I.e. all prewar infrastructure sans nuclear C&C and silo fields(which you really, really don't want to touch anyway) is vulnerable.
Also, bombers carry big bombs. so invulnerability is relative.
MOAPs drive now Iranian facilities 130+m into the mountains, this is absolutely unsustainable for large scale industry.
The size and weight of the MOAP mean it can only be dropped by the B2, and this weapon has never been used in heavily defended areas because it can only be dropped vertically over the target. ——It may be impossible to find traces of B2, but we can see if a projectile with a length of 6.25 meters and a diameter of 0.8 meters is more difficult to track than a drone?
There is no need to compare the effectiveness of a certain weapon. For such a large country, no single weapon can "determine" the outcome of a war.
20 patriot/HQ-9 vehicles is about two batteries; even with CIWS - it's penetrable.
Also, patriots and hq-9s are expensive systems, it's not unlike burying a destroyer away from fight.
Creating this threat alone is worth it, just to take away batteries from where they affect the actual fighting.
Ukraine(but also Russia) do it with flying crap with spectacular efficiency; politics outweight military sense.
In addition, your view of cost is still based on peacetime. During a total war, a destroyer is not a great loss.
Do you really want to compare the capabilities of Russia and Ukraine with those of China and the United States? The simplest comparison is that China currently has about 100 AWACS aircraft, while Russia only has single digits of AWACS aircraft that can take off.
The Russians produce most military equipment in quantities even lower than China's low-rate production in peacetime.
The impact of Ukraine's "cheap aircraft" on the Russians' production is not as high as the media exaggerates, otherwise the Russians would have mobilized long ago.
It will. Disrupt automated line, producing stealth bombers(those huge, single piece composite parts they're made of), and it will not anymore.
B-21s(or H-20s) are not FPV drones; it's absolutely impossible to use shadow factory techniques on them.
What is the reason why the B21 or H20 production lines cannot be replicated? price? Industrial equipment? engineer? China and the United States have their own industrial machine production capabilities and sufficient engineers.
There is no answer other than price. So what’s to stop China/US from replicating 10 bomber factories after mobilization?
Victory or defeat between great powers isn't decided by conventional strategic bombing.
But still, it can produce important effects(for reference, see german strategic raids against soviet factories and their impact), and is absolutely worth doing.
I think the difference between us is that we have different views on national power in peacetime and wartime.
Important effect?
The question now is: If a nuclear country launches a general war but cannot achieve final victory, what is the purpose of launching a general war?
And precision bombing against the homeland will eventually prove to be meaningless.
For example, if B21 throws a cruise missile to attack Dalian, then China will use a conventional warhead ICBM to attack Los Angeles. What could this mean? The new Russian roulette?
Before the nuclear warhead falls, it cannot prevent the H20 made in China or the B21 made in the United States from continuing to cause harm. But the outcome of the war will not change.
We're gonna have to agree to disagree. I think you've underestimated the amount of industrialization and production capacity potential increase China had in the last 25 years, and the amount of de-industrialization and wasting that the US has undergone at the same time.
1.6% already brings you the conditions today, and mostly from the last twenty years. The reason for 1.6% is not because they don't have a plan, but because they rather go from Liaoning to Shandong to Fujian to type 004 rather than pump out 10 Liaonings. It's because they want to go from J-8 to J-10 to J-20 to J-36 rather than thousands of more J-8 then thousands of more J-10. It's because 1.6% of a big and fast growing pot of money is getting you more than 2.5% of a smaller slower growing pot of money.
Anyway I think it's off topic so back to H-20.
The army does not consider profits, but wins the war. The 1.6% military expenditure means that the military has no plan to enter the next war, especially a war with the world's number one. If 1.6% of military expenditure continues for decades (calculated based on the update time of the various weapons you discussed), it can only be said that the goal of the military is very clear: we update all our weapons as planned, but we do not plan to enter a full-scale war immediately
Back to the H20
this investment return is too low for the military. The 1.6% military expenditure is not worth investing in an aircraft that may be eliminated soon or whose purpose is unclear. It may be more cost-effective to waste $2 billion in design costs than waste $20 billion or more to produce and maintain these aircraft. Perhaps an additional US$1 billion will allow Xi'an to come up with a design more worth spending?
