2017-01-24 By Richard Weitz

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has begun acquiring the Sukhoi Su-35 (NATO designation Flanker-E), the best fighter plane now serving in the Russian Air Force.

With the deployment of this capability, allies need to strengthen their own capabilities, notably to provide for their own defense, and for deterrence in depth.

The F-35 global enterprise provides a ready means for helping realize the Trump administration’s goal of enabling local allies to counter regional threats with less direct U.S. military assistance.

The threat envelope is expanding as China is acquiring its first new foreign-made warplane since buying two dozen Su-30MK2 multirole maritime fighters from Russia in 2004.

China has become the first foreign plane to acquire Russia’s premier export plane, but others are not far behind.

This delivery had been a long-time coming.

Chinese representatives first showed interest in the plane a decade ago.

The contentious negotiations lasted years and persisted even after Russia and China reached a preliminary deal in 2012 and negotiated a $2-billion sales contract in November 2015.

The issues in dispute appeared to include the price China would pay for the planes and the minimum number the PLA would have to buy.

The estimated price of each plane that is produced at Sukhoi’s Gagarin Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association in Russia’s Far East is around $83-85 million.

Moscow had to compromise and permit China to purchase fewer than the 48 fighters Russian negotiators originally had demanded as a minimum to risk China’s reverse-engineering the Su-35’s technologies.

Russia wanted sufficient financial compensation to make a deal worthwhile even if China eventually harvested the plane’s technology for its own production.

China has drawn extensively on previous warplanes purchased from Russia in building its own weapons systems: the Shenyang J-5 derived from the MiG 17; the J-6 and Q-5 from the MiG 19; the J-8 from the MiG 21, and the J-11 from the Su-27. China has also borrowed heavily from Russian-made bombers, transports, and helicopters.

In the past, China’s purchase of only a few aircraft at a time allowed the PRC to reverse-engineer the software and engine designs, and then produce an indigenous copy without paying Russia for the new planes.

Russian officials had been wary of agreeing to a new deal unless the purchase was sufficiently large to ensure Russia made money regardless of any Chinese attempts to reverse-engineer the aircraft.

Under the pressure of international isolation, sanctions, depressed global energy exports, and anxiety that China might steal the plane’s advanced technologies anyway or otherwise develop its own indigenous advanced plane if Russia waited too long, Moscow accepted Beijing’s offer to buy 24 planes in return for allowing China access to the plane’s advanced technologies.

These included:

• the 117S (AL-41F1S) turbofan engines,
• advanced information management system,
• NKVS-27 ground-based communications system,
• S-108 aircraft-based communications system,
• N-035 Irbis passive electronically scanned array radar,
• powerful digital radio frequency memory jamming suite,
• robust portfolio of air-to-air missiles,
• and the plane’s other systems

Many of these systems are equipping Russia’s T-50 (PAK-FA).

In contrast to other Russian-Chinese arms deals, in which China has insisted on some domestic production and technology transfer, Russia has declined to allow China to domestically produce the Su-35s—Russia will only provide turn-key models of the plane.

Still, Russia agreed to sell China the standard version of the plane rather than provide an export version with either Chinese-made or reduced capabilities.

The PLAAF decided to save money and time by accepting the standard factory-produced cockpit equipped with a Russian-language display.

In any case, the PLAAF should not find it difficult to assimilate the new plane into its fleet.

The Su-35 is a modified but significantly improved version of the Su-27 multirole fighter. China has acquired hundreds of Su-27 variants since the 1990s, both imported planes (the J-11) and those produced in China under license and with many PRC-made components (J-11B).

All maintenance work for the PLAAF’s AL-31 engines is done in the PRC. Once the Su-35s enter service with the PLAAF, their 117S engines’ maintenance and any life extension work would also likely occur there.

The Su-35 is an advanced 4th generation fighter capable of carrying a 8,000kg ordinance load, a 30 mm gun, and can carry bombs or missiles in its 12 weapons stations.

