"Flopping fish" - China's underperforming carrier-based fighter

I'm severely late on this story, but I feel an urge to write about it regardless: Last month, the Sina Military Network, otherwise known as the covert media arm of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), did a story on the the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)'s new J-15 Flying Shark, which recently completed carrier trials on the Liaoning. The tone of the media coverage has astonished outside observers: The aircraft was openly and harshly criticized for inadequate performance, and even described as a "flopping fish."

For those not in the know, the J-15 is a naval carrier fighter that is meant to be a clone of the Sukhoi Su-33, except that it's actually based on the T-10K, the prototype version, which the Russians left in the hands of the Ukrainians after the Soviet Union fell apart. Of course, the Russians hate it when the Chinese reverse-engineer and manufacture their weapons without permission, but so far, that doesn't appear to outweigh their need to keep selling to their largest defense customer: Witness the recently-signed - albeit oft-delayed - deal to purchase Su-35s. Then again, maybe the reason the Russians don't care so much is that they long ago suspected what the Chinese just admitted - that the J-15 isn't going to live up to the absolutely absurd levels of hype that we saw in the Chinese media last year. Lest we forget, we are talking about a clone of a fighter that the Russians themselves decided to abandon in favor of the smaller and more carrier-friendly MiG-29K.

Among the criticisms of the J-15 aired in the Chinese media:

• Inability to carry adequate weapons payload and achieve carrier takeoff: “[A weapons] load exceeding 12 tons will not get it off the carrier’s ski jump ramp.” This means that weapons such as the PL-12 medium-range air-to-air missiles aren't likely to be deployable - let alone deliverable - on carrier missions. And thus, the J-15's air superiority/intercept capabilities will be limited (meaning that the Liaoning itself may be more vulnerable to air attack).
• At best, the J-15 will have an anti-ship capability consisting of YJ-83K missiles, plus shorter-range PL-8 air-to-air missiles for self-defense.
• Roger Cliff at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is quoted pointing out an aberration: The PL-12 is a lighter missile than the YJ-83K, so the J-15 should be able to take off with the former but not the latter. This implies that, in fact, the J-15 cannot take off with either type of missile - meaning that it's even less capable than PLAN is willing to admit.
• Due to fuel requirements, the attack range will also be limited to 120 kilometers.
• To get an idea of how paltry the J-15's capabilities really are: The smaller U.S. F/A-18E, itself an expensive disappointment in many respects, is at least capable of carrying AIM-120 AMRAAMs and AGM-84 Harpoon missiles on carrier deployments with a ferry range of 1,800 knots.

The post from Defense News linked above contains a number of quotes from Vasily Kashin from the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, whom I met when he was at NDU last month. He isn't quite as critical of the J-15 as the PLAN themselves appear to be. He points out that (1.) the bigger issue than the J-15's weaknesses is the fact that the Liaoning itself is not a very good platform for carrier fighter operations (it doesn't even have catapults yet), and (2.) it's possible that the J-15 has airframe improvements that were not available at the time of the Su-33. But even he admits that fundamentally, the J-15 is, like the Su-33, a carrier version of the Su-27, a fighter that is inherently ill-suited to operating from carriers.

What we are seeing is that the Chinese government is unbelievably pissed off that China's military-industrial complex has once again failed to uphold national pride, which is - let's face it - its most important purpose (actually fighting and winning a war against would-be adversaries is secondary).