This might be controversial… but let’s ask ourselves what the key or most desired requirement of H-20/XX is.
For me, it’s obviously long range strike, both strategic and tactical, conventional and nuclear - specifically against CONUS and Hawaii.
Essentially you want something that can drop long-range LACM and hypersonics off the coasts of Alaska, California, towards Texas. This is to ensure that the US’ geography no longer protects them. Ship yards, bases, aircraft plants, infrastructure can all be conventionally attacked if the US attempts to touch mainland China. J-36s, H-6s, 09-IIIB/ 09-V LACMs, 055 YJ-21s and PLARF should have the rest covered.
So why not send a near-space hypersonic drone, that can eject a payload in the relevant areas. That payload then dispenses the cruise missiles. The drone RTBs, and only the munitions and munitions housing (the payload) is lost.
I started thinking about it when we saw that munition dispensing HGV at Zhuhai 2024. It kind of answers someone’s questions to Blitzo (in one of the SH/CHENGAD threads), on how to quickly deliver loitering munitions / kamikaze drones to an area.
To be more direct, why not take Tengyun (if it is reliably reusable) and replace its ventral payload with a payload that can dispense LACMs. You only need 2 modes - (1) pre-determined autonomous attack with a human-commanded recall option (if needed and comms are not jammed); and (2) Human-commanded weapons release with autonomous RTB (if the command is never received or jammed)
