Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the number of fighter-bombers "Su-34" in active service in the Russian Aerospace Forces has reached 20%, although it does not seem to be much, but for Russia, which has very weak military production capacity, this amount of loss is simply "fatal".
And not only the loss of the "Su-34", along with the loss, there are also pilots, compared to the loss of fighters can be rebuilt, but the pilots will never come back, even if there are new pilots to make up, it is not easy to train an excellent pilot.
Many military fans who are concerned about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, after seeing a large number of losses of the "Su-34", thought of the "J-7" in service in my country's Air Force, and worried that in a wartime state, our "J-7" may encounter the same fate as the "Su-34". So is this concern possible? What should we do?
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When it comes to "J-7", it is the feelings of many military fans and friends. Although today, its performance has long lagged behind, but more than 20 years ago, it was the absolute main force in defending the South China Sea.
At that time, China's strength was still very weak, and the United States also relied on its strength to often send aircraft carrier battle groups to attack and disturb it, which not only led to tension between China and the United States, but also the situation in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea at the instigation of the United States.
Under such circumstances, the "J-7" also came into being, which has a combat radius of 1,600 kilometers, allowing it to perform tactical strike missions in the far sea well, and at the same time it also has a multi-purpose strike capability and shoulders the task of defending the homeland and defending the country.
At the end of the 90s of last century, with the service of the "J-7", China finally had a fighter that could deter and cruise in the South China Sea.
For more than 20 years, our army has served hundreds of "J-7", and it was not until 2016 that the "J-16" was put into service, and its mission was finally completed, and the heavy task of defending the country could be transferred to the hands of the "J-16".
Compared with "J-7", "J-16" is better than "J-7" in terms of situational awareness, bomb-carrying capability, air combat capability, etc., it can be said that no matter in which aspect, "J-16" can perfectly replace "J-7", so after 2016, "J-7" was also discontinued, but "J-7" was not decommissioned and is still in service in our army.
At the Zhuhai Air Show in 2022, with the unveiling of the upgraded "J-7", many military fans and friends believe that the "J-7" can still serve in our army for 10 years, or even longer, which also means that it is expected that the "J-7" will be retired around 2035.
Speaking of which, the reason why our army is reluctant to "J-7" is mainly related to the fact that it can still defend the country and still has great tactical value, and after improvement, the avionics system and mounting system of the "J-7" have also been upgraded, so that it can better adapt to modern warfare.
However, when military fans and friends saw the "Su-34" with an overall performance exceeding the "J-7" but with a very high loss rate in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, they also had concerns about the "J-7" and worried that it was not as easy to use as we imagined.
So why did the Russian "Su-34" have such a high discount rate? In fact, this is related to the fact that modern air defense forces are becoming more and more advanced, and with the enhancement of air defense forces, the threat to air power will naturally be greater.
For example, in the past, when the air defense system was not perfect, the aircraft had a great advantage in the air, and with the improvement of the air defense system, while the aircraft was performing tasks in the air, it was also perfectly locked by the surface-to-air missile, so that the fighter plane would be shot down before it hit the target.
This time, the "Su-34" was seriously damaged on the battlefield, which does not mean that its performance is not advanced enough, but a common problem of all kinds of fighter-bombers around the world, that is, when the fighter-bomber is designed, it integrates the different advantages of fighters and bombers, so that it has both the maneuverability and aerodynamic layout of a fighter, and also has the payload capacity of a bomber.
However, such a "two-in-one" situation will lead to the fact that it is easy to be set on fire on the battlefield, and it will be directly destroyed before it has given full play to its value.
And China's "J-7" as a fighter-bomber, itself also has the same drawbacks as the "Su-34", so it usually carries out patrols and deterrence tasks, but it can't see anything, after all, after the "J-7" is in service, in fact, in the past few decades, China has not experienced war, so "J-7" has no actual combat experience, so daily exercises, daily patrols and other tasks, and the actual war to face the situation is still different, so military fans and friends are worried about the actual combat value of "J-7", Perhaps this concern is not unfounded.
So if the "J-7" is really not suitable for modern warfare, and the hundreds of "J-7" in the hands of our army cannot all be lost, otherwise the overall combat effectiveness of our air force will also be affected, so what should we do if the "J-7" cannot be decommissioned in the short term?
In this regard, some military fan friends suggested that perhaps the "J-7" can be changed to the UAV mother machine, so that even in wartime, the loss rate of the "J-7" will be relatively high, but because there is no pilot on the plane, there is no need to worry about the ** problem of excellent pilots, and in the future war, UAVs will also become the main force, so if the "J-7" can be modified, wouldn't it be able to make it play a greater value?
Speaking of which, if the "J-7" is really changed to a drone, then it can indeed mount a batch of UAVs to fight, and can also command unmanned wingmen to fight, enhance their own strike range and strike capabilities, and because the load of "J-7" is large enough, it can mount dozens of UAVs at most, so that it can perform a variety of strike missions, and the survival rate can also be significantly improved.
Of course, this is just the suggestion of military fans, after all, it is not so easy to modify the UAV with the "J-7", and what we can think of, our military technicians, may have thought of it a long time ago, the reason why the "J-7" re-employment has not been implemented is also because it is no longer the absolute main force in the Chinese Air Force.
And in the future, with the service of "H-20", the importance of "J-7" will be further weakened, even if it is not retired, it will only perform some daily tasks, so modifying the UAV is a way, but the actual effect may not be so great, friends, what do you think of this problem? Welcome to leave a message and let's discuss!