Analysis
To Counter China, America’s Next CCA Needs a Different Mission
The wars in Ukraine and Iran offer insights into modern war, such as the balance between offense and defense or between interceptors and one-way attack drones, but there’s a key aspect of the next-generation battlefield that the fights lack: widespread aerial combat between opposing air forces — a likely key component of a potential US-China war.
Establishing temporary US air superiority in that war will require more than fighter-based firepower. Contemporary air-to-air combat relies on airborne early warning (AEW) and aerial refueling aircraft. These high-value airborne assets (HVAA) provide the critical information and fuel for air combat in the Western Pacific, but are easy to track and have few defenses. It is no wonder, then, that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has devoted considerable effort towards targeting and destroying US HVAA using extended-range air-to-air missiles like the PL-17.
To safeguard its HVAA, the Air Force can acquire more fighters, develop new HVAA, or use space-based sensing. Or it can, and should, make protection of HVAA the primary mission of the second increment of its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program.
CCAs capable of defending HVAA aircraft for long-range air-to-air engagements would break the firepower-versus-protection paradox, enhance the capability to inflict aerial attrition on the PLAAF, and establish air superiority.
Traditional Approaches to Firepower And Protection
Since its inception, the Air Force has pursued air superiority through firepower, emphasizing qualitative advantages across its fighters, missiles, and pilots. Contemporary investments align with these preferences. These include alternative concepts such as increment one CCAs operating with F-35 Lightning IIs. Additionally, the Air Force is developing the F-47, a sixth-generation fighter aircraft, and arming it with ever-longer-range missiles.
The PLAAF’s growing size and capabilities, however, make traditional firepower-matching efforts problematic. Although the F-47 will outclass the J-20C Mighty Dragon, the PLAAF may be rapidly closing a capability gap with its J-36 and J-50/XDS prototypes. Numbers may matter too. The Air Force is planning to purchase 187 F-47s, whereas the PLAAF has at least 300 J-20s and an unknown number of future fighters. The resulting quantitative disadvantage may leave even the most cutting-edge mixed-US fighter fleet outnumbered. Furthermore, prioritizing fighter firepower at the expense of HVAA protection leaves these aircraft critically exposed.
The Air Force sets the standard for advanced fighter aircraft. Yet aerial combat effectiveness also requires HVAA, specifically AEW and refueling aircraft. These large aircraft have significant signatures and rely on outmoded self-defense systems, making them difficult to protect. Safeguarding these aircraft requires operating them outside the range of threats or flying dedicated HVAA protection sorties using fighter aircraft.
This defensive mission tethers fighters to these vulnerable aircraft, curtailing fighter freedom of action. Tasking U.S. fighter aircraft with this defensive mission also reduces the number of fighters available for offensive missions. As offensive forces are reduced, the attrition rate inflicted on the Chinese fighter force likely decreases as well. Protection missions then become a protection tax that the Air Force must pay to retain its long-range air-to-air kill chains.
Consider the following rudimentary calculations based on the International Institute for Strategic Studies 2026 Military Balance for the US (1,780) and Chinese (1,650) fighter forces. Assuming the Air Force commits two-thirds of its fighter force to fighting the PLAAF and flies 100 HVAAP orbits with four fighters per orbit, it may incur a total HVAAP tax of 400 fighters, leaving it with approximately 787 fighters for other counter-PLAAF missions. Similarly, estimating the PLAAF’s own protection tax could leave the PLAAF with 1,305 fighters available for other missions. Comparing these two rough estimates yields a nearly 2:1 numerical advantage to the PLAAF, a disadvantage that could be challenging to overcome even for the most qualitatively superior US fighter force.
However, prioritizing offensive missions would leave U.S. HVAA dangerously exposed. The destruction of U.S. AEW and refueling aircraft would cede dramatic first-look, first-shot, and range advantages to the PLAAF. Failing to resolve this paradox could collapse US long-range air-to-air kill chains and cede air superiority to the Chinese.
CCAs For Protection And Firepower
Rethinking the Air Force’s traditional HVAA protection tactics via CCA Increment Two offers promise for resolving the firepower-versus-protection dilemma. A CCA favoring endurance over fighter-like performance, with a significant missile payload tailored to engage not only PLAAF HVAA and fighter aircraft, but perhaps even Chinese PL-17 missiles, could tip the balance. Long-range, networked, high-risk aerial combat benefits from flying CCAs with a resilient datalink and a semi-autonomous engagement capability.
The number of missiles per aircraft is a key measure of firepower in missile-centric aerial combat. Historical trends in beyond-visual-range combat suggest that destroying a single aircraft requires multiple missiles, meaning aircraft with larger missile payloads likely have a combat advantage. Increment One CCAs appear likely to carry two AIM-120s. For HVAA protection CCAs, developing smaller missiles and carrying additional weapons externally could increase total missile capacity. Maximizing missile payload is likely to increase the size and cost of each CCA but may yield an outsized return by increasing aircraft payload and range. Investing less in signature reduction and aircraft speed may help constrain rising aircraft unit costs.
Rather than a highly capable, manned fighter, a larger CCA with minimal signature reduction, built for long-duration, extended-range missions, and carrying an increased missile payload represents a superior defensive option. Furthermore, incorporating an active counter-missile capability could fundamentally alter long-range aerial combat.
A CCA built for HVAA protection missions could free Air Force fighters for offensive counterair missions while bridging the firepower gap. CCAs capable of protecting HVAA could shore up the crucial long-range engagement information and fuel US fighters require, thwart a key objective of the PLAAF’s systems destruction warfare (SDW), and simultaneously unleash US fighters to inflict increased attrition. Exploring the potential for terminal missile engagements may even tilt the balance in the defender’s favor.
A force of 150 CCAs, each carrying four-to-six missiles, would add an additional 600-900 missile rails for long-range air-to-air engagements. Assuming two missiles are shot at a single target, this force may produce up to 450 successful engagements.
Earlier, the estimated US HVAA protection tax was 400 fighters. Making a one-for-one swap from the previous force assumptions, 400 HVAAP CCAs could dramatically reduce the tax on firepower and restore near-quantitative fighter parity. In lower-risk scenarios, the proposed CCA’s range, endurance, and payload could be tailored to a range of alternative missions.
Air-to-air combat relies on first-look and first-shot advantages but increasing sensor fusion makes remaining undetected difficult. As missile ranges increase, air forces face an additional dilemma: either build longer-range weapons or explore novel options for survival within missile launch ranges. An active missile defense system could address situations in which avoiding a missile engagement is improbable — another potential defensive CCA mission. This concept could negate billions spent on counter-HVAA kill chains, reduce the protection tax, and spark a new aerial competition.
This terminal defense concept may also counter the PLAAF’s long-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), such as the HQ-9. A CCA capable of engaging incoming long-range air-to-air missiles may also defeat long-range SAMs. Active terminal engagement could upend the attack-versus-suppression dilemma against integrated air defense systems. An aircraft capable of establishing a limited protection bubble may also help protect and escort electronic attack, strike, and airlift aircraft into previously denied areas.
Militaries have always faced the challenge of balancing firepower and protection. The novel concept of specialized CCAs designed to maximize missile payload and provide adequate endurance for HVAA protection could break this paradox. By doing so, it offers promise for upscaling a tactical advantage over the PLAAF for strategic effect.
