H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
Seen? No. IIRC, it's all speculation for the most part.
Why build a penetrating stealth bomber only to use it as a stand-off missile truck? Penetrating stealth bombers are supposed to be precision-guided bomb (both gliding and non-gliding bombs) trucks.
and nobody saying that. The point is, there is no real obstacle in giving a stealth bomber cruise missile. It might be expensive and illogical maybe as you said but, why not. Like F-117 and B-2A was actually qualified to carry JASSM.
This is B-2
F-117
Also originally B-2 were to carry SRAM missile to hunt ICBM mobile launcher tho
Because unless you have obtained absolute aerial supremacy over the enemy + near complete/complete SEAD and DEAD against enemy SAM systems and networks, stealth doesn't work in the "switch ON - switch OFF" way.
Against peer opponents, the general rule being that stealth capabilities of any (V)LO platform actually do degrade with the reduction of distance between said (V)LO platform and the enemy radar and sensor systems. The day where VLO bombers can fly right on top of you to drop gravity bombs without you ever seeing it is largely gone - Especially when your opponent is the US Military or the PLA.
However, that doesn't mean stealth is useless - It's only that the effectiveness becomes more limited depending on situations. And compared to non-LO bombers, VLO bombers actually excels in this regard.
VLO bombers like the B-2s and B-21s do have the ability to get considerably closer to the enemy before their EM signatures can be reliably registered on enemy radar and sensor systems for targeting and tracking. In the meantime, non-VLO bombers that are as large as the B-52s and H-6s would have their EM signatures already registered and tracked from much farther away.
This brings the significant advantage where VLO bombers are able to carry standoff strike missiles that are smaller in dimension and weight inside their weapons bays, as those strike missiles don't have to travel for larger distances to reach their targets. This also helps when the targets are objective-sensitive and/or time-sensitive.
In the meantime, non-VLO bombers are left with no choice but to carry larger and heavier strike missiles that travel for larger distances to reach the exact same targets, as the platforms that carry them have to stay outside of the A2/AD range of the enemy to minimize the chances of enemy interception.
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I mentioned in an earlier comment that it has a ton of use. It means it's a lot shorter timeframe to detect and intercept. This is a huge advantage.
Even if they have been testing the plane, they have been hiding the plane.
From all we know it isn’t ready yet and I think it is very unlikely that it already secretly flew out of Xi‘an with out being seen before on roll out or taxi tests.
IMO one day we will be surprised is,liar to the almost sudden appearance of the Y-20.
Stealth is nothing special. It's just approaching the problem of radar from the other side. Initially the most important challenges in radar were about making it work reliably and in modes that were useful for combat. Early radar - 1940s to 1970s - was just not particularly useful for anything else than acquiring a somewhat accurate general picture of the tactical situation. Radar-guided missiles had poor accuracy and were useless beyond 40-50kms. Then in 1970s technology - mostly due to advancements in computing that is necessary for processing of EM signal - matured and new generations of radars, especially phased arrays, provided an image with good accuracy and reliability at ranges of 200 and more kms. And that was the point where some people in the US asked themselves the question "ok, since radar can get so good and is likely to get even better in the future, what can we do to counter it". Or in plain words "how do we disappear of the radar?". There were many solutions - to destroy the radar, to jam the radar with EW, to clutter the radar with decoys, to fly out of the radar's field of view. All of these required too much restriction on the mission which is why they were only good some of the time. One ingenious solution was a technology originally developed for submarines - because LO/VLO in radar is the analogy of silencing in sonar. And since US was very good in sonar - which meant it had to have good technical background in fundamentals of the problem - it didn't take long to develop the radar equivalent. All the mumbo jumbo about invisible planes and stealth and whatnot is just propaganda turbocharged by the idiots in the media.
What was "special" about stealth aircraft was the way in which they had to be flown because their VLO had an aspect which was something that the idiots in the media were not told and wouldn't understand anyway even if they were told.
The reason why B-2 was developed was that it was simply the only method of performing the mission that was one of the strategic priorities at the time. Initially US bombers attacked stationary targets with gravity bombs. Soviets developed SAM bastions. US bombers started using missiles instead of bombs. Soviets deployed long range interceptors. US bombers began to fly supersonic at low altitudes. Soviets deployed even better long range interceptors with long range missiles and phased array radars (interestingly: MiG-31 copied the F-14 concept). And at that point either supersonic B-1 or the 3Ma B-70 became too vulnerable to even partial disruption that their entire mission became pointless.
That's because the RCS of a bomber is closer to that of a warship than that of a fighter jet. A bomber could either fly very fast, but then it would have to fly very high or fly very low but then it could only fly at low supersonic at most. MiG-31s with R-33 were designed to handle both scenarios. All they needed was a sufficiently early alarm.
