The Redhunter

This is the Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23, the plane that in 1991 lost the competition to the F-22

And the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, the Air Force's current top of the line fighter. It was meant to be our main fighter, replacing the F-15 for use in the most high-threat environments. Until President Obama, in his infinite wisdom, stopped production of this fighter at 187 units, that is. This is not nearly enough planes to meet various global threats, but Democrat constituency groups needed the money more so it was an easy decision for him.

And finally for the U.S., the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. This aircraft grew out of the JSF, or Joint Strike Fighter, program. It will be used by all services; a traditional version by the Air Force where it will replace the F-15 (now that the future production of the F-22 has been canceled) and F-16, a naval version where it will replace the F-18 Hornet, and a VSTOL (Vertical and/or Short Landing and Take Off) version for the Marine Corps where it will replace the AV-8 Harrier. It looks like the military will be allowed to have this plane to replace their fleet of very old fighters, all of which first flew in the 1970s. It's pretty good, but not top of the line like the F-22. Too bad, because with fewer F-22's than expected will have to be our top fighter in most situations, a role for which it was not designed. No worries, if our enemies don't make too many of their new jets most of our guys will survive.

Not to be outdone, the Russians are developing their own fifth-generation stealth fighter, the PAK FA. It'll be like all recent Russian fighters; good performance but lacking in electronics. Their cockpit technology is about 20 years older than what you see in Western aircraft. They also have problems with reliability, that is, their jets require a lot of maintenance meaning that their readiness rates aren't as good as ours. But see my discussion below about Vietnam...

Ok, So What Does It Mean?

Bill Gertz has a great piece in the Washington Times explaining the background so I'll quote all of it:

The Pentagon is scrambling to explain what appears to be an intelligence failure after Internet photos made public recently showed a faster-than-estimated advance of China's new fifth-generation warplane.

U.S. intelligence estimates previously concluded the jet, dubbed the J-20, will not be deployed until 2020.

Vice Adm. David Dorsett, director of Naval Intelligence, told a group of defense reporters on Wednesday that the new Chinese fighter program was not a surprise, but "the speed at which they are making progress ... we underestimated."

"Across a broad array of weapons systems, they are making progress," the three-star admiral said.

Progress on the J-20 is among several other Chinese military developments that U.S. intelligence agencies have been accused of missing over the past decade. Others include the failure to detect a new class of Chinese submarine called the Yuan and shortcomings related to Beijing's long-range cruise missiles and a new anti-ship ballistic missile.

Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. Dave Lapan confirmed to Inside the Ring that recent photos of a new Chinese jet show "taxiing tests" on a prototype aircraft apparently photographed by people who saw it pass by.

"This is evidence that a fifth-generation fighter program is proceeding," Col. Lapan said.

"However, progress appears to be uneven: Open-source reports show that China has been seeking jet engines for its fourth-generation fighter from Russia, indicating that they are still encountering some difficulties in working toward fifth-generation capabilities," he said.

The faster development of the J-20 was first discussed by Chinese Gen. He Weirong, deputy commander of the Chinese air force last year. He predicted deployment as earlier as 2017.

The jet is expected to rival the U.S. F-22 superfighter whose production was canceled by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates after 187 jets were built. In scrapping the F-22, Mr. Gates stated publicly that one reason for his decision was that the Chinese would not deploy a comparable jet until 2020, thus more F-35 jets would be built instead of the more capable F-22.

Richard Fisher, a military analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center who was among the first to spot the J-20 photos months ago, said the aircraft is manufactured by the Chengdu Aircraft Co.

"Chengdu's goal is to beat the F-22 and then build their own F-35 when the 18-ton thrust engine is ready. It is a full challenge to the U.S. strategy for air power," Mr. Fisher said.

Both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations are to blame for not continuing production of the F-22, which is needed if there is ever a conflict with China over Taiwan, he said.

"Absent a better combat aircraft, this constitutes one of the most serious U.S. intelligence and leadership failures since the end of the Cold War," Mr. Fisher said.

Mr. Fisher said the images of the jet reveal that China is advancing rapidly toward fielding a credible and competitive fifth-generation fighter. The photos show a large fighter with radar-evading stealth features, an advanced electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and "supercruise" -- the ability to fly at supersonic speed for long distances using less fuel, he said.

"With refueling, this fighter can carry the fight out to Guam," Mr. Fisher said.

As for the Pentagon's claim that the Chinese are having problems developing an advanced engine for the jet, Mr. Fisher said China is ground-testing a new, more powerful jet engine and, as a result, could deploy the new jet by 2017.

"If the United States wishes to remain an Asian power capable of deterring Chinese aggression, or preventing future generations from becoming victims of China's dictates, it is essential that an improved version of the F-22 be put into crash development, as well as putting a sixth-generation fighter into formal development," Mr. Fisher said.

