Do you know? J-20, an excellent fighter, actually abandoned the traditional cannon design in order to be better in the sky. It may sound like it loses its ability to fight at close range, but in fact, this is exactly where the J-20 is smart. You must know that as a fifth-generation stealth fighter, J-20's strength is not hand-to-hand combat, but long-range strikes beyond visual range.
Modern air combat is no longer a simple close-quarters dogfight, which is not only difficult to achieve decisive results, but may also bring huge risks to one's own fighters. The main task of the J-20 is to find and destroy the enemy's AWACS and electronic warfare aircraft, and these ** enemy targets are its real goals. And once the J-20's Thunderbolt-15 missiles are all launched, it can also command the drone wingman formation to continue the battle. You see, isn't this the mode of air combat of the future? It is no longer a single fighter operation, but a joint operation closely coordinated with UAVs.
In fact, not only China's J-20, as early as the Vietnam War, the United States' F4 Phantom fighters were only equipped with medium and long-range missiles, not traditional cannons. This speaks to the fact that modern air-to-air missile technology is sufficiently mature and reliable. Therefore, the future J-20 may not even encounter enemy aircraft in the air, because its long-range strike capability is already so powerful. Of course, no matter how powerful the J-20 is, it can't win the entire war on its own. This requires our country to develop more fighters with stronger comprehensive capabilities. Hopefully, this interpretation will give you a deeper understanding of the J-20.