to inherit its mission, and we don't need the A-10 at all, this is the case.
Follow Depth of War! Bring you the most cutting-edge military information observation and military history interpretation!