It's impossible to know if this jet really caught us off guard or if we're just saying that because we don't want the Chinese to know how much we know.

Before You Get Too Cocky

Too many Americans, I think, assume that we'll clean up in any air-to-air war, because, you know, we're the United States. Oh sure, we may have a hard time dealing with a bunch of guys in black pajamas or turbans on their heads, who shoot and run and hide, but our technology is so good that we'll dominate any aerial campaign. After all, we showed Saddam what's what twice, right?

Not so fast. Let's take a little walk through history.

The air war in Korea was mostly between our F-86 Sabre and the Russian built Mig-15 flown by Chinese pilots. Each aircraft had an advantage over the other in certain areas, but they pretty much equaled each other out. Our pilots shot down the Mig at a rate of 11 or 13 to 1 (the fog of war and all that, this not being Hollywood). Were were impressed with ourselves, and rightly so.

We went into Vietnam convinced that it's be Korea part 2 and we'd blow the North Vietnam out of the sky in droves.

Much to our surprise, in the 1964-68 period we only achieved a 2 to 1 ratio over the North Vietnamese, and probably only 1 to 1 against their premier fighter, the MiG-21. This greatly disturbed us because we knew that if we could only do this well against the North Vietnamese, we'd surely do much worse against the Russians.

There were two main reasons we did so poorly; one, our pilots had lost the art of dogfighting. We assumed that most fights would be at long to medium range with missiles and that dogfighting was a thing of the past. We didn't even put guns on our aircraft. When practiced aerial combat, it was one American squadron fighting another; i.e. similar or exactly the same aircraft with pilots using the exact same tactics against each other.

The second reason was problems with missile reliability. All too often our guys would squeesze the trigger and the missile would not leave the rail. If it would, as often as not it would fail to track.

The Russian built Mig-17 and especially the Mig-21 proved worthy adversaries when flown by competent North Vietnamese pilots. One thing that saved us from too many aerial defeats is that as often as not the communist pilots weren't very good and relied heavily on direction from controllers on the ground.

During the bombing halt after 1968, we corrected all of the problems. We formed Top Gun for the Navy and Red Flag for the Air Force, and got our missiles to work. At each fighter school the respective services formed dedicated Red Teams, or "opposition forces," who studied in detail the tactics that Russian (and other potential enemies) pilots actually used. They used aircraft different than what U.S. fighter squadrons used, aircraft with different performance characteristics to try and throw our guys off.

When we went back north again in 1972-73 we shot enemy planes down at the rate of 13-1, which was more like what we had achieved in Korea. We learned our lesson the hard way.

On The Other Hand...

All of the above works the other way around, too. If we haven't fought a serious air war in 38 years, the Chinese haven't fought one in 58. Further, that the Israelis shoot down the Arabs in droves every time they clash shows that you can have all of the sophisticated hardware you want and if you can't properly use it it's just so much junk.

So that the new Chinese aircraft carriers that are due to hit the water in 2015 are a big concern, it's one thing to build a ship and take nice photos of aircraft on it, quite another to engage in high-intensity launch-and-recovery operations over a sustained period, and especially under the pressures of combat, without blowing yourself up. We almost lost the USS Oriskany in 1966, the USS Forrestal in 1967, and the USS Enterprise in 1969 due to flight deck fires before we revamped procedures and got our act together.

Maybe we've retained the lessons of Vietnam and maybe not. Top Gun and Red Flag are still around, and our military takes them very seriously. That's the good news.

The Strategy

Wars do not take place in a vacuum. They are fought over something, and most likely that something will be Taiwan, the Chinese democracy on the island of Formosa.

If the mainland Chinese decided to take Taiwan by force, they could pursue any number of options, but all involve keeping United States forces at bay just long enough for them to succeed. In other words, at the end of the day they do not need to control the ocean; they just need to keep us from controlling it long enough to defeat Taiwan.

We, on the other hand, must be able to rapidly prevail in any war. Time is not on our side.

Sounding The Alarm?

On the one hand, China is not the Soviet Union, as their expansionist goals are much more modest. They are much more nationalist and authoritarian than communist and totalitarian.

On the other, remember that the bully boys around the world are watching, and if they see us humbled in one place they'll figure they can do the same. Just as wars do not take place in a vacuum without political objectives, neither do the results of individual wars not cascade around the world.

So while this new Chinese jet is not the equivalent to the Japanese Zero which was clearly superior to all of our aircraft at the time of it's introduction and a clear threat from a hostile power, neither is it to be ignored. If we sit still and do not produce advanced figther aircraft our potential adversaries will move forward. And if it comes to a shooting war, we may not do as well as we think we will.