A J-20 fighter jet seen at the Zhuhai Airshow in Guangdong, Nov. 6, 2018.
The recent disturbance of Taiwan by Chinese military aircraft has not only increased tensions in the Taiwan Strait and Sino-US relations, but also exposed the hegemonic ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its military aircraft warfare capabilities to the spotlight once again. The document reveals that the Chinese Communist Party‘s sixth-generation fighter plan is not only oriented to the advanced combat concepts of the U.S. military, but also reveals the “civil-military integration” of the J-31 fighter, and that the Chinese military has developed equipment to attack Taiwan.
The Ministry of Defense document unveiled the “sixth generation aircraft” part of the Chinese Communist Party
The 6th generation fighter is the next generation of fighter aircraft that is being developed by major military powers as a national weapon, and is shrouded in secrecy because it involves top-level combat power and technological strength of each country.
Up to now no country has made public the physical program of the Sixth Generation Fighter, the outside world’s Perception of the Sixth Generation mainly stays on the concept, such as should have super stealth, supersonic, ground-air combat, as well as a variety of conceptual weapons and radar, etc., but the direction of research and development of the Sixth Generation differs from country to country.
The “Sixth Generation Aircraft” is also a top secret military information of the Chinese Communist Party. Only through individual researchers, such as J-20 designer Yang Wei, has the CCP hinted that it is also involved in the global competition for the Sixth Generation.
However, the Ministry of National Defense’s 2017 “13th Five-Year Plan” equipment project, which is part of the “civil-military integration” document, reveals the CCP’s “Sixth Generation Aircraft” pre-research program, and focuses on the development of the basis of the domestic Sixth Generation Aircraft – the UAV combat system.
The Chinese Ministry of National Defense’s 2017 “civil-military integration” document reveals the pre-research program for a domestic six-generation aircraft, revealing that the Chinese Communist Party is guided by the U.S. military’s air combat concept.
The project proposal for the “Sixth Generation Aircraft Pre-Research Program and Multi-Aircraft Reconfiguration and Distributed Attack System,” prepared in July 2017, proposed that “the sixth generation aircraft should have offensive and defensive capabilities and must be able to fight against enemy forces with airborne electronic attack capabilities, advanced integrated air defense systems, passive detection equipment, integrated self-defense equipment, directed energy weapons, and cyber electromagnetic attack capabilities.”
The project document cites “the advantages of airborne fractured, distributed operations” and states that “the new distributed operations concept” will influence the design thinking of the CCP’s Sixth Generation aircraft.
Although the document does not mention the source of the concept, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DAPPA) first proposed the distributed air operations concept in 2014.
According to a Sept. 15, 2020 report in National Defense magazine (original article), U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Will Roper on Sept. 15 confirmed for the first Time that the U.S. “sixth-generation aircraft,” also known as the “Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Air Superiority Fighter (NGAD)”, has begun flight testing and broken records. At the same Time, the U.S. Navy’s long-awaited sixth-generation aircraft program, the F/A-XX, is also under development.
The U.S. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) released the “U.S. Air Force Toward an Era of Great Power Competition” (original CSBA report) and “Five Key Tasks for Future U.S. Air Force Combat Forces” (original CSBA report) in April 2019 and February 2020, respectively, revealing plans to launch the next-generation fighter around 2030.
The current international view on the generation of fighter aircraft is more popular, the first generation of fighters from the breakthrough of jet power, the second generation of supersonic fighters emphasize “high altitude and high speed”; the third generation features low-altitude maneuverability coupled with radar and missiles; the fourth generation of fighters on the basis of three generations of aircraft to enhance the mobility and electronic systems, and began to stealth development.
The fifth generation of fighters is the most advanced generation of fighters in service, performance characteristics can generally be summarized by 4S, namely Stealth (stealth), Super Sonic Cruise (supersonic cruise), Super Maneuverability (super maneuverability), Superior Avionics for Battle Awareness and Effectiveness (Super Information Superiority, or Over-the-horizon Combat).
The F-22 and F-35 from Lockheed Martin, the J-20 from Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, and the Su-57 from Russia’s United Aircraft Group-Sukhoi are currently in service. However, neither the Chinese J-20 nor the Russian Su-57 have been installed in large numbers and have not yet formed an effective combat capability.
In June 2020, Yang Wei, the chief designer of the J-20, published an article in the Journal of Aeronautics, “Some Discussions on the Development of Future Fighter Aircraft,” stating that the next-generation fighter will be more informative and intelligent, which was interpreted as a slight signal of the release of the domestic Sixth Generation aircraft.
The document disclosed that the domestic six-generation aircraft like “air overlord Gundam”
The Chinese government’s “Sixth Generation Aircraft” pre-research program was also disclosed in 2017.
