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Text: Praise and praise are on the way
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On the day of China's Aerospace Day, a news of "J-20 hitting rockets" sparked heated discussions on the Internet. This incident seems to be ordinary, but it has uncovered a traditional practice of the Chinese armed forces in training unguided weapons, and at the same time, it has also reflected a hot issue in the world: Under the tide of modern precision-guided weapons, will the training of unguided weapons still have value and significance? Will the Chinese armed forces fall into passivity due to long-term unguided weapons training in actual combat, as Russia has done? Public opinion has been in an uproar, and various sides have different views. It is necessary for us to calmly analyze the essence of this issue, sort out the truth, and draw objective conclusions.
Russia's Su-34 fighter-bombers suffered heavy losses in the early days of the war in Ukraine. And just recently, after the Su-34 of the same model used a large number of precision-guided bombs, its attack power suddenly increased, making the Ukrainian defense line defenseless. The contrast between the two is striking. It is no wonder that public opinion regards the "rocket-fighting" training of Chinese fighters as a "hard injury" for fear of repeating Russia's mistakes.
The main reason why the Russian Su-34 was defeated in the early stage was that it had not been able to master the skills of using guided bombs for a long time and was tired of throwing low-precision unguided weapons. However, how can China's fighter units, like the Russian military, turn a blind eye to modern precision-guided weapons and rest on their laurels? Is it true that our armed forces have been unable to break through the bottleneck of mass production of guided weapons for a long time, as public opinion has feared? What is the truth?
In fact, the Chinese military has not always been confined to unguided weapons training, but has retained this practice for some practical reasons and considerations. For example, fighters such as the J-7 and J-16, as well as heavy bombers such as the H-6K, have openly used rockets and iron bombs for weapon delivery training. This is not only spectacular and visually impactful, but more importantly, it can exercise the pilot's basic skills and improve the accuracy of bomb dropping. It can be seen that the training of unguided weapons is, to a large extent, based on the needs of basic training, and is not an expedient measure.
However, this does not mean that the guided weapons of the Chinese army are lagging behind. In fact, on the contrary, the mainland is not only far ahead in the types and quantities of guided weapons, but also has the largest production capacity in the world, which is absolutely capable of meeting the needs of daily training. The reason why the outside world rarely sees relevant training footage is mainly because there are indeed great difficulties in shooting guided weapon throwing training with a range of several tens of kilometers. On the other hand, in order to ensure the safety and service life of ammunition stocks, a part of guided munitions must be consumed every year, and it is simply impossible not to use them for training.
Tracing back to its roots, the tradition of training in unguided weapons dates back to the middle of the last century. At that time, precision-guided weapons were still a "new thing" in the world, and China was naturally even more powerless. In such a situation, training in unguided weapons becomes an expedient measure. And once this habit is cultivated, even if the guided weapon later "blossoms everywhere", it will always be preserved. From this point of view, the reason why the Russian army suffered a big loss on the battlefield in Ukraine is likely to be because after the end of the Cold War, the modernization process of its weapons and equipment was blocked, so that it could not smoothly realize the transition of "new outfit".
Looking to the future, under the general trend that precision-guided weapons will undoubtedly dominate the future battlefield pattern, the Chinese armed forces will certainly intensify the use of guided weapons and gradually reduce the proportion of unguided weapons. However, this does not in any way mean that the latter should be completely abandoned, because of the needs of basic training, and training in unguided weapons will be retained in the short term. However, in contrast, the frequency and intensity of guided weapons training will continue to increase in order to ensure the combat capability of the troops in modern conditions. In this process, pilots need to constantly explore and summarize the experience of using guided weapons to ensure that they can be proficient and take root in the future.
This incident quickly aroused heated discussions among netizens on the Internet. Some netizens believe that the Chinese military's tradition of training unguided weapons is a manifestation of backwardness and will inevitably suffer losses in future actual combat. "The current war cannot be won by rockets, why are we still following this old road? It's really worrying!" Some netizens have a different view, "Don't underestimate the importance of unguided weapons training, that's the basic skill of pilots! Even if it is no longer used in the future, you must keep training now, otherwise where will the accuracy come from?" Another netizen analyzed from another angle: "Everyone was frightened by the news of 'J-20 hitting rockets', have you considered how strong China's guided weapons production capacity is?" We simply don't have to cobble together like Russia. “
In general, the Chinese military's approach to unguided weapons training is not backward and conservative, but out of many trade-offs. On the one hand, the need for basic training determines that this kind of training will be retained in the short term; on the other hand, China is already far ahead of other countries in the production capacity and reserves of guided weapons, and it is natural that guided weapons will be used more in daily training. From this point of view, public opinion's concern that China will repeat the mistakes of the Russian army can be completely swept away. However, how to improve the level of use of guided weapons by pilots under modern conditions will be a new topic that the Chinese military needs to focus on solving. Whether we can keep up with the trend of the times in a timely manner depends on the degree of attention paid to and solved this problem.