Crucial radar aircraft could be a serious problem in any battle over Taiwan
The USAF’s E-3s have participated in every major conflict involving US forces since the 1970s. After briefly considering abandoning the whole AWACS concept in favour of space-based radars, the Americans ultimately decided to replace their two dozen or so ageing Boeing 707-based E-3s with newer E-7s based on the Boeing 737.
The PLAAF already has dozens of AWACS in front-line service. But the appearance of the apparent Y-20-based AWACS could mean the Chinese early-warning force, currently organised around older turboprop types, is on the cusp of a major upgrade. Jet-propelled AWACS fly faster and higher, allowing them to monitor more air space and survive deadlier enemy attacks.
Russia’s wider war on Ukraine, now grinding toward its fourth year, has underscored the enduring importance of early-warning planes. The Russian air force went to war in Ukraine with nine Beriev A-50 AWACS.
Grouped into “orbits” of three planes, the A-50 force could fly nearly daily sorties in northern, eastern and southern Ukraine. Crewed by pilots, sensor-operators and battle-managers, the A-50s detected Ukrainian aircraft and missiles and vectored Russian aircraft and missiles to intercept.
The A-50s were instrumental in the Russian air force’s early victories against the Ukrainian air force. The high-flying AWACS, circling 50 or a hundred miles behind the front line, provided “higher-resolution early warning and vector information on low-flying Ukrainian aircraft,” according to the Royal United Services Institute.
With this information, the Russians shot down dozens of Ukrainian planes. So it should come as no surprise that, as soon as they had the means to do so, the Ukrainians began targeting the A-50s. Launching drones and heavyweight air-defense missiles, Ukrainian forces struck at least three A-50s on the ground and in the air in 2023 and 2024, likely destroying all three.
The raids compelled the Russian air force to pull back its surviving A-50s, flying them less often and farther from the front line. If US forces are going to suppress the future Chinese AWACS force during, say, a war over Taiwan, they’re going to have to be at least as aggressive – and successful – as the Ukrainians have been in their own hunt for Russian AWACS.
The problem, of course, is that the Chinese are likely to acquire many more AWACS than the Russian air force had in 2022. And the geography of a war over Taiwan is likely to be much less favourable to any forces going after enemy AWACS than the geography of the Ukraine war has been. There aren’t a lot of places where the US military can stage drones and missiles for ambushes on PLAAF early-warning planes.
The upshot is that there might not be a whole lot the Pentagon can do to counter China’s new AWACS. The Americans might just have to live with the planes – and with the important capabilities they could lend to any future Chinese war effort.
On the same day China revealed two new stealth fighter designs, it also showed off an equally important – but less glamorous – new warplane: a four-engine airborne early warning and control plane, or AWACS. It may be the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s answer to the US Air Force’s iconic Boeing E-3 Sentry.
The mysterious new plane, possibly designated KJ-3000, appeared in a few blurry photos that circulated online. Considering the wide fuselage and four jet engines of the new Chinese AWACS, it seems the type is based on the PLAAF’s Xi’an Y-20 airlifter and tanker plane, itself a close analogue of the USAF’s Boeing C-17 airlifter.
Early-warning aircraft are basically transport planes (or airliners) with large radars mounted on their fuselages and various work stations in their holds for various specialists and air-warfare commanders, the latter also known as “battle managers.” In addition to extending radar coverage, AWACS often function as aerial headquarters.