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

Bltizo said:

I mean, I've heard that B-21 is intended to be capable of carrying one MOP which is a 14t bomb.
Maximum estimated payload for B-2 is supposedly 23t, which is some 61%.

I'm not sure what the requirement for T/W for the B-21 will be compared to B-2 -- for example a Boeing 737 has a slightly higher T/W ratio than Boeing 747. In the case of B-21, perhaps they have slightly more ambitious airfield takeoff requirements than B-2 which may demand a slightly higher T/W ratio.

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In civilian aviation, requirement for twin engine aircraft T/W ratio is higher than quad engine aircraft, since they need to be able to reach certain climb rate with 1 engine damaged. I see no reason B-21 will necessarily have higher T/W ratio than B-2, which means it could theoretically have close to the same internal fuel size as B-21. Don't think we will reach an agreement here on the range.

Bltizo said:

So, what I'm saying is that all of the "roles" I described, are all things that H-20 will have to perform as part of a "standard" bombing mission against a high intensity foe.

H-20 of course has the ability to perform those missions for standalone sorties if needed -- but the ability to support AEW&C level command/control, to perform EW/ECM level electronic attack and jamming, to command UCAVs in a complex fashion, to act as a high bandwidth data node, are all things that it will have to do as part of any sort of proper bombing mission against a high intensity foe.

Such a mission will not just be "take off, get into launch range of target, drop stand off long range cruise missiles, and RTB".
Instead, it'll be "take off, datalink with dozens if not hundreds of other simultaneously airborne manned and unmanned air superiority, strike, EW/ECM, AEW&C, ELINT aircraft in the entire hemisphere of the planet, provide and receive commands and data in a distributed fashion, provide handover and receive target information for many other friendly cruise missiles/ballistic missiles/HGVs that might be en route in the air at the time.... and then get to launch range of your designated target, and drop stand off long range cruise missiles (with datalinking and EW/ECM support and coordination from all of the aforementioned friendly assets, including to your long range cruise missiles), and then RTB while doing all of the same above.

IMO, what I described will be a very "bog-standard" normal future bombing mission for a high intensity conflict for an aircraft of H-20's generation.

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I think we are at an agreement on what H-20 needs to be capable of. I think it's an overkill to use H-20 in missions that don't require it to drop a lot of payload at over 1000 km away from its base. For example, do I think H-20 would be needed on the first couple of days of a Taiwan invasion? Sure. But once you get past that point, other assets they have can do that job very well. And you'd want H-20 to be around to attack farther away bases or intimidate certain countries from entering the conflict.

Bltizo said:

I wouldn't focus too much on GJ-11 -- the trend towards developing larger, more stealthy, larger payload, longer range UCAVs, is one that is going to be with us for a long time.

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Com'on, give me a break here. You've had several years to admire GJ-11. I've only found out about it a couple of weeks ago. It's still very exciting. With my untrained eyes, it looks comparable to B-2 in stealth level (could be even better depending on the stealth layer). Back 10 years ago, did you think China was going to have something like that this soon?

Bltizo said:

For H-20, its data fusion, command/control, and EW, IMO should not be viewed as a unique set of capabilities that will be sortie specific, but as a set of capabilities that will be utilized in every mission as part of a theater wide multi-battlespace conflict involving hundreds of friendly manned and unmanned assets in the air simultaneously, many/most of which would be stealthy.
That is the kind of datalinking, command/control and EW environment your aircraft needs to seamlessly operate in.

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No argument here. It's not hard to imagine H-20 in all these roles. However, H-20 brings significant additional capabilities that PLAAF would not have before.

If we are imagining a 2030 to 2035 PLAAF fleet, we often think about the manned aircraft, but UAVs will increasingly be a more important part of your force. So when thinking about the additional capabilities that H-20 brings in, my question is how can it be augmented by UCAVs or AEW UAVs to make those long range strike missions even more potent. I mean eventually, you might not even need manned bombers. I don't think we are there yet. So we have a timeline, let's say:
2023 - GJ-11 in service (1 WS-13 engine and 1t payload in weapons bay and 2000 km combat radius???)
2029 - H-20 in service
2030 - next gen UCAV in service (1 WS-10 engine and 3t payload in weapons bay and 3000 km combat radius??)
2037 - next gen UCAV in service (2 WS-10 engine and 10t payload in weapons bay and 4000 km combat radius??)
2045 - unmanned replacement of H-20 (2 WS-15 engine and 15t payload in weapons bay and 5000 km combat radius??)

Rumor noticed by Henri K.:

Dans un article WeChat du compte 共青团中央 (la Ligue de la jeunesse communiste chinoise) il est mentionné du "H-20", le bombardier stratégique furtif en développement, dont "le lancement est imminent". A prendre avec des pincettes toutefois.

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To paraphrase:

In an article from the WeChat group of the Chinese Communist Youth League, the "H-20" under development is mentioned, whose launch is imminent. To be taken with a grain of salt, however.

