H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)

anzha said:

Maybe.

There are a lot of politics that go into these reports, too. Let's not forget that.

Additionally, it might be the open sources can be used as cover for the secret sources: "now that this is in the white world, we can talk about it and people might claim we got it from there."

Or it might be they wanted to put it in given the change in congress to increase the perceived threat.

Or they might have even have thought the rumors of the 2 seater J-20 (real or not) might be the theater level bomber.

This might be simply we don't know what their source was and at this point its speculation as to what it was. Likewise, just taking this report at face value should not be the case. Even if the DIA thinks this is the case, their info could be wrong.

Skepticism is a good thing.

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The other possibilities are definitely there and can't be ruled out.

But as it stands I think the most likely explanation for their medium bomber part was the various open source articles talking about JH-XX and the like. The timelines match too well and the way the DIA had referenced the rest of their report also would be consistent with that.

With experience of Design Radar For Kowsar, Now New Indigenous Radar Built for IRIAF F-4E Phantom II

before coming to this forum and visiting the j20 thread i never knew inside the nose was a huge ass radar

how much does the frontal shell affect the radar performance?

Ariana said:

With experience of Design Radar For Kowsar, Now New Indigenous Radar Built for IRIAF F-4E Phantom II


View attachment 50789 View attachment 50790 View attachment 50791

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And why in the JH-XX/H-XX thread????

Deino said:

And why in the JH-XX/H-XX thread????

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Sorry, a Little Mistake

localizer said:

before coming to this forum and visiting the j20 thread i never knew inside the nose was a huge ass radar

how much does the frontal shell affect the radar performance?

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Out of curiosity, did you not know the J-20 has a radar in the nose or any modern fighter in general? Or was it the size of the radar that you found surprising?

The shape of the nose affects the angle and sometimes room for rotation of the radar. They are also frequency selective surfaces (the term explains itself) and in some cases with other specific coatings, etc.

gelgoog said:

There is no way the B-21 will be an interceptor. It will quite likely be subsonic. It will have crap maneuverability as well. It might be used to conduct long range reconnaissance flights or naval interdiction and strike tasks similar to the Tu-95RT/MS and the Tu-22M3 in Russian Navy service. Or indeed the H-6K in Chinese service. But not interception tasks. Those are typically done by high Mach speed aircraft.

With regards to the F-117 it is more of a misnomer than anything else. The F-117 couldn't fight to save its life. It did not have a cannon or air-to-air missile in it. It was just a bomb truck.

Modern bombers or fighter bombers typically have SAR. AESA radars typically all have SAR modes available to them. It is trivial to add that feature to an AESA radar it is mostly a software problem in that case.. It is also easier to make an AESA radar have Low Probability of Intercept because you can easily focus the radar beams to a specific area without having a wide sweep angle unless you really want to expose yourself to conduct a wide area target search. IR is not a proper option because you need to have ground mapping radar to do either low level flight or do proper terrain mapping in GPS denied environments. The night vision and IR would be mainly used for final target verification in cases where that is possible and the enemy does not have credible air defenses. Basically you would use INS/GPS navigation to move to the target site if possible, which is completely passive, and keep the AESA radar in passive listening mode while in transit. Close to the actual target you would engage the radar in SAR mode or possibly approach the target at low altitude using the SAR mode. Then you either drop a GPS guided bomb or a laser guided bomb on the target. Or, even more likely, use long distance stand-off cruise missiles to hit the target once you are in range of the target and then simply back away. Since the bomber is not fast enough to escape from fighters. This is quite likely how the H-20 will work too.

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The B-21 as an interceptor is simple. Have a giant high-powered AESA. Install heavy interceptor missiles, perhaps hypersonic. Presto, you're shooting down enemy non-stealth bombers at 800 km.

As for AESA vs IR, you're assuming that LRIP always works, when better processing power and more sophisticated ECM technology, especially one that's one-generation ahead of your rivals, will be able to counter it. Moreover, LRIP involves a reduction in radar capability. If modern stealth is already highly difficult to defeat by contemporary radar, when you turn on the LRIP mode, you're going to be another order of magnitude reduced in capability.

IR, on the other hand, is effective counterstealth, EODAS on the F-35 can track high-IR sources like a rocket launch more than 1000 km away. Even IR-reduced platforms like the B-2 will still have an IR signature.

Inst said:

The B-21 as an interceptor is simple. Have a giant high-powered AESA. Install heavy interceptor missiles, perhaps hypersonic. Presto, you're shooting down enemy non-stealth bombers at 800 km.

