China's indigenous bomber program

The big nuclear bomber arose from both the US and the Soviet Union as part of interbranch rivalries in the fifties.

To sum it all up, the ICBM made everything obsolete. And with that, the various service branches are coping up excuses to cope with this "threat" or they would themselves be obsolete and have their budgets cut. It is more of a quest to seek relevance, than of strategic value since the ICBMs alone could have destroyed the world a few times over.

The navies created SSBNs and SLBMs.

The air forces, big strategic nuclear bombers.

It is not necessary that China, in the quest for her arms modernization, should thread on the same path...and dead ends...the two other superpowers did.

It only fits closely to this topic ... but maybe it will have some influence on the desissions for a "Future Chinese Bomber" ... esp. as China is mentioned as one reason:

Killer Drone, Dead; New Bomber Lives

Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems -- the shared Air Force and Navy program to develop a killer drone -- has been cancelled, Inside Defense is reporting. "Instead, the Defense Department will begin work this year on a next-generation long-range strike aircraft, accelerating its bomber modernization plans by nearly two decades in an effort to quickly enhance the Air Force’s effectiveness across the Asia-Pacific region."

J-UCAS was supposed to produce an armed drone that could knock out enemy air defenses, conduct surveillance, jam enemy radars. On the side, it might do some strike missions. But it would mainly pave the way for manned aircraft.

This new project would focus more directly on taking the enemy out, Inside Defense says.

"The action to accelerate work on a new bomber tracks closely with a recommendation last fall for a new, long-range strike aircraft program made by Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon’s director of net assessment, who called for developing capabilities necessary to deter China."

That means striking at targets thousands of miles from any U.S. bases, Robert Work, with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, noted in a recent presentation. "Reach — the combination of range and persistence — is especially important in the Pacific theater of operations."

"U.S. Strategic Command, which has responsibility for an evolving concept dubbed 'global strike,' strongly advocated the need for a new bomber" to obtain that reach, according to Inside Defense.

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The biggest problem (for my opinion) is the fact that China - despite great progress during the last decades - still lacks the ability to develop three such high-end poroduct completely allone: XXJ - sometimes rumoured in two scales (one from Shenyang in the class of the F-22 and a smaller one , the "stealty" J-10C from Chengdu !?!?) and a new bomber.

As a result I belive the most probable would be not a true "strategic" bomber but more like a "regional bomber" in form of a Su-34-derivate or -development !

But as said ... just my opinion !

Cheers, Deino

Purpose of a bomber has long ceased to be to deliver destruction on a massive scale. Bomber of today, in my eyes, is simply an aircraft with immense range to strike strategic targets. And to get such range, you have to make it big. And since you're flying half way around the world, what's the purpose of being able to strike with just two bombs on one target? Why not make it even slightly more big and make it carry enough weapons to strike 4, 8 or more targets? Or, if its a well protected target, one all those weapons on that single target, where previously you'd need 5 bombers to attack it. It requires more manpower (for maintenance back home too!), more fuel, more spare parts, etc. Plus its easier to hide one aircraft than five, if you have the chance to make it stealthy. If not, then yeah, you'd probably have better chance of survival with 5 planes. (still more expensive than one)

If there's ever full scale war between US and China, it sure would help china to at least have the range to strike the likes of Guam and Diego Garcia, or even Alaska or Midway, etc. (whether those strikes would be succesful is a different matter)

MIGleader said:

enlarged? the su-24 does not have an internal weapons bay. well, you cant simply enlarge an existing attacker to be a bomber. none of todays strategic bombers were developed from fighters. the plaaf will have to start from scratch, somethig its not rather good at.

how about something like the xb-70? super long range, speed, and armament. of course, certain problems will have to rectified, such as the cost issue. ecm may also be required for survival in todays worl of sams.

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My opinion again:

1. Variable Wing Geometry
2. Internal Bay
3. Two Al-31 size engines
4. Low Drag design (similar to Su-24 / MiG-23s / JH-7 / Tornado)

Projected combat radius of 3000 miles, max mach speed of 1.8..
small internal bay..
The plane would sacrifice thrust to weight ratios thus not having an a2a combat potential.

The SU-24 for instance had a very long fuselage and swept wings allowing much less drag and therefore speed and range at the expense of maneuverability. A conventional bomber would not be survivable in the battlefield, my plane on the other hand would have far less payload.

To minimize the budget of the plane we would take whatever parts we can from similar projects like the F-111 did... using Al-31 / WS-10A engines, landing gear and many other parts from the JH-7A including perhaps the entire forward section. and tail section.Lengthened fuselage and variable geometry wings would though need to be fabricated.

Not a true bomber by even a long shot but a "bomberish" serious attack aircraft...

This is slightly off topic but does anyone have some info on the H-6H bombers? Or, if thats not their designation, im talking bout the version with four underwing pylons for cruise missiles. I was under impression that those were older H-6 bombers that have been refurbished but folks at china-defense.com are saying they are in fact newly produced planes, that the whole production line has been restarted. Is that true? If so how many have been delivered and how many more are planned for delivery?

Actually, it is a completely new plane, with models delivered in the 1990s. the h-6f is the refurbished one, with new guidance ann pulse doppler radar.

the h-6h carries the kd-63 anti ship cruise missle. i dont beilive there are actually that many of them, a dozen at the most. the plane only first flew in 1998, and entered service in 2004-2005. all of its 23mm guns have been replaced with elctronics.

Well, the upgrades are indigenous, so it will be allowd here to an extent. (I'd rather open another thread.) And isn't KD-63 a LACM?

If you want to use a bomber to launch a strike against a fleet, you can:
have a scout plane fly ahead of everyone else and search for the fleet.
Or
armed the plane with not just the ASMs but also a semi-ballistic missile.
Basically, the missile flies into the upper atmosphere forward of the plane to where the missile leaves behind a locating module. This module will search for the fleet as it descends slowly with its parachute, and if it finds the fleet, it will track it, and inform the planes of them. I am talking of a long range ballistic missile here, of course.

That approach is doable, but it'd require a fair deal of such missiles with tracking modules to cover a large area. Furthermore, it is questionable how long such modules would survive, once deployed, as they'd turn into primary targets since hiding a naval task force would be of greatest importance. Still, i imagine it would help at least narrow down the possible area where enemy fleet is hiding. But that's the locating part. Versus ROC navy it could probably even be used for targeting but i doubt it'd work for targeting versus USN. Still, once you have a general location where you have to send your fighters and bombers to - that's half the work done already.

kd-63 is indeed said to be a lacm, not anti ship missile. H-6D is carrying the yj-6 antiship missile which kd-63 is a derivation of.

But let me ask another thing. Since there's still no mention of any newly designed / bought bombers why not try for a slightly more advanced H-6 version? Use the current assembly line, but use newer materials, better aluminium alloys, even some composites where available (nothing too advanced, nothing that needs its own research and development, just borrow the tech from j-10 program). Get a higher level of automatization, redesign the cockpit for 3 people instead of 5. And, most importantly, get rid of wp-8 turbojets and replace them with new generation turbofan engines. (i guess that'd require biggest structural redesign but it'd be worth it)

I imagine one could save at least a ton of weight (current empty H-6 bomber is around 36 tons), and that's not counting the extra benefit of more fuel efficient engines. So instead of carrying 3 tons of payload with 1800 km combat range, it could perhaps be 5 tons or more for like 2000 km combat range. And that'd make quite a difference, being able to carry 4 asm / lacm, yet be stationed deep in mainland china, out of reach of tomahawks (usaaf used air launched lacms are a different story but their inventories are and have always been miniscule compared to USN tomahawk inventory) Sure, there's always b2, but deeper a plane must go into the heart of air defence/air warning network - bigger the chance is it'll be detected and brought down.

Totoro said:

Purpose of a bomber has long ceased to be to deliver destruction on a massive scale. Bomber of today, in my eyes, is simply an aircraft with immense range to strike strategic targets. And to get such range, you have to make it big. And since you're flying half way around the world, what's the purpose of being able to strike with just two bombs on one target? Why not make it even slightly more big and make it carry enough weapons to strike 4, 8 or more targets? Or, if its a well protected target, one all those weapons on that single target, where previously you'd need 5 bombers to attack it. It requires more manpower (for maintenance back home too!), more fuel, more spare parts, etc. Plus its easier to hide one aircraft than five, if you have the chance to make it stealthy. If not, then yeah, you'd probably have better chance of survival with 5 planes. (still more expensive than one)

If there's ever full scale war between US and China, it sure would help china to at least have the range to strike the likes of Guam and Diego Garcia, or even Alaska or Midway, etc. (whether those strikes would be succesful is a different matter)

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I think both you and Wingman make some very good points.

We all agree that in the short-term, China needs fighter-bombers that can cover ranges up to around the second island chain (Guam). This is best done by either purchasing Su-34 or Tu-22. These would play the role of the 'carrier-killer'.

The only question is whether or not for the long-term, China should invest resources into developing long-range bombers to deliver stand-off weapons. Do these things have a future?

IMHO: It would be a good idea to create a long-range indigenous bomber program as a test-bed for technologies (like stealth) rather than push for mass production and deployment as soon as possible. We don't have a pressing need for them.

I thought the H-6 line was stopped in the 80s?
one thing on there has got to be replaced. The wing root engines are gas guzzlers and old...... I am thinking maybe we can replace them with pylon-RR mk-202. (The original engine that was to replace the WP-8, not sure about number, though.)

The plane is really skinny for a plane though.......
But 5 tonnes with 2000km is good for a plane its size.
(36 tonnes, that's not a lot in modern terms.)
I don't know about the bomb bay, but the wing should if possible be fitted with more(preferably lighter turbojet, I mean the SY series/derived, the HYs are heavy is heck.) missiles of various roles.