Supposedly the Chinese are only planning to produce 100 J-20As, and look as though they’ll have production capacity for 48 J-20s starting next year. The J-20B, the one with the WS-15, though, is scheduled for a fuller tranche of 500 units. This is just rumor, of course.
It does make sense if the Chinese are planning to use the J-20s just to offset and intimidate local powers, but with less than the J-20B, they aren’t that competent vs the F-35 and F-22. Building tons of J-20A before the WS-15 is ready implies significant wastage in terms of having to upgrade them to J-20Bs later on, and given the fineness of stealth construction, the upgraded J-20As could end up being crippled in terms of stealth.
A recent rumor also came out that a J-20 managed to supercruise for about 50 km. At what load condition and altitude is another question, however, since we know the F-35 and Eurofighters are capable of supercruising under special load conditions.
True, when it comes to the F-22 and F-35. F-22 especially in BVR while it is supercruising at 60,000+ feet will have a HUGE advantage. F-35 not so much but the advantage is still likely with the F-35 in BVR especially when hunting in packs. F-35 vs J-20 in WVR is a different game though. AIM-9X has to be carried externally on the F-35 IIRC.
But having the J-20A right now is still the right thing. It’ll gives the PLAAF at least a limited capability against the F-22/F-35. It is much better than trying to counter the F-22/F-35 with J-10B/C, J-16, and Su-35 which probably has no chance even with new ground-based anti-stealth assets in the PLA. In addition to that, there is a quite a large number of 4++/4.5 gen fighters in the region that can be potential adversaries (Rafale, Su-30MKI, F/A-18E/F, F-15E/K, etc).
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