PLAAF Order of Battle, 1990-2010

Table 8-1 lists the composition of the Chinese air force at 5-year inter­vals from 1990 to 2010. It shows that as late as 1995, almost 80 percent of the PLAAF’s combat aircraft were variants of 1950s vintage Soviet MiG-17 and MiG-19 fighters. To put this in perspective: the original MiG-19 was intro­duced in the Soviet air force in the mid-1950s and entered Chinese service around 1962. In 1962, the most common combat aircraft in the U. S. Air Force was the F-100 Super Sabre. While the F-100 was an excellent airplane in its own right, it is hard to imagine the U. S. Air Force (USAF) in 1995 being built around it, as the PLAAF was built around the MiG-19/J-6.2

Table 8-1. PLAAF Aircraft Inventory by Type, 1990-2010

Class / type

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

Fighter Aircraft

J-5 / MiG-17

400

400

J-6 / MiG-19

3,000

3,000

J-7 / MiG-21

500

500

700

756

552

J-8

50

100

250

245

312

Su-27 / J-11A

26

65

116

116

J-10

62

120

Su-30

73

Ground Attack Aircraft

un

1

О

500

400

300

408

120

J-6

1,500

722

JH—7

39

72

Su-30

73

J-11B

18

Bomber Aircraft

H-5

350

300

94

H-6

120

120

120

128

82

Total

4,920

4,846

2,935

2,643

1,465

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies (1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010)

As notable—though perhaps less remarked upon—is the dramatic reduction in the number of combat aircraft in the PLAAF inventory. Between 1990 and 2010, almost 3,500 obsolete aircraft—70 percent of the force—were retired, mostly since 1995. Again by way of comparison, the USAF’s fleet of fighter-bombers shrank from a Cold War level of 3,620 in 1990 to 2,650 in 2010—a little over 25 percent.3 That the PLAAF was willing to shed so many of its aircraft indicates the scope of the PLAAF’s modernization efforts equally as much as its acquisition of modern aircraft.

One way of understanding the impact of the past 20 years on the PLAAF’s fighter force is to compare the number of its modern fighters with the numbers

owned by the air forces of other advanced countries; table 8-2 shows that com­parison. It reveals that the third-largest fleet of advanced fighters in the world may be found within the PLAAF, smaller only than those of the United States and Russia, and larger than the combined inventories of, for example, the Brit­ish and French air forces.

Table 8-2. Comparative Numbers of Modern Fighters, 2010

Air Force

Number of Modern Fighters

U. S.

1,490

Russia

523

China

399

Taiwan

331

Israel

294

South Korea

201

France

191

Great Britain

183

India

182

Japan

160

Germany

150

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies (2010).

Counts include: U. S. (Active component only): F-22, F-15, F-16, F/A-18); Russia (Su-34, MiG-29, Su-27); China (J-10, Su-27/J-11, J-11B, Su-30, JH-7); Taiwan (F-16, F-CK-1); Israel (F-15, F-16); France (Rafale, Mirage 2000); Great Britain (Typhoon, Tornado F.3, Tornado GR.4); India (MiG-29, Su-30, Mirage 2000); Japan (F-15); South Korea (F-15K, KF-16C/D); Germany (Eurofighter, Tornado IDS).

Finally, figure 8-1 presents a third way of visualizing the reshaping of the PLAAF’s fighter fleet by depicting its order of battle according to fighter “gener­ation.” Today, almost a third of the PLAAF’s fighter-bombers are fourth-genera­tion jets; yet as recently as 2000, they made up only 2 percent of the force. (Chinese writings refer to fourth-generation fighters as “third-generation” aircraft; this book employs the Western terminology throughout.)4