The plane has a maximum speed of 2,500 km/h and can fly 3,400 km without refueling. The N-035 Irbis radar can detect and track up to 30 targets and simultaneously fire on eight of them.

The radar is capable of detecting objects with a radar cross section of 3 square meters at 350 km to 400 km. For reference, the Soviet MiG-21 has an RCS of 3 square meters, while the F-22 has an RCS of 0.0001 square meters.

Furthermore, its powerful twin Saturn Izdeliye 117S engines, with 31,900lbs of thrust each, have superior three-dimensional thrust-vectoring control capabilities, making the plane highly maneuverable at low speeds while allowing it to achieve maximum speeds of Mach 2.25.

Compared with the Su-27, the Su-35 has an 20% larger internal fuel capacity, can carry external fuel tanks, and has an aerial-refueling ability.

As a result, the Su-35 also has a combat radius that covers more of the East and South China Seas than China’s existing fighters and the Su-35 can “loiter” much longer above these disputed territories.

The NKVS-27 ground-based communications system and the updated S-108 aircraft-based communications system China is acquiring as part of the deal will improve the PLAAF’s and the People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force’s (PLANAF) abilities to communicate securely with other aircraft as well as with command and control systems.

Both the Russians and the Chinese know that the PRC would love to copy the Su-35’s engines and other advanced technologies in order to harvest their insights to produce better Chinese warplanes and other weapons systems.

China’s aerospace industry has yet develop a high-performance turbofan engine capable of propelling the most advanced top-line fighter plane. Russia refused to sell the 117S engine separately, which forced China to buy the entire Su-35 fighter system.

Russia also required China to sign a more rigorous intellectual property (IP) agreement and take other measures to protect Russian supplied defense technology.

Russian experts also opined that China would find it impossible to copy the 117S engines even if it tried due to its complexity and the PRC’s lack of success replicating earlier Russian engines. Despite spending many years and a small fortune, China has not had great success developing high-end turbofan engines, even after having access to Russia’s AL-31 engine for more than two decades. Even so, Chinese media reports that the Su-35 jets recently sold to China have had their engines welded shut as a safeguard against Chinese reverse engineering.

If China could copy the engine, it could potentially install a knockoff version on other Chinese fighters – such as the J-11 series, J-15, J-10 series, and future J-20. The Su-35’s 117S engines could also be potentially installed onto ungraded versions of fighter jets aircrafts currently in service with the PLAAF, such as the J-10s and J-11s.

Although China has been making progress on the domestic WS-10 series engines, none of the current Chinese or Russian turbofan engines in service with the PLAAF are adequate to power China’s two fifth-generation fighters under development, the Chengdu J-20 and the Shenyang J-31.

Both the J-20 and the J-31 have performance problems due to their relying on older Soviet-era Saturn Al-31 engines in the J-20 and Klimov RD-93 engines in the J-31.

Even if China cannot copy the engine, buying the Su-35 allows the PLAAF to possess a state-of-the-art warplane before China’s domestic-made options become available as well as allow the PLAAF to gauge its success in developing the indigenous J-11 fighter jet and become familiar with Russian technical solutions.

For Moscow as well as Beijing, the Su-35 is seen as an interim solution pending their deployment of their most advanced fifth-generation warplanes currently under development—and a hedge against further delays in these acquisition programs. The new airframe has claimed service life of 6,000 flight hours (about 30 years), the engines some 4,000 hours. Since Russia’s Sukhoi PAK FA fifth-generation stealth multirole fighter will not enter the fleet in large numbers for several more years, the Russian Air Force has ordered 98 units, designated the Su-35S. Some of them have seen service in Syria.

Though achieving defense self-reliance has been important for Beijing, the increasing tensions with Washington have driven the PRC leadership to seek to acquire some more advanced Russian weapons systems rapidly to cover the transition period pending the incorporation of successful domestically manufactured warplanes like the J-20s and J-10B/Cs.

