“I think the opposite. The J-10 would likely be employed as a fighter-bomber in my opinion. The Su-27SK/J-11s are there for the air superiority role.”
well if these recent reports abt the SK/J11s getting a new upgrade is true, then that would tend to indicate otherwise.
currently, china doesnt have many indiginous PGM projects working. that means that whatever PGMs the PLAAF have are russian or licenced russian stuff. so it makes sence to just use russian a/c that are (or soon to be) compactible with those weapons to deliver them, as opposed to wasting alot of time and money trying to intergrate the weapons on a chinese fighter that would probably be better off doing purely AA stuff anyways.
on a stragetic point of view, the most important aspect of any war the PLAAF is likely to fight is to gain air supremicy. once u have control of the skies, u can just use any old bomb truck u like.
the J10 would not be very suitable for any of the main roles needed for ground attack (compaired to what else the PLAAF have available that is). using the J10 for mopping up would be a waste, the old Q5s would do; for more heavily defended targets, the MKK/MKK2s would be a better choice.
of course once the J10 numbers start to build up and u can be almost certain of being able to gain air supremicy, then u might as well put the J10s to work if the skies are clear. its then that the J10’s ground attack capcity would be used and/or inhanced.
its not much use making the J10 fully multi-role if they will only be used for AA now would it? right now the j10 has limited A-G capacity, if any at all. thats enough for now, and it would surely be improved in the future. but as of now, CAC has more pressing concerns.
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