And B-2 was all about not giving them that alarm. B-2 was also designed with a lot of foresight because it was mid 70s design choice developed during the 1980s to be deployed in mid 1990s - which was exactly when the analysts thought USSR would have enough mobile ICBMs that B-2 would become necessary.
So the difference between having a traditional bomber and a stealth bomber is really all about when the bomber was developed and when it entered service.
| type | concept | development | service |
| B-2A | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s |
| B-1B | 1960s | 1970-80s | 1980s |
| B-52 | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s |
| Tu-160 | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s |
| Tu-22M | 1960s | 1960s | 1970s |
| Tu-16 | 1940s | 1950s | 1950s |
H-6 is a Tu-16 clone therefore it is meaningless to try and find any rationale behind it other than "that's what China has at the moment".
Similarly the reason why Russia is producing additional Tu-160s has nothing to do with its actual potential and everything with the state of Russian aerospace industry.
The reason why US continues with B-1B and B-52 has to do with the fact that both served primarily as tools for preserving institutional knowledge in a time when strategic bombers were of little practical use. The cost of recreating a capability from scratch is an order of magnitude more expensive than retaining the fundamentals at the expense of keeping a less capable equivalent in service. Pay 1$ now to save 9$ in a hypothetical future scenario that you want to avoid.
So don't look for rationale for bombers having VLO design or not. There is none. All new bombers if they are to do what bombers are supposed to do must have VLO. Anything else can just as well be replaced by an airlifter with palletised payloads e.g. rapid dragon concept of LRASMs being deployed from C-17s. That's what bombers are after all - transport aircraft optimised for very few very specific payloads instead of general purpose standard cargo.
The shape of H-20's airframe will reflect its intended mission profile. It will definitely be VLO but the question is how much VLO is necessary.
Again, the B-2 had a very specific mission. It had to fly into the airspace of the Soviet Union and find targets at ranges of 2000km (or more) deep into enemy territory. It had to be as stealthy as possible because enemy radar was everywhere. H-20 will not be flying into CONUS because that's the type of idiotic mission that only idiots think is viable. It will therefore have whatever VLO is useful.
B-21 has expanded on B-2's design because USAF needs them to be able to violate neutral airspace. The ranges and mission time also make a VLO design more viable than alternatives. It can also fulfill the role of a sensor node and a decision node which also benefits from extreme LO.
H-20 may be just like B-21 in that respect. Or it may not. That all depends on what PLA needs. And what PLA needs won't be what fanboys or internet experts need. Frankly, most ideas for a H-20 mission that I've read here range from wasteful to pointless to stupid. Most of the practical ones would be done better with other means e.g. a submarine, a saboteur team, a HGV strike.
Except that for example that in top aspect B-21 will have RCS comparable to that of a B-52.
B-21 will serve in the 2030s and beyond. B-2 will serve from the 1990s to early 2030s. B-52 will serve from the 1950s to late 2030s.
Those are very different eras with very different technologies of ISR available. And we haven't even began the "AI-integrated distributed sensor network" revolution.
You're still trying to fight the previous war.
I recommend you read up on how F-117 operations were described in publicly available reports and statements and how they were actually used. Desert Storm is the best example and I think I even cited the relevant fragments in my Desert Storm thread here. In other words for some 20 years the "consensus" was completely wrong, because it was part of the deception (and competitive advantage for Lockheed).
The one thing that I'm not doing is trying to use past examples to inform future scenarios. Instead I try to understand the physics of the phenomena and the statistics of its application and then try to come up with creative ways to use it in combat. And so far that's exactly what the Russia-Ukraine war showed is happening. Not consciously. The war is a huge randomised machine learning process with combat units serving as neurons in the networks. The armies may enter the war with one set of ideas and emerge with a completely different evolved knowledge afterwards, often deeply counter-intuitive.
And that's why I keep returning to that particular conflict, even though so very few people here treat it with the appropriate seriousness (apart from the horde of idiots who use it as an opportunity to play with their own feces and throw it at the other guy). Don't look at the politics of it. It's a lab experiment that will help you understand what (every single) war is. And you can also witness how confusion, deliberate disinformation and old habits play into the process.
Nobody really knows what is the best solution to any given war. That solution emerges in a stochastic process of three sides (two belligerent and one neutral ) seeking an equilibrium in a hypothetical future state. The more you lock yourself into a solution the less hypothetical it becomes for the enemy.
I think that copying a 1970s concept for the 1990s war between USA and USSR would be a very costly exercise of locking yourself into a past war that never happened so we don't even know if it would have made sense in the first place. It's like the Amerika Bomber or Amerika Rakete. But you may treat it as "like, just your opinion, man".
Anyway. Time for bed.
PikeCowboy
Junior Member
what about a high altitude VLO bomber, most countries don't have high altitude air defense capability