Steels and Lasers: How and when US and SNR fighters will apply "Space Weapons"
In his opinion, the main bet will be made on radar camouflage, speed and lasers. The US Air Force Research Laboratory has been making rapid progress in laser weapons for land and air use and is actively experimenting in this area. Engineers seem to have even managed to solve the main problem of storing a large amount of energy for laser installations in a relatively small body of aircraft.
Most likely, the lasers will first shoot from larger cargo aircraft such as C-130 and then move into smaller and faster fighters. This can allow developers to use technological progress for possible use on F-35 fighters. The US does not keep up with the PRC, paying special attention to lasers.
Although little is known about such developments because of total secrecy, this year the newspaper, supported by the Chinese government, has put forward the idea that the best fighter J-20 of the Air Force NVAK could soon receive laser weapons, "to destroy hostile planes and land goals. " It seems that China also managed to optimize the ratio of the required energy for laser installations with blocks of storage in the aircraft body.
Interestingly, the Global Times Chinese newspaper reports that the NVAC Air Force is working on an external "laser capsule" for both the weapons and the battery is overboard. Laser weapons fighters can create an unprecedented combat advantage for the country's army, given that the laser beam affects the target at the speed of light and at the same time allows the aircraft not to be detected.
However, is it possible to integrate laser weapons into a 5th-generation invasion fighter without harming its poorness? And if you believe the Chinese press about an "external laser capsule", it does not contribute to the masking of the aircraft from the remedies. After all, the protruding structures will not generate a strong signal for the radar of the enemy.
On the other hand, if in the PRC they want to equip such capsules with the usual J-10 fighters, whose characteristics and methods of combating them are well known to the United States, then for the 5th generation J-20 fighter, you need to do everything that the laser block is inside the body. In the US, this task is clearly aware of, so they will do everything to make laser guns and energy blocks inside the body, providing stealth steals for the aircraft.
One is directly proportional to the other, the military expert states in his material. The sooner China puts on the flow of a 5th generation fighter, the more and faster the US engineers will have to work, literally in non-stop mode. It works in the opposite direction, of course. And the rate of increase in J-20 can be significant, given the known ability of China to mass production with its industrial base, says Chris Osborne.
This is quite likely "on the pencil" in the Pentagon, because, regardless of whether the J-20 will compete with the F-35, the number of aircraft of the 5th generation at the China Air Force is of great importance. The more J-20 in China, the greater the threat can be the Air Force. The scale and pace of production of J-20 production may be still unclear, but intentions and production capacity seems to be.
Given the consensus that the principle of Sun-Tzu "Mass Mass" is still very relevant and important in the modern war, China will need a large amount of J-20 to truly fight for the advantage in the air as in the global, yes And in a purely regional sense. But if the J-20 fails to compete with the American F-35, when it comes to the range of detection, accuracy of guidance and multi-purpose domination in the air, then the presence of more aircraft will not help China.