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

tphuang said:

As we've seen with China recently, anti-stealth technology is accelerating really quickly. Increasingly, the stealth assets must be designed with other ways to be more survivable. DEW and micros missiles all make sense. I'm still skeptical of putting a VLS in a bomber let alone something like J-35.

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Bltizo said:

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.

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plawolf said:

I think at the end of the day, the core question is going to be one of modularity and minimum effective size.

If the VLS can be made modular and scaleable like a Mk41, with say a minimum deployable configuration of 4 cells, that can weigh less than 100kg empty in total, then maybe there would be justification to install as standard.

But if the minimum size is the one depicted in the drawings, then that’s far less reasonable and would be akin to fielding growler grade and sized EW pods as standard across your entire fighter fleet.

We may well see a similar development path as the growler where a limited number of dedicated special mission airframes are procured for specialist and first day of war missions to enable the remaining fleet to operate safe enough without needing excessive self defences to be installed across the entire fleet.

If they can make the VLS plug and play, it would obviously also massively increase their utility and number of units procured. Especially if they develop a family of munitions to go in them like warship VLS. In which case the VLS may well become stand across all airframes, with missile load outs being varied for different missions.

But I don’t think that will happen in time for the H20, as there is probably 20 years of development work needed before such a VLS becomes as flexible and mature as warship VLS currently to warrant fleet wide installation.

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Bltizo said:

I'm not sure what "fleet wide" means here -- to clarify, in my last few posts, I was suggesting that the depicted system in the patent would only make sense for fitting onto relatively large aircraft such as tankers, AEW&C and bombers.
Not fighter aircraft.

(That was all with the consideration/assumption that the depicted missile payloads in question would be something similar to MDSM/MHTK in size)

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plawolf said:

Such a system would still be overkill to be installed on the entire AWACS and tanker fleets. Maybe less so for tankers.

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Bltizo said:

I disagree somewhat -- because how far into the future are we talking?
Right now, we consider MAWS, RWR, with flare and chaff dispensers to be a normal part of an aircraft's defensive aids suite, including for aircraft like AEW&C or tankers.
We are starting to see DIRCM proliferate as well.

Going forwards into the 2030s, a self defense suite including DEW and/or hard kill miniature missile systems could very well be seen as the standard for military forces facing high capability foes.

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plawolf said:

As I said, it will depend on the size of the system.

A 1x4 strip would be reasonable, a 4x6 bank, far less so.

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Bltizo said:

Perhaps seeing them less as a "VLS" and more as a "augmented flare dispenser" might be more instructive.

I think the size of each "missile" in the "VLS" needs to be properly scaled for us -- for example, this is the goal for the US MSDM, scaled compared to the AMRAAM and Sidewinder, it's very, very small:

And this is a 1:1 scale mockup of the Lockheed MHTK missile (a SAM, but which is very close to the MSDM in concept and considered to be a likely way in which MSDM may be oriented) -- with a missile diameter of only 4 centimeters:

Such missiles (assuming a 4-5cm diameter, let's say needing to reside in a 6x6cm missile cell), packed into the 6x4 grid pack with single offset U shaped VLS vent as depicted in the patent, would see the overall VLS+vent "module" be under 1.2m long and 0.4m wide -- and if you don't include the vent and only consider the VLS missile cells, it would be no longer than 0.6m long.


For a fighter aircraft, that kind of footprint is probably too much.
But for a modern clean sheet bomber design? It is very much realistic.

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