The Su-35 is superior to the current J-11 in terms of maneuverability, flight distance, and payload, and can be deployed sooner than the J-11D, a variant with more advanced active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, which remains under development. For a while, the Su-35 will fill the role of a premier air superiority fighter while the J-11B will engage in less demanding missions–as the high-end F-15 and low-end F-16 did earlier for the US Air Force.

For possible contingencies involving Taiwan, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, and South China Sea, the Su-35 is arguably the best non-stealthy long-range multirole fighter jet available to the PLAAF.

The Su-35 will allow Beijing to sustain a military presence at greater distances from the Chinese mainland and over potential foreign hotspots

 The Su-35 would increase China’s frequency in patrolling the disputed South China Sea territories, a strategy not unlike China’s constant flyover above the Dioayu/Senkaku Islands to add pressure on Japan.

If deployed in airbases in Hainan and southern Guangdong Provinces, the extended combat radius and loitering time would allow of the Su-35s to cover both the disputed Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, providing air superiority over local air forces lacking the F-35 and allowing Beijing to potentially enforce Air Defense Identification Zones.

The plane’s reach and patrol time would expand even further if based on China’s newly built South China Sea islands, though the PLAAF might employ this option in a crisis rather than on a constant basis due to their greater vulnerability away from the PRC’s mainland air defenses.

Although China became the first foreign customer of the plane, Russia has agreed to sell Su-35s to India and Indonesia and is negotiating sales to other countries.

Meanwhile, if China will incorporate any technologies it harvests from the new plane to boost the capabilities of its exports.

In addition to its few F-22 Raptors and F-15Cs, the U.S. Air Force and allied air forces will need many F-35s to address the Su-35s that China and other countries are buying.

The F-35 has significant advantages over the Su-35 in beyond-visual-range combat due to their superior stealth and integrated sensors.

But even superior U.S. pilots need adequate numbers of planes to deal with China’s massive armament program.

Editor’s Note: The Chinese Air Force is a hub-and-spoke operating force; as such the shift to distributed operations facilitated by the F-35 is a crucial operational dynamic, and empowering kill webs is a crucial way to ensure potential combat success against the Chinese, if it comes to that. 

For readers who would wish to comment on this article, please go to the following:

The F-35 Global Enterprise: Enhanced Allied Capabilities to Deal with Evolving Threats

2017-01-20 By Robbin Laird

We published our Pacific strategy book in 2013 and argued the need for a significant change in strategy.

“At the heart of an effective response will be shaping innovative relationships between the United States and its allies and coming to terms with ways to deflect Chinese expansion while at the same time working with China in shaping global prosperity.

The challenge will be to forge effective building blocks through partnerships, technologies, and organizational innovations that can provide a 21st century of security and defense in the Pacific.”[ref]Laird, Robbin; Timperlake, Edward; Weitz, Richard (2013-10-28). Rebuilding American Military Power in the Pacific: A 21st-Century Strategy: A 21st-Century Strategy (Praeger Security International) (p. 5). ABC-CLIO. Kindle Edition.[/ref]

Ironically, Donald Trump is being sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States the same day (given the realities of the international date line) as the official welcoming ceremony for the F-35 in Japan held at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commanding general of III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) and Maj. Gen. Russell A. Sanborn, commanding general of 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) provided the key remarks during the welcoming ceremony of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121 at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Jan. 20, 2017.

I first met Lt. General Nicholson when he was stationed in Quantico.

It was a memorable and formative meeting in my career.

I remember the meeting particularly because I had brought a group of prominent defense journalists down to North Carolina for a set of interviews.

Yoshihiko Fukuda, mayor of Iwakuni City, speaks with U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commanding general of III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), during the welcoming ceremony of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121 to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Jan. 20, 2017. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Nathan Wicks)

One of the journalists had asked Nicholson what he thought about the possibilities of giving the MRAPS to the Iraqis for their own defense forces.

He noted he thought that was not possible and asked his officer in charge of maintenance during his last Iraqi tour to comment.

