Weapons that Don’t Work in the Ukraine War Make Up Most of China’s Military

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Chinese analysts want to understand why Russian weapons are doing so badly in the war in Ukraine. 70% of China’s modern airplanes are licensed copies, unlicensed copies or variants of the SU-27. 20% are inferior planes that are not even as good as the Russian copies.

The Ukraine War has been an actual real world test or most of the modern planes, missiles, drones that the world has. The only systems that have not been tested or used are the stealth fighters. Russia has some SU57 stealth fighters but has not used them other than a few safe uses from long-range.

The other lessons are which tactics are ineffective and which tactics are more effective. There is also the need for a lot more drones for front line troops. Drones have become an absolute necessity on the front lines. There is a need for a lot more ammunition and overall training. There will need to be a lot more training on the effective tactics.

China also wants to look at the Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile getting shot down. The Kinzhal and China’s hypersonic weapons (YJ-21 and DF-17) are similar technology. They are hypersonic warheads on a regular rocket booster. The Kinzhal had about 6 shot down in one day. The Kinzhal cost Russia about $10 million each to make. The YJ-21 is a shorter range navy variant of the DF-17. The YJ-21 costs about $8 million each. The DF-17 costs about $107 million each. Russia had about 6 Kinzhal missiles shot down in 1 day in the war. Normal supersonic missiles are about $1-2 million. The point of spending more money for a faster missile is so it can with near certainty penetrate defenses. A military could always just buy 10 or 100 cheaper missiles to overwhelm air defenses. You don’t want to go too cheap where the missiles are not reliable like a Scud missile. You want to spend enough to get good cost benefit on reliable destruction.

The Russian S-400 air defense system was supposed to be a scary system able to defend against the US air force and missiles. The S-400s have been defeated and destroyed with a few waves of cheap drones and cheap missiles. China bought a lot of expensive S-400 air defense systems.

The US and the rest of world may not have the exact same Russian equipment but all of the world’s military have to update and change procurement to reflect what is being learned in Ukraine.

Russia has lost about 20% of its Su-34 fleet, with a starting total of only 121 aircraft. Four Su-34 planes were shot down in only 2 days in December, 2023.

Chinese analysis identifies two reasons for these heavy losses.

1. The Russian Aerospace Force, which inherited the air combat theories of the Soviet Air Force, habitually allows existing combat aircraft to take on the tasks of both air defense suppression and electronic warfare.

2. Russian military’s did not buy enough precision guided stand-off munitions. They cannot keep their planes safer by being further away.

Roughly 20% of the PLAAF and PLANAF’s combat aircraft are old second-generation fighters of limited combat value against peer opponents, save perhaps in swarming attacks. Another 30% include strategic bombers and more capable but dated third-generation designs. Finally, 50% percent are fourth-generation fighters that can theoretically hold their own against peers like the F-15 and F-16.

China has about 126 actual Russian planes in the Su-27 family (SU27, SU30, SU35).

The J-11 and J-16 are copies of the SU-27 Russian planes, that are getting shotdown by ground to air missiles in Ukraine. The J-11 was a licensed copy of the SU-27.

The J-10 is a copy of the Israeli Lavi from Israeli designs. The Lavi was based on the design of the French Dassault Mirage. The J-10s haver had several deadly accidents possibly related to difficulties in the fly-by-wire system. 22% of China’s 2500 combat aircraft are J-10.

The J-7 is an older and even more outdated plane makes up 20% of the fleet of 2500.

China’s J-20 now makes up about 8% of China’s 2500 combat jets. This is stealth plane copied from stolen F-22 and F-35 information.

16 thoughts on “Weapons that Don’t Work in the Ukraine War Make Up Most of China’s Military”

  1. Russia didn’t pursue a scorched earth policy with Ukraine, because that would be of no benefit to the shared Russian/Ukrainian history/legacy/bloodline/demographics. Since the “special operation” was restrained from the git-go, it is not a surprise, considering the influx of foreign armaments, that the conflict appears somewhat stagnated. How many F105 Thunderchiefs and F4 Phantoms were lost over Vietnam? How’s that democracy working out in Afghanistan and Iraq?