The Chinese Communist Party’s 2017 civil-military integration document said that the “sixth-generation aircraft” must adopt a combination structure, the appearance may be inspired by the “Gundam”.
The document said “the combined structure of the aircraft is the technology that must be adopted by the sixth generation aircraft”, “the sixth generation aircraft” is “the king of the air”, is with the attack function, can be divided into a combination of intelligent functions It is a structure with attack functions and intelligent functions that can be combined in separate parts. The document says that a look at Gundam will be very enlightening as to what the core bare aircraft is. The “Air Fighter” and “Gundam” are well-known Japanese anime transforming mobile fighters.
J-20 chief designer Yang Wei said in a 2017 interview with CCTV that the domestic six-generation aircraft could look like Transformers in Science Fiction films. (Web screenshot)
It is no coincidence that J-20 chief designer Yang Wei also revealed in an interview with CCTV in 2017 that the appearance of the domestic six-generation machine is sci-fi and may resemble Transformers in Science Fiction films.
The 2017 project document proposed technologies for the Sixth Generation, saying that “multi-machine reconfiguration supercomputing technology, intelligent skin, flexible functional engineering structural body, low resistance microfield interface, cold flow thrust, etc. will be applied to the Sixth Generation”.
The document states in the six-generation aircraft research proposal that “in China, the WAH project airframe structure adopts a disassembled attack scheme” where the airframe structure can be disassembled in the air to form mission units with different functions, and “the core aircraft can still fly and continue to accomplish attack or combat and other missions as usual”.
The document leaks the secret behind the Chinese Communist Party’s J-31 fighter jet
The “Sixth Generation Aircraft” pre-research program also proposes to promote civil-military integration with the “Civil-Military Integration Project J-31” model.
The 2017 “Sixth Generation Aircraft” pre-research program also proposed 10 early stages of the six-generation aircraft (projects), proposing to use the “civil-military integration project J-31” model to promote the participation of these projects in national defense construction, saying that this move can enhance the participation of enterprises and develop the civilian market.
The so-called “civil-military integration project J-31” should refer to the development of the J-31 (J-31) fighter jet by Shenyang Aircraft Industry Group (Shenfei). Shenfei is a subsidiary of China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC), which has developed a number of J-31 fighter jets for the Chinese Communist military. The Trump administration last year identified 31 Chinese companies, including AVIC, as being owned or controlled by the Chinese Communist Party’s military, and issued an investment ban in January of this year to impose sanctions.
The FC-31 (J-31) fighter aircraft developed by AVIC’s Shenfei Group performs at the 2014 Zhuhai Airshow. (Photo credit: Tianken2/Wikipedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36798626)
In fact, the J-31 is a Chinese civilian name, but its official name is the “FC-31” fighter, which was developed by the Shenfei Group with funding from AVIC, but not by the Chinese military. Usually, only fighters funded and equipped by the Chinese military are given the “J-XX” designation.
However, the “J-31 civil-military fusion” model disclosed in the “Sixth Generation Aircraft” document seems to reveal that the FC-31 (J-31) fighter is not only developed by AVIC Shenfei, as rumored, but is actually a civil-military fusion project promoted by the Chinese Communist Party military. The project.
The pre-research program also mentions that “the investment for the development of a new aircraft type of the ‘Sixth Generation’ is more than 30 billion” and that these civil-military integration projects “are estimated to have an output value of more than 15 billion/year after they go into operation “, and drive more than 30 billion civilian market, hinting at the development of the civilian market to support the “six-generation aircraft” and other military purposes.
The document exposes the “deep foundation” of domestic six-generation aircraft such as the “liberation of Taiwan” WAH-la combat system
In fact, the document does not positively present any technical proposal for a domestic six-generation aircraft, but reveals that the Chinese Communist Party has a “profound foundation” for the development of a six-generation aircraft.
The document includes an annex detailing the various combat systems previously developed by the CCP military in relation to the Sixth Generation aircraft.
- WAH-la combat system for the “liberation of Taiwan”
The document first introduces the “All-Army Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Combat System Seminar” organized at the Chengfei site in 2003, which was attended by leaders and experts from General Armaments, Chengfei, various military science and technology, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the 55th Institute of General Staff. General Armament (i.e. the General Armament Department of the PLA) has now been abolished; General Staff 55, which is mainly engaged in research on information encryption and new materials, is now renamed as the 55th Institute of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China.
This background to the document’s appendix seminar appears to indicate that the CCP military attaches great importance to unmanned combat systems.
A document obtained in 2017 on the integration of the Chinese Communist Party’s “six-generation aircraft” between the military and the people disclosed that in 2003, the Communist Party held an “all-army seminar on unmanned aircraft combat systems” at the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group site. The photo shows a group photo of the seminar.
