One indication of which aircraft would retain an advantage in air-to-air combat were war games held in India in 2004 where Indian Su-30 fighters confronted what was then the U.S. The outcome of a conflict will, as a result, most likely be decided by technological factors rather than the quality of the pilots involved. China’s ability to draw on some limited combat experience operating jet fighters during the Korean War against the United States Air Force remains an asset Japan lacks, however, with the Tokyo having never conducted an air campaign since the beginning of the jet age. With both air forces devoting substantial and roughly equivalent resources to training, and neither having any recent combat experience (China’s brief wars with India and Vietnam in 19 respectively did not involve any air units) it is unlikely that either would have an advantage over the other in the quality of their pilots.
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However, the mainstay of the Chinese air force’s air superiority capabilities remains the J-11, and whether this platform or the Japanese F-15 would have an advantage in air to air combat remains a point of contention.Įnjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Today there is little doubt that China’s most advanced platforms, the Russian-made Su-35 “4++” generation fighter and the indigenous J-20 fifth generation fighter first introduced in 20 respectively, far surpass the F-15J, developed in the 1970s. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific.
The F-15J finally had a match in the skies, and Japan within a decade found itself at a disadvantage both technologically and numerically. Based on these designs China went on to produce over 300 J-11 fighters, platforms almost identical to the fighters it obtained from Russia, the first batches of which were in fact licence built Su-27 fighters. The country acquired 150 Su-27 and Su-30 Flanker air superiority fighters - the latter which significantly eclipsed the capabilities of the U.S. China was notably a prime beneficiary of this, and having struggled to develop even a basic third generation interceptor in the 1980s it could by the end of the 1990s count some of the most advanced fourth generation fighters in the world among its air fleet. With the USSR’s fragmentation and the economies of its successor states in disaster, some of the world’s most modern and capable weapons systems including combat aircraft were made widely available for export as restrictions were removed. military presence on its territory. The collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1991 however was somewhat counterintuitively key to undermining the Japanese advantage in the air and causing a severe deterioration in its security capabilities. With the United States and USSR maintaining an effective monopoly on the production of fourth generation air superiority fighters, and the former restricting their export where the latter banned them entirely, very few countries possessed such high end capabilities.Īs a result of Japan’s alliance with the United States, the USSR had long been considered the East Asian state’s primary potential adversary, as Japan was almost certainly set to be involved in any open conflict between the two superpowers due to the extensive U.S. With 200 F-15 fighters in service among its other potent assets, Japan became the world’s third most capable air force and held this title throughout the 1980s - with only the United States and the USSR fielding similarly capable platforms in comparable numbers.
The F-15 far surpassed the capabilities of all those fielded by Japan’s neighbors, with the exception of the Soviet Union’s MiG-31 interceptors and, from 1985, its Su-27 fighters as well.
Japan received its first F-15J fighters in 1980, and alongside Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia was one of only four countries permitted by the United States to purchase its advanced fourth generation air superiority fighter at the time.
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