J-20 Mighty Dragon : Asia's First Stealth Fighter in the Era of China's Military Rise

The J-20 fifth generation stealth fighter program has epitomised China's rise from a laggard in combat aviation into a potential world leader. J-20 Mighty Dragon: Asia's First Stealth Fighter in the Era of China's Military Rise details the J-20's technologies, capabilities, production timeline, design priorities, roles, evolution, and the formations and locations where it has been deployed, the ways other countries have responded to it, and how the last 30 years of China's industrial and technology sector's modernisation positioned the country to produce what may well now be the world's top air superiority fighter.

The J-20 program is the most high-profile indicator of a turning point in the balance of power between China and the United States, and has produced by far the most capable fighter that America or its allies could face in a potential conflict. An assessment of the history of Chinese air superiority capabilities, and how the Korean War in particular has influenced the country to place a very strong emphasis on the need to field a leading fighter for air-to-air combat, thus provides an important deeper understanding of the program.

Important context to understanding the J-20's significance and its current global standing is provided by brief assessments of the positions of the Russian and American fighter industries. The parallel development of supporting assets from aerial tankers to electronic warfare planes is also explored for a better understanding of the much-transformed Chinese fleet which J-20s are being inducted into.

The program is also shown to have had a particularly significant influence in the United States, ranging from placing discourse on the F-35's modernisation and on sixth generation fighter development in an entirely new context, to stimulating the formation of new counter-stealth aggressor training units, development of new air-to-air missiles, and the acquisition of E-7 'flying radar' aircraft among many other responses to the new challenge. J-20 Mighty Dragon: Asia's First Stealth Fighter in the Era of China's Military Rise is the fi rst volume in the new Technology@War series and is extensively illustrated with colour photographs throughout and specially commissioned colour artworks.

Images : 98 colour photos, 1 colour illustration, 2 b/w photos, 27 colour profiles, 1 colour map

The Technology@War series seeks to describe the ever increasingly complex technologies employed by the world's militaries from the early twentieth century up to the present day, presenting the information in an authoritative yet accessible format. 

Modern warfare is dominated by technology. Since at least the dawn of the twentieth century, technological revolution has driven the development of naval, air and land warfare to a degree where it can be increasingly said that – arguably – the armed forces man the equipment rather than equip the man.

Whilst the layman can follow the movements of fleets and armies and chart the effects of air attack, understanding the development and employment of ever more sophisticated technologies can be much more difficult, especially given that few areas are more jealously guarded by the world's militaries than the latest developments in technology, even many decades after they entered service.

Technology has always been important across the various domains of warfare; with the imperative to build ships that could see and strike further; aircraft that could fly faster and higher (or, perhaps paradoxically lower) and carry more; ground forces that could fight around the clock in the most hostile of environments and empower the lowliest foot soldier to humble the mightiest tank. And, of course, for every technological measure, there would be a technological countermeasure, as a never-ending race ensued to nullify the enemy's latest development.

But technology encompasses not just the weapons and the sensors, for all of these are of little value without the ability to communicate. Modern technologies seek to unify the domains of land, sea, air, space and now cyber, into one seamless network that shares information across platforms in real time, to allow a commander hundreds of miles from the frontline to know what is happening right now, and to allow the logistician to supply the ever more sophisticated and expensive ordnance to the right place at the right time.

Modern technology has now moved to a point where – arguably – the side in possession of a combination of superior situational awareness and better-functioning logistics is near-certain to win the battle, regardless of the balance of forces.

The Technology@War series aims to bring the @War format to the subject of military technologies and to cut through the morass of misinformation that often permeates the public domain. Technology@War brings subject experts, often with first hand personal experience of the systems in question, to the reader in a concise, accessible, yet authoritative format. 

Each volume is richly illustrated with original photographs, maps and diagrams, and specially commissioned colour artworks showing the technologies and their employment by the world's militaries.