The annex then introduced the “WAH-la” combat system, saying that the WAH-la is a co-axial manned and unmanned dual-use helicopter, which can be manned or unmanned to automatically complete tactical tasks such as reconnaissance, attack, manning, transportation and combat command; it is equivalent to equipping a soldier in combat with a helicopter-functional “infantry weapon” in three-dimensional warfare.
WAH-la combat system
The document says that the WAH-la combat system can be used in “combat against Taiwan”.
The annex describes the use of the WAH-la, stating that “in the event of combat against Taiwan, the WAH-la can carry a squad of combatants to the other side of the Taiwan Strait at a distance of 160km at 210km/h for about 45 minutes” and “achieve the purpose of liberating Taiwan at high speed, high efficiency and low cost.
The attachment says the WAH-la has a modular structure that can be cracked in the air on command and has a “suicide” attack capability.
- WAF-1A unmanned combat aircraft that boasts of surpassing the United States
The research direction of the sixth generation of warplanes includes unmanned fighter jets. The WAF-1A unmanned fighter program is also described in the annex of the CCP’s 2017 Sixth Generation Aircraft.
The WAF-1A unmanned fighter aircraft program is described in the annex of the CCP’s 2017 Sixth Generation Aircraft. Photo is a screenshot of the document.
The annex states, “The WAF-la is the first combat attack aircraft with a humanized aircraft that can be used in actual combat due to the use of three prominent new technologies, and the use of a large number of advanced technologies and new materials that allow the aircraft to achieve an overload factor of 15G, but the price of the whole aircraft is only about $1 million.”
The document lists advanced technologies used in the WAF-1A, including: an integrated modular flight control system, an intelligent skin (smart screen) random mission passive detection system, and a flexible actuatorless airfoil.
The annex states that a team led by Beihua United Technologies and Hongdu Aircraft Manufacturing will complete pre-research in the “J-31” model and work with the government to implement a baseline assessment to determine how successfully the WAF-la unmanned fighter program will be implemented over the next five years. Like Shenfei and Chengfei, Hongdu Aircraft Manufacturing Company is also a subsidiary of AVIC.
The annex also states that the WAF-la unmanned fighter is expected to be priced at less than 10 million yuan, with comprehensive combat performance and price superior to the U.S. X-47 series, a stealthy unmanned fighter developed by the United States.
Although the civil-military integration document speaks highly of the “WAH-la” and “WAF-1A” projects, the reporter was unable to find any information on the “WAH-la” or “WAF-1A” from public information.
- The project proposal of “Transient Early Warning System, Regional Combat Assurance System, Distributed Combat System and Multi-Aircraft Reconfiguration
The Sixth Generation Pre-Research Program also includes an appendix to the Transient Early Warning System, Regional Combat Assurance System, Distributed Combat System, and Multi-Aircraft Reconfiguration project proposal.
According to the appendix of the “Transient Early Warning System”, “Cluster Intelligence”, as a disruptive technology, has been regarded by the military powers as the core of military artificial intelligence and a breakthrough for future unmanned operations.
The annex describes the status of foreign research, saying the U.S. military is developing a “swarm” of Drones; a large air platform that carries and releases a large number of Drones into combat clusters for coordinated operations.
The document cites the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Pixie drone program and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office’s (SCO) Partridge micro-drones for swarm tactics.
DARPA pioneered the concept of distributed air operations in 2014, and then began advancing the Pixie program to implement the concept.
The annex states that “while the United States has more than 500 distributed unmanned systems, it does not have the technology to form an airborne processing system,” and that “the formation of an airborne data processing system and distributed combat system integration is a disruptive new concept and the goal of this project. “.
According to the annex, the most important goal of the project is the “instantaneous early warning system”, which is a high-speed missile group consisting of W-400 (mother bomb) and L-155 (bullet), which will be fired at a predetermined warning area and deployed in the air to form an instantaneous early warning system. The system is based on the development of the WZ-120-30 gunfire and rocket push relay station, and introduces national and breakthrough cutting-edge technologies of the CPC, such as: lightweight composite materials, integrated thick film electronics, aerodynamic and vector thrust control systems, and mobile communication network workstations.
According to the annex, the WZ-120-30 project is led by China Armament Equipment Group, jointly developed by China Zhongshan Corporation and China Poly Group Corporation, and China Armament Equipment Group is responsible for project declaration to the CPC Military Commission
The annex believes that even if there are more swarms, if they do not constitute a “supercomputing” system, they will not be able to complete the task of early warning aircraft air information data processing; therefore, multi-machine reconfiguration technology is the key, and the “distributed air processing system and multi-machine reconfiguration air supercomputing system” is the project’s Another goal of the project.
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