Some news about this now almost mythical bird? We heard the first rumors way back in the 2000s.
H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
I think though, if we've learned anything from the F-35 project, that you need dedicated platforms designed for each of those roles.
China don't lack the money now to fund all of them at once.
A bomber, military transport aircraft and passenger liner, whose airframes are used for special mission aircraft, have different requirements regarding the density of objects they carry.
A bomber carries missiles and bombs. These are dense objects therefore a bomber doesn't need much internal volume. It carries a very small set of objects.
A military transport aircraft needs to be flexible. It should be able to carry both very dense objects like a tank and light but large objects like a stack of medical supplies. It needs both a reinforced floor and large internal volume. Volume optimization is costly as a larger fuselage means both higher empty weight and aerodynamic drag. Not all transports prioritise it to the same extent. For example the C-17 is very volume optimized and that is why its max payload is less than 80 tons despite the aircraft having a MTOW of 270 tons. These aircraft are also usually less selective about airfield quality.
Civilian airliners are like military transports but they are limited to medium densities. When they are rigged for cargo, they can't carry objects as dense or as oversize as military cargo aircraft. They lack large openings bombers and transport aircraft have. They are very high-quality aircraft as the scale of economies enabled by civilian aviation allow huge development budgets. Very high reliability, options for human accommodation and fuel efficiency...
Ideally you would use a modified civilian airliner for everything other than light attack and air-to-air. But military transports have to carry loads these airframes usually can't. This why we don't see conversions for that role. A military transport could do it all but they would be suboptimal as tankers and bombers. They are way to big and expensive for these roles. Fuel is a medium density load so you are better of just converting an airliner. China converted the Y-20 because it doesn't have a suitable airliner. Transports are even worse as bombers. You can use them for that purpose to avoid developing a new subsonic bomber. (which would be cheaper unless you need a lot of subsonic bombers) But as a stealth bomber? Nope. You need a stealth transport for that and I don't want to think how large and expensive such an aircraft would be. Similar things apply to the idea of converting a civilian airliner to a bomber too. It would also need new openings.
Some personal comment addition:
Other than what @no_name and @BoraTas has mentioned, there is also one key factor which differentiates bombers (especially the very-low-observable i.e. VLO ones) from airlifters - Purpose-defined features.
VLO bombers i.e. the B-2, B-21 and the upcoming H-20 are specifically-designed and tailor-built to be as stealthy and as invisible (to most radars and sensors, I mean) as possible, right up to the very last square-centimeter of the airframe itself. The ultimate goal for designing these VLO bombers the way they are - Is such that they can suddenly appear right on top of the enemy after flying across continents/oceans - Without the enemy even realizing it beforehand - In order to drop their deadly payload.
In order to achieve that goal, many compromises have to be made, namely:
1. Smaller airframe dimension (to reduce RCS),
2. Slimmer and better-tapered airframe shape (to reduce reflection points and corners),
3. Larger fuel compartments when compared to the weapons bay (for longer combat range),
4. More expensive stealthy skin coating (absorb radar and sensor waves),
etc etc.
All of these compromises mean that these VLO bombers are destined to be incapable of carrying as large of a deadly payload as their B-52, B-1B and Tu-95 predecessors - Let alone those medium and large-sized airlifters and refueling tankers with 50-80 tons of payload cargo.
In the meantime, while airlifters and refueling tankers certainly can be designed to become better in terms of low observability for better survival on the battlefield (like ), but their required dimensions and shapes which are mostly tailored towards their tasks (carrying personnel/cargo/fuel) mean that they can never achieve the same level of stealth and invisibility (to radar and sensors) as required for the VLO bombers. Besides, unlike the VLO bombers, these supposed "stealthy" airlifters and refueling tankers typically aren't expected to go right up against, or even beyond the enemy frontlines, so there's that.
What I mean is, the massive sacrifice for VLO capability simply doesn’t worth it
1.survivability based on RCS/thermal reduction is a very shortsighted idea for the time being, sensor technology such as quantum radar/MIMO is going to boom in the next decade that’s for sure, AI will be able to analyze RCS patterns that drastically reduce the VLO capability, let alone the massive amount of space-based sensors that reusable rockets would brought us
2.Even so,a B-21 would still have much better survivability than a B-1B, but ,at what cost? The US once had a bomber fleet of 700 B-52s, that’s B-52 alone, of course that’s due to the fact that bombers were seen as the only reliable nuclear carrier at that time but a fleet of 700 B-52s is a formidable force on any level, they managed to bomb the shit out their enemies no matter how poorly GF performed, now with PGMs, bombers are only much more lethal than ever, and how many B-21s would US Air Force get?100?150?200 would be considered as bragging, that’s how expensive they are , purchasing and maintaining
3. With such great sacrifice , bombers with VLO capability are considered as a good nuclear capable platform or a counter-nuclear weapon, with such low quantity, it’s impossible to be randomly used as a tactical solution , but again, it’s very wrong, the “B-2 hunting TEL” thing was very stupid from the beginning (the US, never ever effectively performed any TEL hunting in both Afghanistan and Middle East, even with much better intelligence support and longer mission time& more personnel on the ground), and as nuclear weapons carrier , all the usage scenarios are plain daydreaming , bombers should focus more on tactical use hence the need to be cheaper. LO is more than enough for most of the missions, make a big X-47B if you really need to penetrate.
4. NG transporters/air refueling vehicles, like bombers,if not based on a universal platform, will be astonishingly expensive, air refueling vehicles are already very expensive even though most of them are currently based on civil jets. A NG universal platform for bombers/transporters/air refueling vehicles would drastically reduce the cost and make their quantity mean something again
Another factor is , China has much less defensive budget than the US , in this case ,50 H-20s means absolutely nothing at all, maybe an effective deterrence to Japan/SK/Taiwan/India, but again, absolutely nothing to the US,totally doesn’t worth it, the same applies to B-2/Tu-160, nothing more than some post-cold war delusions
China’s defense budget is smaller than the US’s because China’s defense spending is more efficient.
that's what we thought about Russia. top down approach with little check and balance, accountability or transparency creates alot of fairy tale paper capabilities but not necessarily real world effectiveness.
every cost overrun, failed promises, or technical issue the f-35 program encountered were reported in news and brought up in congressional hearings. where's Chinese equivalence of independent reporting? last time I heard some comedian was fined millions for simply cracking a joke about the army.
truth of the matter is we have no idea how effective the chinese military industrial complex is at delivering. having consistency in governmental leadership does help create better projection and project security on the industry side and the fact that it's state owned can take away the profit margin but the con is that there's little check and balance, more mishap and cover ups.
Russia follows US style procurement through and through. The whole Russian political system is built on American style premises, courtesy of Gorby and Yeltsin.
That said, Russia proved more effective in procurement pound to pound vs US likely because 1. There is less money all around for corrupt officials to seize. And 2. Since they're widely using Chinese components, at least parts of their supply chains have very high efficiency.
When was the last time US put an official that accepted millions from a company/interest group/other official to do their bidding in jail or executed them?
China might not have a perfect system, but at least there are checks and balances that stop officials from just raiding the budgets.
The only checks and balances in USA is the ones with more money and connections keep the ones with less money and connections in check. That system is bound to fail if the top honchos become corrupt, and it arguably HAS already failed precisely because of that.
Except for all the evidence on these forums of China, consistently, across many technical areas, across virtually all military areas, adavancing in an amazing way. Across Virtually all weapons systems Chinas military industrial complex has made amazing strides in the last decade or so. The only outstanding areas are nuclear subs (which are atleast under final development) nuclear carriers (not beyond Chinas capability) and aircraft engines, (but with WS 20 and WS15 in testing).
seems to me we have heaps of an idea of how effective Chinas MIC is at deliver, and it’s super effectibe. whos MIC is more effective at delivering successful, capable platforms affordably?