I've seen some hesitations on this and other thread about purchasing Chinese weapons, whether it's J-10C or Z-10. So, I will try to put you guys at ease about this. There has been huge technological advances in the Chinese military industrial complex in the past 20 years. But for the sake of this thread, I will just use fighter jet as an example. Back 20 years ago, China was still iterating through J-8II variants as its best aircraft. Just last month, they flew the first twin-seated 5th generation aircraft in the world.
If you look at Rafale's development from its first flight in 1991 until now and compare that to J-10 from 1998 until now. There has been a greater improvement in J-10 over a shorter timeframe. Just take a look at how long it took the Europeans to put AESA radars on the Eurocanards. China did not even have a modern mechanically scanned radar on a fighter jet until early 2000. The reason is pretty simple. China has put far more investment in its military industrial complex in the past 20 years. The gap in that investment will keep increasing as the Chinese economy keep growing.
As PAF receives its JF-17 and J-10C, it will also see their combat capabilities go up more quickly than IAF's Rafale. We may not see changes from external appearance, but you can make a lot of upgrades with software upgrades and also with newer generation electronic equipment. One good example is J-20 two seaters. From the outside, it looks like they just added a second seat, but this project was actually delayed by a couple of years as they are trying to incorporate the latest technological upgrades. And supposedly these changes will allow them to achieve a level of situation awareness that's not even possible with the original J-20. That's a lot of where future upgrades for these fighter jets come from. How good are their situation awareness? How good are they at keeping themselves hidden from different opposing fighters? I'd bet over the next 10 to 15 years, you will see greater improvements in this area in J-10C than Rafale as it leverages some of the gains from J-20 program.
When JF-17 first came out, PAF did not feel comfortable with Chinese avionics. How many people have the same hesitations now with JF-17 Block 3? I'm sure everyone on this board and with PAF has seen how much improvement have been made in block 3 compared to the original version. Have faith that you will see the same improvement in J-10 or Z-10 or whatever else Pakistan might be interested in the future.
There has been a view that Chinese product is behind the west and Russia. Chinese training is also behind. In fact, I find that's something Indian Internet warriors (and maybe even more serious people inside Indian military) hold on to in order to justify their belief that all the stuff China is building is overhyped. I don't have a problem with it. Even I'm surprised by some of the improvements they have made. It's hard to keep track of all the improvements they've made. I will use China and Russia as an example. You may have noticed that PLAAF and RuAF have not had any joint exercises even though China has annual exercises with PAF. The main reason from Chinese side is that they don't want to embarrass the Russians (who have helped them a lot to get to this point). When they got su-35, they could not believe how much of a gap existed in the radar/avionics between their own J-16 and Su-35. They asked the Russians repeatedly and that really was the best that the Russians could offer. You know Su-30MKIs are in trouble when the most realistic future upgrade plan is to use the same radar/EW suites that Su-35 uses. While J-10C and JF-17 block 3 are smaller, they will be able to have much better situation awareness than MKIs through this newer generation of electronics. Rafale is a different story, but IAF has a limited number of them. The biggest mistake India made was getting themselves into the MKI project and than into Su-57. These 2 Russian projects have squandered all the financial advantage they have over PAF.
There has also been a desire on this thread for flankers. I think flankers do have a pretty big advantage over J-10/JF-17 by being just a lot larger. They basically fitted the largest and most power consuming radar/avionics they can put on J-10 and JF-17. But obviously, there are realistic space limitations on J-10 compared to flankers. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure China would never export flankers due to its Russian relationship. It actually would be of help for PAF I think. J-16D recently entered into service with PLAAF. I think it's going to be a true force multiplier. I don't think IAF has a dedicated EW aircraft. If PAF can work with China to get a dedicated one (whether based on like a two seat version of J-10 or something larger), it would give PAF quite an advantage here.
www.thedrive.com
