As for the comparison of the scale of the main battle equipment of the Chinese and US armies, the Americans have previously concluded that the scale of the Chinese navy's ships has far exceeded that of the US military, which is of course objective. However, the U.S. Navy, which has 11 supercarriers, is actually the navy with the largest displacement in the world, and the navy with the largest number of shield ships and vertical hair units, and these indicators are far more representative than the number of warships. In the past few days, US Indian Commander Aquilino said in his testimony before the US Congress that China may soon have the world's largest air force, stressing that the speed and scope and scale of the modernization of China's air force should not be underestimated, and will bring "serious security challenges" to the United States. The world's largest air force that Aquilino refers to is not actually the overall strength of the air force, but the fact that the Chinese Air Force is about to have the most powerful fighter fleet in the world, dwarfing the US Air Force in terms of the scale of deployment of cutting-edge combat. This raises the question: Is the Chinese Air Force really capable of having a world-class air force right away, or even surpassing the US military? We must look at this issue objectively.
In fact, when we assess the strength of the combat platforms of the Chinese and US air forces, we can describe each other's strengths and weaknesses. The Chinese Air Force is now stronger in fighter aircraft and early warning aircraft, while the US military maintains a clear advantage in the fields of strategic bombers, transport planes, and tankers. Why, then, does the US military top brass conclude that the superiority of the Chinese Air Force will challenge all the superiority of the US military? This has to be said that there is a huge gap between the needs of the Chinese and US Air Forces' combat platforms. The main combat mission of the Chinese Air Force is to seize air supremacy in the western Pacific direction and prevent the US military from interfering in the settlement of the Taiwan issue by force. Therefore, China has built two heavy fighters in the world: the J-16 and the J-20. China's J-16 is the second most deployed heavy fighter in the world, and it is called a super flanker by the Americans.
This powerful two-seater fighter is ideally suited for strikes against U.S. surface ships and targets in the first island chain, and its air combat performance is among the best among non-stealth fighters. In the eyes of the Americans, the real frightening thing is that China's J-20 will become the world's largest heavy fighter, and it will also be a stealth fighter, and this prospect will lay the hope for the US military to seize air supremacy. If we take into account that the Chinese Air Police-500 is the world's largest fleet of deployed digital array AWACS aircraft, and the US military's E-7 will not be deployed until 2027. In addition, when the US Air Force is operating in the Asia-Pacific region, the combat radius and base survival crisis faced by its fighters in carrying out their missions no longer has suspense from the perspective of seizing air supremacy.
So, why don't the Americans emphasize the superiority of their strategic bombers, tankers, transport planes, and other large military aircraft platforms? In fact, these superiorities of the US military are mainly based on the needs of its global deployment. When fighting a large country like China, the complexity of the battlefield organization due to the massive use of tankers and transport opportunities is very obvious. Speaking of low, the only advantage of the US air force over the Chinese air force is the strategic bomber, but the strategic bomber flying from the western Pacific also faces many problems. First, there is the risk of interception by China's heavy fighters; second, with the development of space-based satellite reconnaissance network technology, the flight paths of strategic bombers are no longer hidden; third, with the development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, China may build a tighter early warning network in the western Pacific; fourth, the dependence of US strategic bombers on the second and third island chains may become targets for China's land-based missiles, and the logistical organization is also very complicated. And strategic bombers taking off from the continental United States are almost unrealistic to fight back and forth because the distance is too long. The U.S. also has a numerical and technological advantage in tankers, but with the ultra-long-range air-to-air missiles being developed by China, this auxiliary combat aircraft has also become very vulnerable on the battlefield.
Overall, the strength of the US Air Force is essentially based on the strength of its global deployment. The strength of the Chinese Air Force is based on the strength of defending the country and being both offensive and defensive, or it is becoming invincible in the western Pacific direction. This has determined that once the US military goes to war with the PLA in the future, it will be carried out under the condition that it has no air supremacy, and they really can't play in this kind of difficult combat environment, or they can't adapt to it at all.