In this year’s competition held in Russia, Chinese Air Force’s two JH-7A II jets performed well in the competition and won the first place in the sniper bombing unit. This is also the second time that JH-7A defeated Russia’s Su-34.
From the performance of the fighter itself, whether it is in the advanced level of the engine or the whole machine, JH-7AII is a generation behind Su-34, but the Chinese crew won the first place in the sniper bombing unit for two consecutive years. It is inseparable from the usual training, the selection of the Air Force’s “Golden Dart” each year, performance of the aircraft itself and superb skills of the crew members.
Chinese military enthusiasts looking forward to JH-7B
The service of JH-7AII has enabled Chinese navy and air force’s modern combat capability to be greatly expanded in terms of tactics and technology.
From a single attack on the water surface target, it has expanded into a counter-radiation attack against enemy radar detection equipment, precision strike outside the zone, and the combat capability of the enemy’s important target in the depth of the enemy to accurately guide the weapon. Although the combat radius of JH-7AII is not significantly improved compared to JH-7A, its large-range anti-ship, anti-radiation missile and over-the-horizon attack capabilities are sufficient to challenge the fleet air defense system including aircraft carrier battle groups, especially the service of its dedicated electronic warfare model, which has enabled it to have the ability to accompany the same type of fighter formation.
JH-7AII on the sea
It can be imagined that if JH-7AII is deployed at eastern coastal airports of China, even if it is not refueled in the air, its operational radius of more than 1600 kilometers is enough to cover the offshore of China to the first island chain.
Under the grim situation that China’s maritime rights and interests have been infringed and the future is to safeguard national unity and counterattack foreign forces when necessary, the significance of the emergence of JH-7AII to the Chinese navy is self-evident.
The large-scale service of JH-7AII enables Chinese naval air force to form a large-scale shore-based long-range offensive combat equipment under modern conditions, enabling the Chinese naval air force to realize from coastal defense to offshore area active defense.
Significant destruction of S-300 missile system
According to analysis, with the support of the new aerial tanker, the combat radius of JH-7AII can be increased to about 2,000 km.
With the 400 km range of YJ-12 missile and its speed of Mach 4, the jet can hit 2,400 km away. It is reported that in the exercise of the new electronic warfare pod mounted on JH-7AII, as the core of the red air strike suppression formation and assault formation, under the cover coordination of J-10B and Su-30MKK, and the KJ-200 early warning aircraft and the long-range support of Y-8G, JH-7AII not only successfully attacked core target of the opponent and destroyed its associated S-300PMU2 surface-to-air missile, its own damage rate was also reduced by 2/3 compared with the previous use of JH-7A as the main attack aircraft, which proved the success of JH-7AII improvement.
Ability to throw precision guided missiles greatly improved
Among the neighboring countries of China, Vietnam has already equipped S-300 missile system and India has purchased S-400 missile system. Japan has already equipped PAC-3 “Patriot”. And the United States has also deployed THAAD missile in South Korea. JH-7AII can destroy S-300 PMU2 surface-to-air missile systems, and its significance is self-evident.
Although the aircraft will eventually be completely replaced by the more advanced J-16 fighter jets, before the latter reaches a certain amount of equipment, JH-7AII should have at least 10 years of service.
Therefore, “JH-7AII is still not old. If J-16 is in front of the road, then JH-7AII will still have the strength to clean up the remnants in modern battlefield”, commented Chinese military analyst Chen Guangwen.
