Weapons that Don’t Work in the Ukraine War Make Up Most of China’s Military

Chinese analysts want to understand why Russian weapons are doing so badly in the war in Ukraine. 70% of China’s modern airplanes are licensed copies, unlicensed copies or variants of the SU-27. 20% are inferior planes that are not even as good as the Russian copies.

The Ukraine War has been an actual real world test or most of the modern planes, missiles, drones that the world has. The only systems that have not been tested or used are the stealth fighters. Russia has some SU57 stealth fighters but has not used them other than a few safe uses from long-range.

The other lessons are which tactics are ineffective and which tactics are more effective. There is also the need for a lot more drones for front line troops. Drones have become an absolute necessity on the front lines. There is a need for a lot more ammunition and overall training. There will need to be a lot more training on the effective tactics.

China also wants to look at the Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile getting shot down. The Kinzhal and China’s hypersonic weapons (YJ-21 and DF-17) are similar technology. They are hypersonic warheads on a regular rocket booster. The Kinzhal had about 6 shot down in one day. The Kinzhal cost Russia about $10 million each to make. The YJ-21 is a shorter range navy variant of the DF-17. The YJ-21 costs about $8 million each. The DF-17 costs about $107 million each. Russia had about 6 Kinzhal missiles shot down in 1 day in the war. Normal supersonic missiles are about $1-2 million. The point of spending more money for a faster missile is so it can with near certainty penetrate defenses. A military could always just buy 10 or 100 cheaper missiles to overwhelm air defenses. You don’t want to go too cheap where the missiles are not reliable like a Scud missile. You want to spend enough to get good cost benefit on reliable destruction.

The Russian S-400 air defense system was supposed to be a scary system able to defend against the US air force and missiles. The S-400s have been defeated and destroyed with a few waves of cheap drones and cheap missiles. China bought a lot of expensive S-400 air defense systems.

The US and the rest of world may not have the exact same Russian equipment but all of the world’s military have to update and change procurement to reflect what is being learned in Ukraine.

Russia has lost about 20% of its Su-34 fleet, with a starting total of only 121 aircraft. Four Su-34 planes were shot down in only 2 days in December, 2023.

Chinese analysis identifies two reasons for these heavy losses.

1. The Russian Aerospace Force, which inherited the air combat theories of the Soviet Air Force, habitually allows existing combat aircraft to take on the tasks of both air defense suppression and electronic warfare.

2. Russian military’s did not buy enough precision guided stand-off munitions. They cannot keep their planes safer by being further away.

Roughly 20% of the PLAAF and PLANAF’s combat aircraft are old second-generation fighters of limited combat value against peer opponents, save perhaps in swarming attacks. Another 30% include strategic bombers and more capable but dated third-generation designs. Finally, 50% percent are fourth-generation fighters that can theoretically hold their own against peers like the F-15 and F-16.

China has about 126 actual Russian planes in the Su-27 family (SU27, SU30, SU35).

The J-11 and J-16 are copies of the SU-27 Russian planes, that are getting shotdown by ground to air missiles in Ukraine. The J-11 was a licensed copy of the SU-27.

The J-10 is a copy of the Israeli Lavi from Israeli designs. The Lavi was based on the design of the French Dassault Mirage. The J-10s haver had several deadly accidents possibly related to difficulties in the fly-by-wire system. 22% of China’s 2500 combat aircraft are J-10.

The J-7 is an older and even more outdated plane makes up 20% of the fleet of 2500.

China’s J-20 now makes up about 8% of China’s 2500 combat jets. This is stealth plane copied from stolen F-22 and F-35 information.