The answer was blunt: “I really do not know who bought these MRAPS but there are too many different types and are very difficult to maintain.

We would not give these to the Iraqis unless we wanted to undercut their defense capability.”

Given the hype which MRAPs were getting at the time, I thought for sure one of the defense journalists would jump on the story.

No one did.

Given that massive investment in MRAPS, somewhere north of fifty billion dollars with them rapidly becoming relics and collector’s items, the shift to buying equipment that will be around fifty years contributing to US and allied defense capabilities, like F-35s, is a good point for Trump to become President.

As a result of that visit with the folks I considered to be the cream of the crop of defense journalism, I decided to move out and shape a new defense website which would focus on what the warriors and industrialists were actually doing and to shape a venue where interviews from the doers could be highlighted.

In my review of the legacy of Secretary Gates, one of the issues which I highlighted was his emphasis on MRAPS.

https://www.sldinfo.com/shaping-a-blind-alley-legacy-secretary-gates-looks-back/

Acquiring some MRAPs made sense but not the at least 50 billions of dollars expended on an asset with limited utility and with very little future contribution to the force. It was a very near term asset decision, not a decision taken with the overall evolution of the future force in view.

In 2007, it was clear that Secretary Gates was jamming massive MRAP investments down the throats of the services, in spite of the very clear position of many senior players that so doing would jeopardize the force to be deployed after Iraq.

According to the then Commandant of the USMC this made no sense.

There is no question that the vehicles save lives: The up-armored trucks with their V-shaped hull protect troops from all but the largest types of explosive devices, allowing them often to walk away from some attacks that they would not have probably survived in up-armored Humvees, which are far more common in Iraq. 

Yet in and outside the Pentagon, the concern is that such heavy investment in the expensive vehicles this late in the game comes with a greater price. The fear is that the average $800,000-per-unit cost and 22-ton weight of some of the vehicles may undermine military missions beyond Iraq.  

Even during the current counterinsurgency, insulating US troops from the local population in these vehicles runs counter to the kinds of tactics US troops are typically employing in Iraq.  

Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway supports the MRAP and said Monday the program “was the right thing to do.” But thinking ahead, the Corps’ top general is concerned that his service’s traditional missions could be hindered by the costly and heavy truck that is virtually impossible to transport easily. General Conway also believes the truck is contributing to the Corps losing its “expeditionary flavor.”  

“Can I give a satisfactory answer to what we’re going to be doing with those things in five or 10 years? Probably not,” he told a group Monday at the Center for a New American Security, a new think tank in Washington.  

When the Marines ultimately leave Iraq – which could be sooner rather than later since they occupy one of the most secure areas there – they will effectively be saddled with the trucks if there is no mission that requires them.  

“Wrap them in shrink wrap and put them in asphalt somewhere is about the best thing that we can describe at this point,” Conway said. “And as expensive as they are, that is probably not a good use of the taxpayers’ money.” 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1019/p03s03-usmi.html

Commandant Conway was one of those military leaders who were often obstacles to achieving the Gates vision of the future.

The quote above made in plenty of time to avoid the cascading MRAP investments out of control was reflected within the operational commands of the USMC as well.

In Afghanistan, Gates was happy to reap the benefits of the Marines’ exceptional performance in Helmand, but he can’t resist inappropriately charging them with parochial service interests at the expense of the Afghanistan mission.

Only Helmand fit Conway’s conditions.

The Marines were determined to keep operational control of their forces away from the senior U.S. commander in Kabul and in the hands of a Marine lieutenant general at Central Command in Tampa.

The Marines performed with courage, brilliance, and considerable success on the ground, but their higher leadership put their own parochial service concerns above the requirements of the overall Afghan mission.[ref]Robert M Gates (2014-01-14). Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (Kindle Locations 6155-6160). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.[/ref]

Before there was Helmand there was Fallujah.

And in Fallujah, the USMC emphasized integrated operations and a central role for their integrated MAGTF approach to defeat the adversary.

