It has also been reported many times that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has transformed the obsolete J-6 fighter into an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft for future battles in the Taiwan Strait.
Everyone has seen this kind of talk a lot, so what is the strategic significance of the J-6? What is the role of the J-6 in real combat?
There are many opinions on this point, with some saying that the J-6 is just a decoy, while others say that the J-6 is capable of a variety of tasks.
But no matter from which point of view, this battle in the Taiwan Strait will become a critical period for the J-6 to come in handy.
On the current state of the J-6.
The J-6 fighter is the most produced model in China's Air Force. According to the data, the total number of J-6 fighters currently manufactured by China has exceeded 5,200. By 2010, all J-6s will be retired from the US Air Force.
But soon, many people realized that those J-6s that had been scrapped were not completely scrapped, but resurrected in a completely new way, that is, J-6.
Foreign ** said that Japan's J-6 fighter has been transformed into an unmanned aircraft and equipped in a military base in the East China Sea.
In some of the information and reports in our country, we have also modified the J-6, removing the original cockpit, dashboard and other equipment, and after the transformation, the J-6 has a remote control function and becomes a kind of unmanned aircraft.
Some people feel that if the J-6 is transformed into an unmanned aircraft, it can not only maintain the original supersonic performance of the J6, but also carry more things, and it will soon become an excellent drone.
However, there are still a lot of difficulties in transforming the J-6 into a drone.
In fact, this kind of transformation is not a simple thing. The J-6 is an older fighter that uses a mechanical control method instead of an advanced fly-by-wire control method.
In other words, if we want to remotely control the J-6, then we have to give it a remote control device that matches the machine control system to mimic the way humans manipulate it.
What's more, the original J-6 fighter is not sensitive to the environment, so we must install photoelectric sensors and satellite navigation systems on its body, so that it will not be "blind".
But the J-6 appeared at an airfield on the East Coast, which means that they have converted one of the J-6s into an unmanned aircraft.
This means two things, one is that we have the strength to transform the J-6 on a large scale, and the other is that we have a corresponding vision in the future war.
Three uses of the J-6.
There are three speculations about the purpose of the J-6. The first hypothesis is that the J-6 was used as a target aircraft for air-to-air missile training by the Chinese Air Force.
This speculation is correct, and the J-6 did have some targets in the air training of the Chinese Air Force.
The second speculation is that in the event of a future operation in the Taiwan Strait, a large number of J-6s will set off from the southeastern coast of China to carry out concentrated bombing of the Taiwan Strait.
Using this as a bait to lure the enemy Taiwan military into attacking the air force, first, to reduce the number of Taiwan military's air-to-air missiles, and second, to expose flaws in the Taiwan military's air defense position, so that the Chinese Air Force's multifunctional fighters can quickly clean up.
This speculation is likely to be true, compared with other special types of UAVs, the UAVs transformed from J-6 fighters are almost the same as ordinary fighters in terms of target characteristics, and the characteristics of flight speed and altitude are also the same.
It is difficult for the Taiwan military to distinguish the J-6 from the attack signals of other fighters of the Chinese Air Force, so it can easily achieve the purpose of deception.
As long as Taiwan's air defense system launches an attack, the Chinese Air Force's multifunctional fighters represented by the J-16D, such as multifunctional fighters, will use anti-radiating missiles and precision guidance devices to strike at the Taiwan military's air defense fortifications.
Even if the Taiwan military does not have air-to-ground firepower, the J-6 as bait can be loaded with bombs and become a kind of abandoned suicide U**. Judging by the weight of the J-6, the lethality of this suicide fighter should be not small.
The third speculation is that while China is transforming the J-6, it still maintains the performance of the original J-6 fighter, so that it can carry more than 250 kilograms of ground ** to strike on the ground.
If successful, the J-6 will be of considerable strategic importance and can pose an effective threat to the land targets of the Taiwan military. However, I don't think this idea is likely.
We have already said before that the J-6 is a relatively old fighter with poor armament and no precise guidance.
I want to add a remote control when remodeling. At the same time, it also increases the difficulty of the renovation work. Without a precise targeting system, then ground attacks are greatly limited.
And to equip it, I'm afraid it will have to be remodeled. In this case, it is better to transform a new UAV with precise guidance than a completely new UAV.
How many J-6s are to be retrofitted?
In the future war in the Taiwan Strait, the J-6 will play a greater role. So, how many J-6s do we really need?
When some people talk about it, they say thousands, ten thousands. If you change to other models, with our domestic output, it is no problem to build tens of thousands.
But our J-6 only made 5200. So far, the J-6, which has the ability to be modified and is in good condition, is about two thousand to two thousand.
Therefore, our J-6 will not exceed that amount, and may even be less. But for Jiang Chen, this is more than enough, as long as a few J-6s can lead out Taiwan's air defense system.
And for the modification of the J-6, it is not needed at all. There is nothing special about the transformation of the J-6, which is fundamentally the reuse of some obsolete equipment.
If we can create a new type of drone, then its performance will be better, the cost will be lower, and the manufacturing will be less difficult, at least in the thousands, or even more.
Then let the old Chinese pilot J-6 do his part on both sides of the strait, and there is no need to restart the J-6 production line.