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

FairAndUnbiased said:

Do you forsee China as having a near term requirement for large scale bombing of defenseless, stationary targets, or more for attacking hardened, moving military targets with significant self defense capability that are closer by?

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There is a lesser-known rumor from some years ago claiming that China is developing a tactical bomber known as JH-XX (some even gave it the fictional designation of JH-18 or JH-19) that would better fullfill the later role, which I believe would be abundant in the Western Pacific theather.

JH-XX is projected to be smaller than the H-20, but are designed with combination of stealth and supersonic capabilities.

Anyone have any further credible updates on that project?

For reference, this diagram on what the JH-XX could look like has been posted in this very thread some years ago:

ACuriousPLAFan said:

There is a lesser-known rumor from some years ago claiming that China is developing a tactical bomber known as JH-XX (some even gave it the fictional designation of JH-18 or JH-19) that would better fullfill the later role, which I believe would be abundant in the Western Pacific theather.

JH-XX is projected to be smaller than the H-20, but are designed with combination of stealth and supersonic capabilities.

Anyone have any further credible updates on that project?

For reference, this diagram on what the JH-XX could look like has been posted in this very thread some years ago:
View attachment 95654

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I heard of it too. I think it's a good idea. Even for a subsonic H-20, using drop bombs is a bad idea. Let's say that H-20 is 100% RF stealth -never is but let's just say it is - hits an target with drop bombs. What next?

Well, the targeted side will scramble fighters from wherever you could not bomb, like a carrier or another part of the air base. And all possible fighters have IRST like the F-35s EOTS, F-22, F-18, F-15, F-16, even F-4.

A subsonic plane flies about 900 kph, about 15 km per minute, let's say. A scrambled fighter going full burn at Mach 2, let's call it 2400 kph for nice round numbers. 40 km per minute. They each can use IRST to see 50 km in each direction, so a 100 km bubble around them.

Within 10 minutes, a subsonic plane can be in a radius of 150 km around the target just bombed. A fighter will cover one axis of the 150 km search area within 4 minutes. They'll be able to use IRST to search half area within 2 minutes. You need only 2 planes on perpendicular axes to find search the entire 150 km radius circle with IRST. Let's say they send 3 fighters. Subsonic plane is not getting away.

Cruise missiles don't have this limitation. Even a short ranged 200 km range cruise missile can make the search area so huge that it's infeasible.

Inst said:

I don't think the claims about the H-20 in a dumb bomb role are overblown. Unlike the Soviet Union, China's strategic position orients it toward being a true airpower and going from simply air denial a la the Soviets to air superiority ala the Americans is not far-fetched.

The fact of the matter is, China does not have a substantial air-to-ground fleet beyond the short-ranged JH-7s and limited numbers of H-6s. The H-20 is likely not only to play the role of the B-21 and B-2 in the Chinese fleet, but also that of the B-52; a work-horse bomber procured in large numbers that provides substantial air support for China.

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I don't think it would ever make sense for the H-20 to use dumb bombs.

A basic Inertial/GPS guidance kit like the JDAM can be added to a dumb bombs and is only an extra $28K or so. But with that, you get a huge increase in precision and the ability to drop at high altitude.

Ground targets below would almost certainly be far more valuable than the cost of a basic JDAM.

And you have to consider the risk of using a very expensive H-20 bomber in a dumb bomb role in any sort of contested airspace.

I reckon SDB-type glide bombs are generally the optimum weapon type. The basic Inertial/GPS version is $40K, but you can hit a lot of fixed targets from 100km+

Anyone know when or where this model was displayed ?

A decade or so ago. At some event sort of like engineerimg/tech expo or something like that... Was so long ago that it's hard to remember.

Zisan Artaxerxes said:

Anyone know when or where this model was displayed ?

View attachment 95657

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I first saw this photo in 2014 July. That is 8 years ago.

There is no much news on its development, either it has been cancelled or it is highly classified. If this concept aircraft materialized into a real project, then it will be successor of JH7A Strike bomber with JH-XX designation.

lcloo said:

I first saw this photo in 2014 July. That is 8 years ago.

There is no much news on its development, either it has been cancelled or it is highly classified. If this concept aircraft materialized into a real project, then it will be successor of JH7A Strike bomber with JH-XX designation.

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Can I assume the rumored JH-XX and the rumored H-18 are one and the same thing if they do exist?

OppositeDay said:

Can I assume the rumored JH-XX and the rumored H-18 are one and the same thing if they do exist?

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Sorry, I have no answer to this question. Also I believe the H-18 designation may not even exist.

FairAndUnbiased said:

That would be a huge shift. B-52 was historically built for strategic strike on stationary, undefended, remote targets. It isn't the best for tactical attacks on moving hard targets with self defense like ships, troop concentrations, etc.

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B-52 always was meant to strike the most defended airspace on Earth - and even if it long lost its capability to penetrate these defenses personally, it is still meant to.
Even if it has lost its ability to do pre-strike/post-strike survey due to the need to use stand-off munitions - it is still more capable of engaging defended airspace than the B-2. Even now, a decade after losing its ACM loads.

(2)

B-52 was arguably the core of late-cw USAF anti-shipping capability, in a manner not dissimilar to Soviet maritime missile regiments themselves; B-52 is fully capable of low-altitude flight, thus it could(and to a degree - can) get to strike distance.
While harpoon was light - B-52s could carry loads of them. And now they're getting LRASMs - far more destructive(twice warhead weight) yet even more numerous - full cruiser salvo worth of them per ship, in fact - and will bring more within a few hours if necessary.

(3)not too far of a future brings in hypersonics, too.

BUFF shall never be underestimated.

JH-XX would be very useful hardware for China, if cheap enough, mass produced and cheap enough per hour costs/maintenance.
Sooner or later China will have something similar in its inventory, alongside H-20, vtol multirole, stealth ucav...