    Russia is fighting its little brother with one hand behind its back, trying to make the little brother see the way without that a gratuitous curb stomping coup de grace. Y’all count the planes and armor lost – when has anything other than TOTAL WAR led to a decisive conclusion? There are frozen or hot/cold conflicts all over the globe.

    • The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! Oh wait, they aren’t coming, they are just posting here. Or their sympathizers are, same diff.

  2. In other news today (Tuesday, Jan 23), Turkey just approved Sweden’s NATO membership. Having both Sweden and Finland on their northwest flank must be given Putin shivers.

  3. I’d take anything Ukraine claims with a massive scoop of salt. The reality on the battlefield tells a completely different story.

    Not sure why you’re posting this biased garbage Brian.

      • I didn’t think so, but you thought Russia was gonna steamroll Ukraine. Russia can’t even beat Ukraine, Ukraine. What would the western world do to Russia. Roll right over the top of them like it was nothing

        • Possibly. But who cares?
          Russia is evil.
          Any culture that cannot succeed within its own internationally-accepted borders, as of late 1990s, is obviously, a faltering wannabe-empire, insecure in its place in the world. Russia wants the world to think its a top 5 culture/language/society – it is not, barely top 20. If it wasn’t for the technology evolving in northern Europe via England, care of industrialization in the 17th – 19th c, it would be completely happy being a post-medieval assortment of fiefdoms and warring peasant armies.
          If you care about a human civilization that goes to space and solves fusion, ageing, and agriculture/water issues you do not support russian/china values and goals.
          Of course, east europe and especially ukraine is corrupt and backwards, but that’s just a function of their history and low-trust values.
          Of course, Ukaine lost momentum recently because they thought that western tech would mean they didn’t have to take risks and heavy losses. They do. Better Dead than Red. I know that Ukraine won’t lose the Black Sea (Odessa) or Kyiv, but as a functional country, who knows?
          I trust that the EU and to a lesser extent the US, will keep Ukraine functional as it builds its military industrial base, ‘mostly’ resisting the endless hordes of Russian human garbage that is sent against them.
          And who knows? after 2 – 5 years of this, Russia will be so backward technologically, except miltarily, that their Fedration will implode and all the smaller cultures, the ‘Stans and such, they ‘protected’ will be free, poorer but able to follw their own path outside of Russian mobilization queues. Long Live Ukraine. Rusia to hell.

  5. Dunno. Russia is slowly advancing at the moment just by sheer quantity of rubbish infantry. Aint no one can beat China at that game.

        • In the shadow of all the missiles falling on them for several hours, eight troop transports to hit the few and fortified beaches is pretty long odds. Especially when your own missiles are full of water.

  6. Do you think China’s President Xi Jinping new engagement to clean out the PLA Rocket Forces and very likely other PLA forces will be useful? Or, Is it too little too late? There is corruption is every country, especially in the military-industrial complex, but do you think the problems in Russia and China are an order of magnitude greater? Is the road to repair, in less than a generation, unlikely?

    It appears (or stands to reason) that Ukraine likely had the same corruption issues that Russia had inherited from the USSR, but Ukraine seemingly did overcome some of that cultural momentum. Could China have a similar transformation? Or will all the other factors they have to overcome (Legal Reform, Environmental Issues, Social Policies, Demographic Challenges, Human Rights, and Tofu Dreg projects melt like papier-mâché) just make graft/corruption reform impossible to focus on?

    • China makes a lot of space rockets that work reliably. China makes products for most of the world. China can fix the equipment easily and fairly quickly. The corruption and training issues impact other aspects and are difficult to cure. When will Boeing get back on track making good planes again? They can fix obviously defective planes but what about their prioritizing finance MBAs over engineers. Financial engineering over real engineering.

      Ukraine was gifted equipment from the West. They did not have to make the gear.

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