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Stephen Chen

Could stealth fighter jets take off from Japan, get past China’s air defence system and bomb Shanghai?
Chinese military researchers say they have simulated this scenario, with mixed results.
Their 10 rounds of computer simulation found that stealth fighters could be detected from 180km (110 miles) away by just a few land-based radars.
That would mean an F-22 or F-35 stealth fighter, for example, would be detected before it was in the 24km range needed to use precision-guided bombs for a ground attack.
The F-35 can enter “beast mode” to use larger and longer-range ground attack missiles but in doing so it will lose its stealth capabilities, so it could then be detected from much further away. The simulations found aircraft without stealth capabilities could be detected from a distance of 450km.
But an F-35 can also carry cruise missiles with a range of more than 900km. At their closest point, Japan is about 800km away from Shanghai.

The simulations were carried out by the People’s Liberation Army National Defence University’s College of Joint Operations and the State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Game in Beijing.
The team led by project engineer Cao Wei reported their results in a paper released at the 36th China Simulation Conference held in Yangzhou, Jiangsu in October – the first time the PLA has made public the results of war games involving a major Chinese city.
The researchers did not specify who was operating the planes in the scenario. Both the United States and Japanese militaries have stealth aircraft in the region.
Details about stealth fighter jets are deemed highly sensitive information, and the US military has never disclosed how close its F-22s and F-35s could get to a target without being detected.
Details about air defence systems are also kept secret – even within the Chinese military not all branches are across the capabilities of radars when it comes to detecting stealth targets.
For the computer simulations, Cao’s team developed an algorithm to convert abstract data on the radar system in the war games into the maximum distance it would take to detect a target and the warning time.
It was made visually user-friendly to improve “the interpretability of detection effectiveness data for experimental warfare personnel”, the team wrote in the paper.
They said the results of the simulations could be conservative since they were based on the use of just three radars – some operating at an average level – to defend Shanghai.
Many Chinese naval ships are equipped with stealth radars, while the air force uses powerful radar aircraft known as AWACS, or airborne warning and control system aircraft. A number of Chinese Earth observation satellites in space also have the ability to detect and track stealth fighter jets.
The researchers noted that the results might have been different if other detection platforms had been included in their war-gaming.


It comes as the US military is expanding its fleet of F-22s in Japan – a deployment seen as a strategic move aimed at high-value targets in China.
The growing number of F-22s on its doorstep could also increase the Chinese military’s interest in eliminating hostile stealth fighters on the ground.
Satellite images were released in July showing full-scale models of US fighter jets such as F-35s and F-22s on a runway in the Taklamakan Desert in China’s far western Xinjiang region. A number of them had apparently been damaged – possibly in attacks by Chinese military aircraft. The images were first captured by Google Earth on May 29 and published by Turkey-based Clash Report. The Post has not been able to verify the images.
In September, the People’s Liberation Army sent an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean – the first ICBM launch in more than four decades. Such missiles have a range of more than 5,500km and can carry nuclear warheads.
A month later, President Xi Jinping visited a missile brigade in southeastern Anhui province. The brigade has the capacity to launch more than 20 of the PLA Rocket Force’s Dongfeng-26 ballistic missiles, which are known as “Guam killers” for the threat posed to military facilities in the US territory.


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PLA simulates Shanghai attack to see how close fighter jets from Japan could get

The Chinese military researchers did not say whose warplanes were being targeted in the computer simulations. Both Japan and the US operate stealth fighters in the area. Photo: US Navy

The scenario involved Shanghai being attacked by aircraft from Japan. Image: College of Joint Operations, PLA National Defence University

Chinese military simulations of attacks on US air bases in Japan alarms Tokyo

Satellite imagery seemingly showing the Chinese military practising attacks on US fighter jets and aircraft carriers in the deserts of Xinjiang. Photo: X/clashreport

Images taken by Google Earth, featuring a model of aircraft carrier and more than 20 replicas of jets resembling US fighters. Photo: X/clashreport

Can China’s BeiDou radar detect F-22 stealth fighters?

Chinese scientists are developing a new radar method to detect and track stealth aircraft, such as the US F-22 Raptor. Photo: Getty Images/TNS

Scientists are developing a way to use BeiDou satellites in a radar system as a cost-effective way to search for stealth aircraft. Photo: AP

PLA drills in the dark show mainland China ‘ready for surprises’, such as over Taiwan

The People’s Liberation Army has carried out its latest nighttime drills as part of a three-day “combined military operation”. Photo: Weibo/ 央视军事报道

Zhang Youxia, first-ranked vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, is Beijing’s most senior uniformed military official. Photo: Weibo/ 央视军事报道

Live rounds and flares seen during a nighttime exercise by the Taiwanese military on Penghu islands on Thursday. Photo: Handout via Reuters

Mainland China lashes out at US$2 billion American arms package for Taiwan

The deal includes the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, which has been used by Ukraine. Photo: Ukrainian Air Force

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China

Stealth aircraft could be detected from 180km away in war games, but some cruise missiles have a range of more than 900km


Stealth aircraft could be detected from 180km away in war games, but some cruise missiles have a range of more than 900km.
