Tango-Tiger

Air Combat Is Hard, Air Combat Over Water Is Harder—So The Chinese Air Force Is Practicing



The Chinese air force last month dramatically demonstrated a key tactic for a possible war across the Taiwan Strait.

On March 26, a record-setting 20 People’s Liberation Army Air Force warplanes sortied from the Chinese mainland and approach Taiwan along two axis.

While most of the aircraft probed Taiwanese defenses southwest of the island country, four H-6K cruise-missile bombers and a Y-8 support plane continued southeast over the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan and The Philippines then turned north, arriving at a station in international air space east of Taiwan.

In other words, the PLAAF bombers encircled Taiwan—a move that China’s state-owned Global Times newspaper touted as potentially decisive in wartime. “From that position, the PLA can not only strike military facilities on the east of the island, but also lock down the island entirely.”

But it’s far from a foregone conclusion that the Chinese air force could pull off the maneuver in combat. For one, the enemy—the Taiwanese and American militaries with their missile batteries, air-defense fighters and missile-firing warships—gets a vote.

Second, it’s not clear that many of the PLAAF’s crews possess the skills and support they need to fly reliably and safely many hundreds of miles across the vast, unforgiving expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Air combat over land is hard. Air combat over the open ocean is harder. Over water, navigation, communication and coordination—to say nothing of effectively fighting an experienced, high-tech foe—can be big problems.

“Although the PLAAF is increasing the number of maritime flights, it has also acknowledged various challenges concerning far-seas flight training,” Kenneth Allen and Cristina Garafola wrote in a new U.S. Air Force-sponsored survey of the Chinese air force’s history and organization.

Allen and Garafola cited a 2017 interview with Chinese airmen from the PLAAF’s southern command. The airmen discussed several problems the air force is trying to address in order to improve its “far-seas” fighting ability.

Comms top the list. “Due to limited communications measures during far-seas training, comprehensive support measures—including regular radar, aerial command-and-communications aircraft, navy ships and communications satellites—need to be better integrated,” Allen and Garafola wrote.

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