The PLA has always been implementing "system warfare", and both the J-36 and J-XX are part of a huge combat system. Before Christmas, the Type 076 was just a large ship that could launch drones, but a week later it had become a force multiplier for the sixth-generation aircraft combat system.
What do you think of the idea that the PLA will create a dedicated carrier for tanker refueling? A little larger than the type 076(60K tons?) with a dozen or so drones and a few J-35. Escorted by 052D and a few 054L along with perhaps a couple of diesel electric subs. Enough to fuel a squadron of J-36 out to 3000 or 4000 km at one go. The drones can land and reload for a second squadron. If they can control the ocean out to 4000 km from mainland, it makes a lot of sense to have this type of refueling capacity on a ship.
I suppose the alternative is just to pump out more 076. The upside is, they can use them as amphib landing ships in an alternate scenario. The downside is, I don't know the original intent for 076 and if the operating tempo is suited for high intensity war where a dozen drones must be refueled and back up in the sky at a certain time. How many of these drones and fuel can it realistically hold for this purpose.
Really excellent article TP even using the Kuril islands as a power projection base for the j-36 with mid air refueling could allow china intercept B-21S coming from the continental US and
actually, I'm not saying to use Kuril Islands, but rather the sea. I don't think Russia has an issue with China flying over its air space in a war, but using land base routinely is going to be a problem.
Excellent article, Chinese armed forces will simply overwhelm a US MIC that is far less efficient and lacks the technological and manufacturing base of China. The Chinese economy is also significantly bigger and growing faster, so it can much more easily fund such programs. China will bankrupt the US in any arms race. Especially when China is regional and defensive and the US is global and offensive.
Will be interesting to see whether it goes in the direction of hybrid electric engines. In principle, the turbofan and even the compressor could be replaced by electric drive. Is there a benefit? That's still being determined. In principle, it could simplify construction and maintenance vs 2-spool or esp 3-spool turbofans, which need multiple sets of turbine and compressor blocks, rotating at different rates to cover wide performance envelope. Moreover, the air stream generating thrust could be further separated from the air stream generating power, which may be an advantage for thermal reasons. Maybe you could have really unlikely combinations like an electrically-compressed afterburning turbojet or something more like a ramjet, i.e. no turbine which in turn enables higher compression ratio. Perhaps more conventionally, faster spin-up and better takeoff performance for the weight could be achieved in an ordinary engine. Perhaps fuel economy to be improved for long subsonic cruise, by using electric boost to reduce the required peak performance and thus size of the main turbojet components. Fuel economy surely a key measure of performance the wide-open air and sea spaces of the Pacific. Another possibility is that one of the 3 nozzles is for just a large APU, which isn't built to generate thrust.
Hi TP, what do you make of Elon's Musk revelation on X that the thrust to weight ratio of both F119 of F22 and F135 of F35 has been falsified and are nowhere near the claimed 10:1 for F119 and 11:1 for F35. This puts China's jet engines significantly ahead of US if this proves to be true.
Thrust to weight was one of the brag points and benchmark for US jet engines superiority. It was a figure recited by American netizens fan boys, strutting their chest, of American superiority. This was a big technological goal set for China. It would be funny that now as China has exceeded the 10:1 threshold with WS15, we find US specs were false and fraudulent.
The area that USA has the most dominance over all other countries is actually the Submarine service (has been since WW2).
If we are talking about system warfare, I'm curious to see what's going to happen on the underwater front in terms of reveals this year. If that balance gets upset then I think we will see tensions escalate, a lot.
The PLA has always been implementing "system warfare", and both the J-36 and J-XX are part of a huge combat system. Before Christmas, the Type 076 was just a large ship that could launch drones, but a week later it had become a force multiplier for the sixth-generation aircraft combat system.
Hello TP,
What do you think of the idea that the PLA will create a dedicated carrier for tanker refueling? A little larger than the type 076(60K tons?) with a dozen or so drones and a few J-35. Escorted by 052D and a few 054L along with perhaps a couple of diesel electric subs. Enough to fuel a squadron of J-36 out to 3000 or 4000 km at one go. The drones can land and reload for a second squadron. If they can control the ocean out to 4000 km from mainland, it makes a lot of sense to have this type of refueling capacity on a ship.
I don't think they need a dedicated carrier, but they do need a tanker drone variant that can launch off EMAL.
I suppose the alternative is just to pump out more 076. The upside is, they can use them as amphib landing ships in an alternate scenario. The downside is, I don't know the original intent for 076 and if the operating tempo is suited for high intensity war where a dozen drones must be refueled and back up in the sky at a certain time. How many of these drones and fuel can it realistically hold for this purpose.
I think they can just have more carriers.
Really excellent article TP even using the Kuril islands as a power projection base for the j-36 with mid air refueling could allow china intercept B-21S coming from the continental US and
actually, I'm not saying to use Kuril Islands, but rather the sea. I don't think Russia has an issue with China flying over its air space in a war, but using land base routinely is going to be a problem.
Your right that could cause issues of national pride amongst the russians as long as china has access over Russian airspace and waterways
Great article!
Excellent article, Chinese armed forces will simply overwhelm a US MIC that is far less efficient and lacks the technological and manufacturing base of China. The Chinese economy is also significantly bigger and growing faster, so it can much more easily fund such programs. China will bankrupt the US in any arms race. Especially when China is regional and defensive and the US is global and offensive.
I love China.
Just came here from Carl zhu who I saw on Jamarl Thomas !! Love community love edu ty for all you do humanity heroes
Will be interesting to see whether it goes in the direction of hybrid electric engines. In principle, the turbofan and even the compressor could be replaced by electric drive. Is there a benefit? That's still being determined. In principle, it could simplify construction and maintenance vs 2-spool or esp 3-spool turbofans, which need multiple sets of turbine and compressor blocks, rotating at different rates to cover wide performance envelope. Moreover, the air stream generating thrust could be further separated from the air stream generating power, which may be an advantage for thermal reasons. Maybe you could have really unlikely combinations like an electrically-compressed afterburning turbojet or something more like a ramjet, i.e. no turbine which in turn enables higher compression ratio. Perhaps more conventionally, faster spin-up and better takeoff performance for the weight could be achieved in an ordinary engine. Perhaps fuel economy to be improved for long subsonic cruise, by using electric boost to reduce the required peak performance and thus size of the main turbojet components. Fuel economy surely a key measure of performance the wide-open air and sea spaces of the Pacific. Another possibility is that one of the 3 nozzles is for just a large APU, which isn't built to generate thrust.
this certainly would make sense for the next generation of engine. But we will have to wait and see what they come up with.
Hi TP, what do you make of Elon's Musk revelation on X that the thrust to weight ratio of both F119 of F22 and F135 of F35 has been falsified and are nowhere near the claimed 10:1 for F119 and 11:1 for F35. This puts China's jet engines significantly ahead of US if this proves to be true.
I don't think much of it. Both are classified and I don't think Chinese engine is ahead of US
Thrust to weight was one of the brag points and benchmark for US jet engines superiority. It was a figure recited by American netizens fan boys, strutting their chest, of American superiority. This was a big technological goal set for China. It would be funny that now as China has exceeded the 10:1 threshold with WS15, we find US specs were false and fraudulent.
China is not ahead of US here.
The area that USA has the most dominance over all other countries is actually the Submarine service (has been since WW2).
If we are talking about system warfare, I'm curious to see what's going to happen on the underwater front in terms of reveals this year. If that balance gets upset then I think we will see tensions escalate, a lot.