During the Dragon Boat Festival, a Chinese PLA drone once crossed the sea area between Yonaguni Island and Taiwan Island. At that time, Japan dispatched F-15J fighters to execute interference and surveillance tasks. However, much to Japan's surprise, in response to the interference of Japanese fighters, the Chinese PLA drone simply raised its flight altitude to 20,000 meters. This move left the Japanese aircraft "far behind," forcing them to only look up at the sky in lamentation.

On June 2nd, a Chinese PLA drone once crossed the sea area between Yonaguni Island and Chinese Taiwan.

This incident revealed a major dilemma facing Japan today: In recent years, with the rapid development of China's drone technology, the application of the latter in military reconnaissance, border patrol, international peacekeeping, and other fields has become increasingly widespread. When faced with advanced Chinese drones, Japan feels more and more powerless using traditional fighters for tracking and interception missions. The performance of Japan's current F-15J fighters compared to Chinese PLA drones is far inferior.

"Nikkei Asia" reported in its article that the主力F-15J fighter jets used by Japan this time for monitoring the Chinese drone are products from the 1980s. Although they have undergone multiple upgrades since then, compared to China's latest drones, they remain outdated. In this incident, when the Chinese drone suddenly increased its flight altitude to nearly 20,000 meters, the Japanese aircraft could only "仰望" in a physical sense.

This reflects two major issues: On one hand, the maximum ceiling of Japan's fighters is far lower than that of China's new drones, which also indirectly highlights the advancement of China's drone technology. Japanese media also noted that China's technological advantage in drones is not only reflected in flight performance but also in its powerful electronic warfare capabilities. Modern drones are equipped with advanced sensors and communication devices, allowing them to maintain stable operation in complex electromagnetic environments. Japan's performance in dealing with Chinese drones is very realistic: extremely powerless.

On the other hand, this kind of "someone vs. no one" attrition war strategy used by Japan is already an outdated tactic. Before the advent of the drone era, it was perfectly normal for "manned aircraft" to track and monitor "manned aircraft." But now that the drone era has arrived, everything has changed. Japan still uses the outdated "manned aircraft" monitoring tactics against drones, which is clearly out of date. What's even more interesting is that if a direct confrontation were to occur, Japan's F-15J would definitely not be a match for China's drones. The former relies mainly on pilot control, and the duration it can monitor largely depends on the pilot's energy, whereas China's drones do not face such concerns.

Japan's F-15J struggles while monitoring the PLA drone.

Moreover, the cost and operational costs of these two types of military aircraft are not on the same level. Each sortie of Japan's manned aircraft requires the consumption of large amounts of fuel and other logistics supplies, and will also incur additional labor costs. From a certain perspective, this time China demonstrated an "asymmetric" warfare.

"Nikkei Asia" also stated that the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force is divided into four aviation aspects: northern, central, western, and southwestern. Among them, the burden on the southwestern direction is particularly heavy, accounting for more than 60% of the total number of emergency sorties of Japan's national air self-defense force. With more advanced models of Chinese drones, such as WZ-7 and WZ-10, joining the combat sequence, Japan's response difficulty has been continuously increasing.

In the past, when faced with these large unmanned reconnaissance platforms capable of prolonged stay in the air, Japan's response was often to force the Air Self-Defense Force to consecutively dispatch multiple fighters to take turns monitoring. In theory, this could alleviate the task pressure on a single aircraft, but in reality, it exacerbated the overall fatigue of the combat system. Moreover, this rotational reconnaissance model may not necessarily yield results. The simplest example: when the Chinese drone climbs to high altitudes, no matter how many aircraft Japan sends to take turns monitoring, it will likely be ineffective.

Japan can only watch helplessly when faced with the PLA drone.

Finally, the Japanese media lamented: If this trend continues, Tokyo has two choices: first, exhaust the energy of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force in continuous tracking and monitoring; second, deploy more advanced fighters to replace the duties of the F-15J. At present, the only fighter capable of performing this task is the "Lightning" (F-35).

Original Source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7512281835011965474/

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