New imagery has appeared showing the Chinese J-20 stealth fighter carrying external air-to-air missiles, mirroring the so-called ‘beast mode’ that we’ve seen on U.S. fifth-generation fighters. The development comes as China looks at various ways of increasing the number of primary weapons that the J-20 can accommodate internally, while also working on various new longer-range air-to-air missiles.
A video emerged recently showing a J-20 in flight, apparently fitted with eight PL-15 medium-to-long-range air-to-air missiles, carried in pairs on four underwing pylons. A screen capture from the same footage had begun to circulate late last year, although it wasn’t immediately clear if it was genuine. The appearance of the video would seem to put at rest most of those concerns.
It’s also well known that the J-20 has underwing hardpoints since we have seen the fighter in the past carrying four large external fuel tanks, as you can read about here.
In fact, when we first became aware of the J-20 carrying drop tanks, we surmised that, in the future, the stealth fighter would likely also appear with weapons under their wings.
In particular, we predicted that China’s very long-range air-to-air missile, now known to be designated as the PL-17, could end up arming the J-20, and that it would be carried externally. After all, the huge missile does not fit in the fighter’s weapons bay.
Now, however, it seems that the ‘beast mode’ J-20 is carrying additional examples of the PL-15 — the aircraft’s standard medium-to-long-range air-to-air missile, reportedly able to hit targets up to 124 miles. Already, the J-20 can carry four of these weapons in its main internal weapons bay.
They can be supplemented by two short-range PL-10 air-to-air missiles. These infrared-guided weapons are deployed via novel side weapons bays, which allow the missiles to be exposed on the outside of the aircraft, with the doors closed behind them. You can read more about this fascinating aspect of the J-20’s design here.
Returning to the PL-15, this is an incredibly important component of China’s fast-developing airpower capabilities.
In the past, the U.S. Air Force has publicly said that the emergence of the PL-15 was a key factor in the decision to start the AIM-260 program, which seeks to provide a new air-to-air missile with a range longer than that of the now-standard AIM-120 AMRAAM.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) defense and security think tank determines that the PL-15 “out-ranges the U.S.-made AIM-120C/D AMRAAM series and has a comparable maximum range to the Meteor.” This long range may be achieved through the use of a dual-pulse rocket motor, although this remains unconfirmed.
While we don’t know what — if anything — is in the internal weapons bays of the J-20 in the video, the potential for the aircraft to carry 12 PL-15s is very significant in terms of ‘magazine depth,’ although the penalty is the loss of the aircraft’s low-observable characteristics.
This, however, is not necessarily a huge problem if tactics are optimized to overcome it.
In this way, it would be expected that a stealthy flight of J-20s (with all-internal missiles) would work in concert with a flight of J-20s in ‘beast mode.’ With the stealthy flight operating ahead, they would then call on the more heavily armed jets behind them as a force-multiplier, thereby overcoming their limited air-to-air missile carriage capability.
In the same way, a J-20 in ‘beast mode’ could serve as something akin to an arsenal ship to support other tactical aircraft, including the forthcoming J-35 stealth fighter. China’s Flanker-derivative series of fighters could also work in concert with stealthy J-20s in a similar fashion.
Beyond the PL-15, China is also working on other air-to-air missiles that are likely to be added to the J-20’s armory.
These include the aforementioned PL-17, a very long-range missile that may well be intended primarily to target high-value assets, like tankers and airborne early warning aircraft. You can read more about this still-mysterious missile here. As mentioned previously, this would only be available for external carriage on the J-20, although it’s unclear whether eight would be possible — four PL-17s underwing seems a much more likely maximum load-out with two being realistically more optimal for most missions.
These two missiles are likely to be joined before long by another weapon, tentatively dubbed PL-16, the design of which seems to have been driven by the requirement for the J-20 to accommodate six longer-range missiles internally. The PL-16 will likely be superficially similar to the PL-15 but will be a compressed-carriage missile. It is expected to feature an active electronically scanned array (AESA) seeker, a Mach 5-plus fly-out speed, and significant resistance to jamming.
This reflects similar trends in the United States, where, in addition to working on secretive new longer-range air-to-air missiles, there have been efforts to add more weapons to the F-22 and F-35, which are constrained by their internal weapons carriage — provided they are to retain their critical low-observability advantage.
The F-35 can only carry four internal AMRAAMs, which led to a program to develop the Sidekick weapons bay adapter, which will boost the number of internal AMRAAMs a Joint Strike Fighter can carry to six.
In fact, the eight missiles that we see in the video would introduce the prospect of a J-20 that can eventually carry 14 medium/long-range air-to-air missiles, complemented by the pair of PL-10 shorter-range weapons, for a whopping 16 missiles in total. For comparison, the F-22 could theoretically carry a similar loadout, although this never happens in practice, nor is it clear if that configuration has been tested. One of the F-15EXs biggest selling points is the ability to carry 12 AIM-120s today and possibly more tomorrow, as magazine depth becomes a greater concern in the increasingly complex domain of air-to-air combat.
We still don’t know whether this configuration is now operational or still in the test phase. It would seem likely, however, that we will learn more in due course, and, at the same time, the development potentially opens up a much wider variety of external weapons carriage possibilities, too.
Update, February 11:
Another photo has emerged that apparently shows a J-20 in ‘beast mode,’ once again seemingly armed with eight PL-15 medium-to-long-range air-to-air missiles, carried in pairs on four underwing pylons. This aircraft was photographed while still undergoing manufacturer’s tests, confirmed by it still wearing a yellow-colored primer paint scheme.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com