J-20 spotted with new camo pattern

Two J-20 stealth fighters seen yesterday in Chengdo, China show a new camouflage paint that is likely to be used with the Low Rate Inintal Production (LRIP) batch currently being delivered from the assembly plant in Chengdu.

defense-update.com...


J-20 LRIP is underway. The IOC ought to follow in a couple years. the FOC might be a ways off. However, its still not entirely clear what the role the J-20 fills. It could be an interceptor. It could be a ship hunter. It definitely does not appear to be a dog fighter.

I suspect some anti shipping role, but its primary job will be to kill AWACS. Disrupting command and control is very important and its one of the areas the US is really good at (C&C). Ending that advantage would be huge. (its also why China has invested so much in ASAT tech).

we need the 6th gen and PCAS, I'd say. And counter stealth sensors.

a reply to: anzha

That is one huge fighter jet. WoW!

It would be cool if the US would further the research of fighter drones that are semi-autonomous. I would love to see a pilot compete in an Air to Air dogfight against a fighter drone.

Great find on the story

a reply to: anzha

Wow, that is one sexy plane ...thanks for the link!

a reply to: anzha

Looks even more Ace Combat now!

a reply to: anzha


Except the J-20 probably isn't stealthy enough to hide from any western radars for very long. It's got too many atypical features to be a stealth aircraft. It's got some chiming and internal stores but it's also got plenty of other surface areas and 2 huge 70s era engines.

a reply to: Caughtlurking

All it has to do is be able to get into long range missile range of an AWACS. It'll be able to get closer to one than just about anything else out there.

a reply to: Zaphod58


I don't think it's stealthy enough to get close to an AWACS. Multiple areas in it's design are counterintuitive to it's supposed stealth. Canards in the front.. lower stabilizers.. there are a number of problems with the design. Then what long range A2A weapons does China have that can be fired from the inside of a bay that no one knows the dimensions or capability of. You can build a car to look, drive, and feel like a Mercedes; doesn't mean it's a Mercedes. F-35s or even F/A-18E/F teamed with an AN/A[Y-9 equipped E-2D Hawkeye should be more than an adequate counter for such a threat. If you add in AEGIS equipped destroyers with SM6.. Ah I wouldn't want to be in a J-Anything in that situation. All those sensors hunting you for a bunch of weapons carts waiting for targets.

a reply to: Caughtlurking

It doesn't need to get close though. I said it only needs to get close enough to get a long range shot off. The K-100 was designed as an anti AWACS missile, and has a potential range of 200 miles. The R/K-37 has an even longer range, out to as far as 250 miles. China has been developing a ramjet powered missile with a range out to 120 miles.

China and Russia both are well aware of the capabilities of AWACS, JSTARS, and the RC-135 fleets, and the huge advantage they give our forces, and have been working on counters to them. Russia has the MiG-31 which is capable of a high speed dash, carrying a long range missile. China doesn't have that option so they have to come up with other ways. The J-20 can't get close to an AWACS, but it will get closer than anything else in their inventory.

Its a catchup job with the USAAF lagging behind with missile tech and hypersonics..Watching the tests China pulls off eventually.

a reply to: Blackfinger

I'm still shocked that someone hasn't thought of building an air-launched SM-2 for use as an anti-aircraft standoff missile.

Hell, then you could adapt an air-launched SM-3 for rapid-responding BMD capability.

It surely wouldn't fit on a fighter that wasn't purpose-built to carry it, but I'm sure you could make it fit in a bomber's rotary launcher.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Caughtlurking

It doesn't need to get close though. I said it only needs to get close enough to get a long range shot off. The K-100 was designed as an anti AWACS missile, and has a potential range of 200 miles. The R/K-37 has an even longer range, out to as far as 250 miles. China has been developing a ramjet powered missile with a range out to 120 miles.

China and Russia both are well aware of the capabilities of AWACS, JSTARS, and the RC-135 fleets, and the huge advantage they give our forces, and have been working on counters to them. Russia has the MiG-31 which is capable of a high speed dash, carrying a long range missile. China doesn't have that option so they have to come up with other ways. The J-20 can't get close to an AWACS, but it will get closer than anything else in their inventory.