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What you are talking about is not an interceptor it's the "missile truck" concept and often was proposed to partner with fighters like the F35 and F22 to use their secure data links and radar. The first proposed version was based of B1 The current is F15X. Either way it's not likely relivent to B21. This by the way can also be said of trying to add such to any flying wing stealth bomber.

First although the DAS system is stated as being able to track ICBM launched from extreme ranges. ICBM are Large rockets. They burn a lot hotter than fighters and a lot higher where the high IR can stand out more.
There is still no proof that EO can replace radar in fighters. As to LPIR. These are continually upgraded especially now it's easier as the hardware changes less and modifications are more software based.

The idea is and was to use a large payload missile platform to make the kills. It would work like the reverse of a Awacs in a manor more like a fix hunt. The LO fighters (Hounds)find the targets the big aircraft (hunter) kills them.
Using the datalink and hounds means that even if the enemy got a track on one LPIR, they wouldn't nessisarily save themselves as the kill can still come from others.

Second numbers. Most put B21 at a 100 units some push for 150. I am bold and say 200-300 those numbers are probably a little high for H20 but, no matter the number you use you have to consider that it is meant to replace B1,B2and B52 (H6 for the PRC) and maybe grow the bomber force some more.
The special missions eat into those numbers.

The USAF has a stated want to a LO tanker. So adding a tanker version is logical the size of the aircraft comes in to boot as they need a substantial bird to tank. So either a totally new program for a stealthy transport (still an option that has been a want of SOCOM since the 80s) or Buy additional Bomber frames and convert. It's logical to partner LO fighters and other birds with an LO flying gas station.
Either way this is bare minimum in the dozens perhaps hundred+ that means that 100 is used up. Hence higher numbers 100 bombers +50 (the minimum i feel ) tankers eats the interceptor out of house and home.

They have wanted ISR as well but if its aim is to replace E8 thats a specialized mission and only really needs a dozen or so. although personally I think a drone is the better option for this and AEW. As smaller cheaper drones can be more in number and spread the picture.
So 100 B, 50+ KB, and 20 EB. That puts it in the 150-200 units. easily. Or you break it off and use UCAV based drones cheaper and more numerous. Because of the threats in EW more and more voice coms are restricted so no need to have a controller.

add in a Tac Air mission and it eats up the airframes. Because you are going to need easily dozens if not more. You would need a full 300+ good luck getting that approved. Unless you basically kill any other programs.

For the PRC though it might not be out of the question for a missle truck if the DIA report is accurate then the faster regional fits the bill of the original missile truck

The missile truck isn't the same as a bomber set up as an interceptor. A bomber, unless it's supersonic, is going to be slower than a true interceptor and therefore would need far longer ranges to perform interception tasks. A missile truck can just harness the same missiles as used on other aerial platforms, like AIM-120 or PL-15s, but a bomber tasked to interception would need specialized missiles put on board since it needs more range to effectively function as an interceptor.

As for DAS vs AESA, the EOTS on the J-20 is about the same size as on the F-35, and it's supposedly capable of tracking an F-22 at 130 some km. Scaling the F-35 EOTS up to a medium stealth bomber would give you perhaps horizon-level capability of spotting an enemy stealth fighter.

For LRIP, I think you're putting way too much faith in those systems. If the J-20 and F-35 use metamaterials, with a base RCS of -10 dBsm, they can have -30 dBsm in UHF band. Adding jamming support can drastically increase the difficulty of counterstealth systems to detect RCS, effectively doubling the negative dBsm and ruining detection attempts.

As far as the B-21 goes, the idea is that additional capabilities come on in modules. It's a pretty smart idea because if the goal is to get the airframe up in the air as soon as possible, you can go up in the air with just bombing and perhaps EODAS. But once you get it up in the air, you can separately develop modules for functions like long-range interception or optical / IR AEW&C.

For an interceptor task you need to, at least, have enough speed to match the target. You might have crap maneuverability but you need speed.
There are examples of this like the Su-15, La-250, MiG-25, MiG-31. You basically need high speed, a huge radar (or other sensor suite), and large missiles.
Missiles are not magic. The further away you are from a fast moving target the lower are the chances you can hit it successfully. If the missile starts at a low velocity to begin with then it decreases the chances to hit even further. Why not just use a SAM system in that case? For example, quite often you read that an air-to-air missile reaches Mach 4-5, but that is assuming it is launched at high altitude from an aircraft which is already at Mach 2 or close to it. If you launch at Mach 1 then the missile will be one Mach number below in top speed as well. This is why land launched systems typically are two stage or more for example.

Something like a large Mach 2 fighter bomber could do it, i.e. the mythical JH-XX, but not a subsonic flying wing like the H-XX is supposed to be.
You would need something like F-111, F-14, or Tu-22M3 at least.