Same excercise, different report, this one from:
Looks like second generation LGB
Chinese air to ground weapons (missiles, PGMs, etc)
- Thread starter AssassinsMace
- Start date
Looks like second generation LGB
It's definitely pre-reform. I found the photo linked in a 2008/9 article by Air Power Australia.
"Something" is "侵彻"： meaning "penetrate". So I guess this is a "1-ton class" penetrator bomb. The character being block by the railings in the second line seems to be "枚", which would make the second line read: "Total Weight for each munition: 1810kg".
This is something confusing, as I have very little knowledge of bomb physics. My understanding is that the "1-ton class" is referring to the total weight of the Warhead, while the total weight of the bomb would certain be a lot more than the weight of the warhead. But looking at the open-to-public source of existing similar bombs (in terms of overall weight) made by the US and Russia, namely the KAB-1500 series, and the GBU-28, it looks like this Chinese bomb's weight class is between the KAB1500 and GBU-28.
According to open source, KAB1500 is about 1525 kg total mass (source: ) with a warhead mass of very roughly 1000kg (according to the same ausairpower website), and GBU-28 is about 2076kg (Wikipedia), with either a BLU-113 or BLU-122 warhead. Here is where it gets confusing: the BLU-113 and BLU-122 are both quoted to be around 4500~lb. weight class, give or take a couple of hundred pounds. Is this due to a difference in hermeneutics?
I just found it hard to believe that an American bombs consistently gets to have a 95% warhead-to-total-mass ratio FOR DECADES, while a Russian product gets 2/3 (66%) warhead-to-total-mass ratio, and this Chinese one gets a 5/9 (55%) ratio. This just doesn't make any sense.
If bomb design and technological level are rough on par for the three. I would think that this penetrator bomb is actually NOT A 1000kg class according to American standard, but it would rather be an slightly smaller equivalent to the American A5K penetrator (aka. the upcoming GBU-72). Although I would not say this weapon is as good as the slightly heavier GBU-72 or even GBU-28, but I believe it is the same class of weapon.
Does anyone have a clue about this weird difference of? @Blitzo, @Deino ..... anyone?
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By the way, with a 1810kg per bomb mass, what platforms can even carry it? H-6? Other than that, It will need to be flankers with its middle two pylons (between the engines) in tandem merged together, to be able to carry just one. (Kinda like Su-30MKI's solution for Brahmos).
Can J/H-7A carry one on one of its two strongest pylons? If J/H-7A can do two of these per plane, that would be quite a heavy load out for J/H-7A. Two of those alone would be 3.6 tons. Yet, it if is only meant for flankers and H-6, why not make it even bigger: like 5000 lbs or 2,500 kg in overall mass? It's very strange to me.
Anyways, if this penetrator bomb is an arial bomb, I think the weight class and design for this bomb is very strange to me. I don't know what other kind of bomb, besides arial bomb would be laser guided, a penetrator, and with 1810kg overall mass.
*Edit: the only explanation I can think of right now is that the load constraint for H-6 favor such a mass level. let say the H-6 can carry no more than 12 tons of munition (H-6K): this would mean exact 6 of these bombs (total mass of 10860kg) can be loaded with still a 1140kg spare. And if that's 9 tons(H-6G/Tu-16), it would be a good use with 4 bombs, with 1760kg spare. Both are even number. While for a 2500kg bomb, in order to be even numbers, it would be 4 for H-6K, with 2000kg spare; and 2 for H-6G, with 4000kg spare.
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my take is for a target to deserve a bomb that size it must be a high value target. no need to carry too many for a run.
This is for sure, no doubt about it. In fact, the GBU-28 can now only be carried on the F-15E out of all current fighters in USAF, the same with KAB1500 which only can be carried on the flankers.
The only difference is that GBU-28 is certainly a lot larger than KAB1500, more than a 30% heavier. And only one can be carried on a F-15E. While any precision ground attack capable flanker can carry at least 3 KAB1500.
So KAB1500 is more powerful than the 2000-lb class US bombs, but are less flexible across platforms (medium platforms like F-16 can also carry 2000-lb class).
So my speculation for the PLAAF is that if they decide to go with heavy bombs, they will go the Amerian route: commissioning both the YL-5 (seen earlier carried on J/H-7A, which confirms that it is less than 1500kg for sure, because that's the capacity of that hang point on J/H-7A) and the Tiange series GB-1000 (which was shown on the earlier seen pamphlet to be around 1025kg total weight), and this 1810kg penetrator bomb. Or at least one REAL 1000kg class, out of the GB-1000 (seen on pamphlet and in Zhuhai Airshow) or the YL-5.
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No,it means 1000KG(roughly) bomb, and 1810KG including container, this thing was tested with a JH-7/7A according to norinco commercial last year( not necessarily the same product , but you know, not that different)
And yes, JH-7/7A can definitely carry two of these, not sure about more since only two pylons carried 6*250KG(public image)
And since PLANAF once wanted to use them as YJ-12 carriers, I think these two pylons are capable of taking at more than 2 tons of payload or at least the potential should be there
That's very possible too. In the photo, the second line has one character obscured. So, it's difficult to decern what character it is. I think it looks like "1枚全重 1810kg", the obscured character just doesn't look like "箱" to me.
As for if J/H-7A can carry 2 ton per inner pylon, this I don't know. But the 6x250kg unguided bomb tell me that it should be able to do about 1500kg, which means it should be able to carry a KAB1500.
My point was spelt out earlier: this "1000kg" bomb could actually be a 4000-lb weapon that's simply dubbed as a "1000kg penetrator bomb", because naming convention is different for the PLA.
Of course, it would be nice too, if it is actually a 1000kg weapon like one of those two (GB1000 and YL-5) shown in the Zhuhai Airshow. I actually hoped that a PLA equivalent to the US A5K bomb be closer to 2500kg (or 5000lb) weight, instead of a 1810kg one.
Any updates on this missile project?An illustration from a study on a next generation stealthy long-range attack munition. As an aside, I think with the advent of PLAAF's stealth bombers, we may soon begin to see more information on the range of stealthy munitions that will equip them.
I see this as one potential Chinese equivalent to the LRASM/JASSM of the United States, but supersonic (or even hypersonic, given the breakthrough by Chinese scientists on maintaining constant communications with vehicles travelling in the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds).