The combat results of the J-10C of the Chinese People's Liberation Army are really impressive, taking on four and winning.
Recently, the conflict between India and Pakistan has escalated, and the J-10C encountered four Rafale fighters of India. What was the final result? The Indian Rafale fighter was locked by the fire control system of Pakistan, which means that as long as the Pakistani pilot presses the missile launch button, the Indian Rafale fighter will be destroyed.
With both being fourth-generation fighters, why is there such a huge gap? This is largely due to the active phased array radar equipped on the J-10C. Its detection range is 50 kilometers more than that of the Indian Rafale, and the PL-15 missile has a range of up to 50 kilometers, while the Indian Rafale lacks the support of advanced missiles.
This time, Pakistan truly understood the advantages of the J-10C. The J-10 utilized terrain masking for radar silence and only turned on its radar when the distance between the two sides shortened to 80 kilometers. Before the Indian pilots could react, the warning lights in their cockpits were flashing frantically, forcing them to hastily activate electronic countermeasures and retreat in panic.
This operation clearly demonstrated the essence of modern air combat — in the era of beyond visual range strikes, whoever detects first can strike first; whoever retreats loses!
In fact, this exposes the biggest problem of the Indian military, which is its reliance on weapons from all over the world. From Russia’s aircraft carriers to fighters, from France’s fighters to Russia’s submarines, India is a perfect example of “preferring to buy rather than manufacture, preferring to rent rather than buy.” In terms of fighters, they have a very diverse range including Su-30 series fighters, Mirage 2000, Rafale fighters, Jaguar attack aircraft, etc.
Lack of interoperability makes it difficult to build a unified operational network. This includes India’s so-called domestically produced weapons, such as the Tejas fighter, the Arihant-class nuclear submarine, and the INS Vikrant aircraft carrier. The core technologies and components of these are all imitations. India’s defense industry has no independent intellectual property rights for fighter engines and does not possess the technology to independently manufacture special steel for aircraft carrier decks. India’s so-called domestic production mainly involves the manufacturing of components like bolts, domestic assembly, or assembly line operations under the technical support of cooperative partners.
The result of fighting separately is that they are defeated one by one. Moreover, Indian soldiers are known for their poor psychological resilience, so such an outcome was predictable.
This short confrontation also proves to the world that China’s approach to its weapons layout was correct. In front of the moat built by radar and missiles, China has already established a non-symmetric combat system. China has even made active phased array radars into a commodity. The key to this process lies in breakthroughs in materials science, chip technology, and production processes. For instance, in 2017, China solved the mass production problem of gallium nitride (GaN) material, laying the foundation for large-scale production of the T/R (transmit/receive) modules, which are the core components of radar. The T/R module accounts for more than 50% of the cost of the radar antenna system, and through industrial chain integration, the cost of each component has dropped from exorbitant prices to a level acceptable for civilian use.
Take gallium nitride technology as an example. Its power density is more than five times that of traditional gallium arsenide (GaAs), and it has better heat dissipation performance. This significantly enhances the detection range and anti-jamming capability of the new generation of radars. Currently, China’s fighters and warships are all equipped with gallium nitride phased array radars, while the F35 of the US still uses gallium arsenide radars, which will not be upgraded to gallium nitride radars until 2029. The airborne early warning aircraft have been upgraded to the globally unique digital radar, leading the world by two generations. This technology allows the KJ-500 to have a detection coverage range of 470 kilometers, capable of simultaneously tracking 60 aerial targets and guiding 12 fighters into combat, outperforming the US E-3 "Dome" AWACS in performance.
Then look at China’s missile technology today, leading the world. It has the best anti-ship cruise missiles, the largest number and most types of hypersonic missiles, and the world’s unique anti-ship ballistic missiles.
In fact, since the 21st century, the real combat capability of the US military has been overestimated. Patriot missiles failed to intercept Russian missiles, and in October 2024, even with the joint efforts of Israel and the US-led coalition, they still couldn’t stop Iran’s missile strikes. Nearly 200 missiles rained down on Israel within minutes, catching its air defense systems off guard. More surprisingly, Iran’s missile hit rate reached 90%, which is rare in modern warfare history. Even the US used its most advanced Standard air defense missiles but failed to intercept them.
In today’s military landscape, when facing Iran’s hypersonic missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, the US Standard air defense system shows obvious weakness.
Now look at Israel. Israel is one of the countries that developed missile defense technology relatively early and deployed it relatively quickly. This rapid development is closely related to Israel’s special historical and geographical environment. Facing continuous threats from incoming rockets, aircraft, medium-to-short-range ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, Israel started building its air defense and anti-missile system early on. Now it has basically constructed a defense system with capabilities for long-, medium-, and short-range air defense and missile interception. If Israel cannot intercept, then certainly the US cannot either.
This is not the first time. In previous attacks by Iran on Israel, Iran launched more advanced medium-range missiles and high-end waverider hypersonic missiles. Both Israel and the US found it difficult to intercept them, especially the seven hypersonic missiles fired by Iran, which successfully penetrated defenses and hit their targets.
The painful lessons of the US and Israel show that even after decades of development, air defense systems still struggle to effectively defend against missiles. After all, if just one missile gets through, it directly hits the target.
The construction of China’s non-symmetric combat system based on radar and missiles also manifests in its ability to work in synergy. Taking the Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy as an example, China constructs a multi-layered perception network through space-based satellites, airborne early warning aircraft, naval vessels, and land-based radars. Combined with weapons like the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile and the YJ-18 supersonic anti-ship missile, it forms a "kill chain" covering the first island chain. The core of this system lies in information fusion and rapid decision-making. For instance, the S/X dual-band active phased array radar on the Type 055 destroyer can simultaneously perform air defense, anti-missile, and anti-ship tasks.
A globally leading radar can predict the enemy’s moves in advance, and the world’s strongest missiles can penetrate enemy air defense networks and completely destroy them. It’s like someone predicting your actions and having stronger fists than others — how can anyone fight back?
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7499516845997769279/
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