Chinese UCAV/CCA/flying wing drones (ISR, A2A, A2G) thread

tphuang

tphuang

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Neurosmith said:
Huitong opines that the appearance of the GJ-X might indicate that the H-20 project has been cancelled or at least had a spanner thrown in its works.
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I don't quite understand why you would need to cancel H-20 when clearly PLA has greater ambition. It just means PLA thinks that an aircraft operating at subsonic regime is not sufficiently survivable in future combat even if it's at next level in stealth because the pace of radar/sensor improvement means by the time it is ready for combat missions, it will already be losing its stealth edge.

Totoro said:
I tried finding a source for 2200 NM but could not. Do you have the source mentioning such radius or perhaps at least a ferry range (from which a radius could then be estimated)
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That does seem already quite long for B-21. I'm sure it can go further with lighter load. But if it's carrying 10t+ under non-idea operational environment, 4500km combat radius seems more than enough.

Blitzo said:
Prior to GJ-X being identified, I also believed that such an aircraft was a bit more likely than a B-21 sized unmanned monster.

However, with GJ-X being identified like this, I must say the role of a 20-40t MTOW UCAV seems potentially a little bit redundant to me, if we are operating with the acceptance that GJ-11 will also exist.
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I think as soon as J-36 came out, it was quite obvious H-20 cannot just be a subsonic flywing aircraft with 4000 km combat radius. And then when they can casually develop something like WZ-X, then one has to taken the big shrimp comment of supersonic H-20 seriously.

We have to probably reset our thought process of GJ-11 or CH-7 being advanced designs, because that was the case maybe 8 years ago.

wuguanhui said:
Personally, the bomber I want most is a cheap expendable Japan-bomber. Probably some unmanned subsonic vlo flying wing that China can procure in vast numbers and can waste sending them after secondary non critical targets.
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GJ-21 on Type 076 can already do that.

ougoah said:
On the topic of GJ-X and H-20. One thing everyone seems to forget is that GJ-X can be interpreted as a good number filler, sub-H-20 if you will.
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I have to look at unmanned aircraft as aircraft that China thinks it can mass produce cheaply and use in high frequency. So if it thinks it can do this with B-21 sized flywing, then that is quite impressive for its aerospace industry.
 
tphuang

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one usage case I thought of for WZ-X:

So if it can persist over air space at edge of 2IC or beyond for significant amount of time, then it is going to be quite an asset in terms of picking up any kind of emissions coming from Eastern side of Pacific Ocean.

For US navy, the submarines would get to PD once in a while to communicate with satellites or something. And it would do so at a time and place where Chinese satellites are not flying over head. If you can have these persistent ELINT assets in the air, then you can actually significantly hamper the operation of any US naval assets, including SSNs. And of course, it's also going to be closer to the ships than satellites, so it would be able to detect carrier groups coming even more reliably.
 
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mack8

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On the issue of H-20, some people go in a tizzy here when someone mentions that possibility, or alternatively that a subsonic H-20 would be a large design, possibly bigger than B-2. Imo, even if H-20 is subsonic, i would still expect a supersonic component, ie a regional bomber kind of unmanned airframe, packed with AAMs (but probably could carry strike weapons as well) to provide protection for the highly valuable H-20 as well as the GJ-X CCAs during long range missions.

If the H-20 is supersonic, it could self-escort/protect itself on such missions, on the other hand the subsonic GJ-X is too slow to keep pace in missions that require high-speed operation. Considering that current aerial warfare is moving more and more towards CCAs and MUM-T, i would be surprised if even a supersonic H-20 would not be paired with like-performance CCA/UBAs (unmanned bomber aircraft), considering how many different types of CCAs/UADFs are to operate with the manned fighter component.

Hopefully if the H-20 will fly as hinted by the grapevine very soon, we'll get an answer as to what direction was chosen.
 
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tphuang

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ACuriousPLAFan said:
Which big shrimp, if you don't mind me asking?
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I thought it was Ayi and orca saying it IIRC.

there are some constraints on PLA in terms of airport infrastructure on how big all its aircraft can be. But it definitely seems to going in the direction of bigger = better.

if you think about PLA's direction with drones:

first it builds these first generation attack drones with piston engines that can probably just operate nearby because that was all they could do with the engine tech they had.

Then they built turbojet drones like WZ-7 and WZ-10 which have range limitations but can at least fly high and operate to part of 1IC.

Next, they get to small turbofan flywing drones like GJ-11/21 because that's all the material science and propulsion tech allowed for a few years ago. And now, you can operate even further than 1IC when operating them off Type 076. Otherwise, it's competent within 1IC and fairly modern.

And then the next step, they now have the propulsion tech and sensory tech + more importantly the material science tech and satellite communication to operate to 2IC and beyond. So that's what we have with WZ-X and GJ-X.
 
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