And everything you just listed is why I cant wait for my wife to get off active duty and Awacs....

that plane is a just a flying target as missile technology continues to increase the viable fire range of air to air missiles.

a reply to: Barnalby

They're too big. The Standard family is huge, and wouldn't fit any aircraft unless you wanted to drop them out the back of a C-130 or something.

If you look at our ALCM systems, with the exception of Hound Dog, which could only be carried externally, the longest missiles carried by our bombers are 20 feet. The Standard is closer to 27 feet. You'd need to design a new launch system, new radar to use as fire control, and other upgrades.

a reply to: Irishhaf

Don't blame you. Give it ten years and without a Black system being installed their survivability is going to drop faster than you can imagine.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Even a non-boosted standard? Didn't they use a variant of it in the 70s as an anti-radar missile?

Anyways, I was thinking about the Standards while on the Leyte Gulf and looking at the 4 sad looking little harpoon tubes that comprised it's entire anti-ship capabilities.

I understand that the US Navy relies heavily on the sub fleet to form the backbone of its anti-shipping capabilities, but nevertheless, in the face of China's blue-water aspirations and ever-growing surface fleet, I couldn't help but think that the US has fallen woefully behind when it comes to operational missile technology. The BrahMos makes the poor little harpoon look like a glorified Estes rocket.

Tomahawks, Harpoons, and JDAMs were all cutting edge when Jimmy Carter was president, and they do fine against insurgents and non-peer states, but they're absolute sitting ducks against Russian/Chinese anti-missile technologies. Even the ESSM's and AMRAAMs fall woefully short against stuff like the Meteor, much less what the Russians or the Chinese are fielding.

The only exception to that though is the good old Standard, god bless the Navy. That system is every bit as terrifying as anything in the Russian/Chinese/Indian arsenal and then some. If only everything else we had was up to that same, uh, "standard".

a reply to: Zaphod58

Heck when I was flying on them 02-05 I knew we were toast if the weasels (or whatever has the job of stomping on ground to air missile sites now a days) made a mistake..

We actually had to go through yearly training on how to spot the plume of smoke from a missile launch... as if there was anything we could do other than go "Oh SNiP".

a reply to: Irishhaf

It least it gives you a couple seconds to try and make peace with your deity of choice...

a reply to: Barnalby

For antiship missiles both the -2 and -6 can be used in that role. As for Harpoon the Block IV , while having a similar flight profile and look, is about as different from the original Harpoon as the AIM-9X is different from the AIM-9B. They're approaching the point where a flight of Harpons will work together and talk to each other, each targeting a separate target and if one with a higher priority target is shot down, one of the others will retarget and switch to the higher priority target.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Basically what the P-700 Granit was supposed to have been able to do back in the 80s? Key word being "supposed", I guess.

While I understand that it was absolutely apples/oranges in terms of naval strategies and that's largely what drove the differing Soviet vs US missile philosophies. There's a lot more of an incentive to develop a weapons system like the Granit when you have 6-8 carrier battle groups to worry about, as opposed to the 1-1.5 that the huskies could have thrown together if a Kiev was free and the Kusnetsov was deciding to play nice.

That said, I would have thought that the moment China started poking around the Varyag that the US would have put carrier-killing anti-ship missiles as the #1 priority.

It didn't even have to be a fancy solution. Heck, I imagine a limited number of F-14's loaded with Harpoons instead of Phoenixs serving as long-legged carrier killers would have done the trick. Sort of a carrier-based mini-Tu-22M.

a reply to: Barnalby

nationalinterest.org...

news.usni.org...

a reply to: Zaphod58

I had read about the Standard, though people seemed to worry about it's relatively small warhead.

Then again, I kind of figure that in any situation where we'd actually be firing on a Chinese or Russian carrier, the only warhead that would truly make sense is a nuclear one. The Granit with the 500kt warhead always seemed to me to be to be the most pragmatic of the bunch.