As Marine Corps historian Fred Allison noted about the Battle of Fallujah:

Although Air Force, Army, and Navy aircraft flew numerous strikes, in the final tally, at least 80 percent of the CAS strikes in November in Fallujah were delivered by 3d MAW aircraft, precisely and expeditiously.

Approximately 318 precision bombs, 391 rockets and missiles, and 93,000 machinegun or cannon rounds were sent down range by aircraft—in concert with over 6,000 artillery rounds and almost 9,000 mortar rounds fired.

There were no fratricides. 

https://www.sldinfo.com/fallujah-iii/

Lt. General Nicholson knows something about CAS versus the utility of MRAPS.

At the 10^th Anniversary of Fallujah, Lt. General Nicholson was the guest of honor.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Robert B. Neller, is calling 2016 “the year of reunions.” A video message for 25th Marine Regiment from Neller was played during the event. He thanked the service members for all they did in Fallujah and reminded them to continue to look out for one another.

“I am proud to say that I saw what you did out there, saw the sacrifices you made and I know how well you served, so thank you for that,” said Neller. “I know you are taking care of each other, staying in contact and helping each other get on with their lives.”

The guest of honor at the reunion was Lt. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commanding general of III Marine Expeditionary Force. Nicholson was the commander of 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, in 2006, and deployed with 25th Marine Regiment to Fallujah. He spoke to the service members about how proud he was of their actions and how the difference they made will never be forgotten.

“There is a connection here that will be unbroken for the rest of your lives,” said Nicholson. “You are Fallujah Marines until the day you die. They will talk about you long after you are gone. The way we talk about Guadalcanal Marines and Iwo Jima Marines today, is how they will talk about you.”

http://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/973681/fallujah-marines-reunite-after-10-years/

It is in that spirit that he welcomed the Green Knights to Japan.

Welcoming the Green Knights at Iwakuni from SldInfo.com on Vimeo.

And in a second video provided by the USMC, the CO of the Green Knights, Lt. Col. Bardo, whom we interviewed in Yuma prior to his departure for Japan provides his perspective of the move from Yuma to Japan.

In our interview with Lt. Col. Bardo at Yuma as he prepared the squadron for departure, he underscored the importance of what the Marines were about to do, both in terms of providing close air support for Marine Corps operations as well as providing a new air-to-air capability for the force.

“CAS is considered doctrinally a function which operates only in a permissive air environment.

“We can expand CAS to deal with a much wider range of situations than when we would simply operate in a permissive air environment.

“And we can provide greater assurance to Marines as they deploy on the ground that we can deal with a much wider array of pop-up threats than we could do with legacy aircraft.”

And when he discussed the experience of the squadron at Red Flag he highlighted the air to air role as well.

This summer, the squadron sent planes to Red Flag and flew in a US-only exercise with the full panoply of USN and USAF aircraft, excluding the F-15s.

There the USMC flew its jets and were part of reshaping of air to air operations associated with the F-35.

Lt.. Col. Bardo Talks About the Green Knights and Their Arrival in Japan from SldInfo.com on Vimeo.

Lt. Col. Bardo noted that there were many F-16 National Guard pilots who were there, some of which had flown with the F-22 but had not flown with the F-35.

They soon learned that you did not want to be an adversary but to leverage what the F-35 brought the fight.”

And most of all, he underscored the flexibility for the pilot in the ability to execute multi-missions with much greater proficiency.

“For the pilot, the ability to shift among missions without having to think sequentially about doing so is really a key strength of the aircraft.

“The airplane can think CAS and air-to-air at the same time and the pilot can then mix and match as the mission demands rather than having to think through the sequence of going from one mission set to the next.”

In short, the Marines have brought a new capability to the fight and with the dynamics of change in the Pacific they have come not a minute too soon.

Editor’s Note: For our Special Report which looks at the integration of the F-35B into MAGTF operations, see the following:

https://www.sldinfo.com/the-integration-of-the-f-35b-into-usmc-operations/