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Here's a crazy theory:


SAC patient on VLS for aircraft, naturally people immediately jumped and said "that's it! that explains it!"

I rather doubt it but the patient seems real so curious what it will be for.

Temstar said:

Here's a crazy theory:
View attachment 86334
View attachment 86333
SAC patient on VLS for aircraft, naturally people immediately jumped and said "that's it! that explains it!"
View attachment 86332
I rather doubt it but the patient seems real so curious what it will be for.

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That is some really small VLS though, and how useful would it actually be (doubt it be that useful for A2A?).

Michaelsinodef said:

That is some really small VLS though, and how useful would it actually be (doubt it be that useful for A2A?).

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I would guess it's probably for strategic stealth bomber (if anything at all) and not J-35.

Temstar said:

I would guess it's probably for strategic stealth bomber (if anything at all) and not J-35.

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Hm, so maybe for a future one wing stealth drone?

The size of the vls cells though, although what if it could fire suicide drone swarms?

Temstar said:

I would guess it's probably for strategic stealth bomber (if anything at all) and not J-35.

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I was going to say, such a VLS is surely way too big for any fighter.

I would say it’s more for UCAVs or maybe stealth bombers (although I’m not sure you want your manned stealth bomber to get that close to the target to use such tiny missiles); or as active self defence for high value large assets like AWACS/tankers to intercept incoming enemy missiles.

plawolf said:

I was going to say, such a VLS is surely way too big for any fighter.

I would say it’s more for UCAVs or maybe stealth bombers (although I’m not sure you want your manned stealth bomber to get that close to the target to use such tiny missiles); or as active self defence for high value large assets like AWACS/tankers to intercept incoming enemy missiles.

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A self defense system for high value assets makes the most sense -- but a manned stealth bomber certainly could constitute a high value asset.

I very much would expect the likes of H-20 and B-21 in the future to be fitted with not only self defense hard kill DEW systems, but also self defense hard kill micro missile systems. Such systems would not be utilized primarily for intercepting other aircraft, but to defend against incoming missiles.

Bltizo said:

A self defense system for high value assets makes the most sense -- but a manned stealth bomber certainly could constitute a high value asset.

I very much would expect the likes of H-20 and B-21 in the future to be fitted with not only self defense hard kill DEW systems, but also self defense hard kill micro missile systems. Such systems would not be utilized primarily for intercepting other aircraft, but to defend against incoming missiles.

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But the whole point to stealth bombers is, you know, stealth! They shouldn’t be detected let alone needing fight off incoming missiles to need such a system to be installed. Because such a VLS is not going to be small or light, so it shouldn’t be worth the cost in weight, money and performance for the remote chance it might be needed.

If you have high value targets that are stupidly well defended that stealth bombers cannot get to them without a high chance of being detected and engaged, well you will be much better off sending in VLO UCAVs or missiles (cruise/ballistic/hypersonic etc).

Incidentally, such a VLS fitted in a VLO UCAV could also function as dedicated bodyguards to high value assets by being equipped with such a VLS. I think such an approach would be far more efficient, effective and flexible than installing this system on every high value aircraft.

You could assign such defensive UCAVs to protect AWACS and tankers, escort stealth bombers and accompanying stealth fighters to give active protection to all those assets without needing to compromise the core performance of any of them and save yourself a huge pile of money compared to installing them as standard on all high value assets.

plawolf said:

But the whole point to stealth bombers is, you know, stealth! They shouldn’t be detected let alone needing fight off incoming missiles to need such a system to be installed. Because such a VLS is not going to be small or light, so it shouldn’t be worth the cost in weight, money and performance for the remote chance it might be needed.

If you have high value targets that are stupidly well defended that stealth bombers cannot get to them without a high chance of being detected and engaged, well you will be much better off sending in VLO UCAVs or missiles (cruise/ballistic/hypersonic etc).

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I see such a system simply as an extension of an aircraft's defensive aids suite -- in the same category as MAWS, flares/chaff dispensers, self protection EW suites.

The nature of high intensity warfare means that yes, naturally you will seek to clear as much of the enemy's presence away from the expected mission path of your aircraft as possible, but for high value assets that exist in low density, such as tankers, AEW&C, and stealth bombers, additional self protection systems are valuable because you are expected to honour the fact that the enemy is capable.

Naturally, such a system would only be installed on a given aircraft if the SWAP-C is there -- but for a stealth bomber entering service in the 21st century, provisions should have been made for substantial growth capacity for a wide variety of future systems, including sensors, datalinks, but also including DEW and potentially these sort of hard kill miniature missile self defense systems.

Such a hard kill self defense system only really makes sense for larger sized aircraft of high value, given they are the ones which are harder to replace/less attritable, while also having the greater SWAP-C to accommodate such a system.
While I expect such a set up to be able to be made relatively compact (see the size of the MDSM kill vehicle, and then reorient it to the size of that depicted VLS patent), it would likely still be somewhat large for a fighter sized aircraft.



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Also, I'm moving the various posts above to a different thread.