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

Gloire_bb said:

You misunderstood me. The point was that it makes little sense to bet on intermediate range anti-air missile against a target you don't see from afar.
(but broadly - Stealth bombers are very hard to spot as they have the least compromised and broadband geometry among all flying assets, as well as size to accept wider band RAMs, they're in fact some of the most capable ISR nodes within their tech generation, and as such they're specifically self-contained reconnaissance/strike systems...)

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A specialised ISR aircraft (such as the 15000-20000kg RQ-180 / Global Hawk) would be far lower cost than a H-20. Therefore it makes sense to build as many RQ-180 as required to provide detection and targeting.

And I think we're looking at a bare minimum of sixty H-20s being produced, and likely many more.
So there should be a lot of RQ-180 equivalents flying around.

At a minimum, AAMs could target large airborne refuelling tankers which are amongst the easiest aircraft to detect and also to shoot down at long-range because they lack speed and manoeuvrability.

Yes, countering Chinese ecosystem of large supporting assets makes sense for this weapon. But finding an aircraft which is likely far more difficult to spot than the fighters now in testing?

@Temstar @AndrewS

I can't say much about H20 or PAKDA - we haven't even seen them. Best I can tell is use analogy.

What we can tell is that B-2 was meant to be a ISRA asset (famous TEL hunting mission) from the get go, it's the first deployed aircraft with LPI targeting radars (by far the most advanced for 1990s...in some ways probably still some of the most advanced around) after all.

Equally, B-21 (which we saw and which are likely intended to be procured in hundreds) is specifically and visibly equipped with large, multiple large downwards covers which are almost certainly radars.

Gloire_bb said:

Yes, countering Chinese ecosystem of large supporting assets makes sense for this weapon. But finding an aircraft which is likely far more difficult to spot than the fighters now in testing?

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Most of those US fighters will be 5th gens, so detectable with long-wave radars?

Gloire_bb said:

@Temstar @AndrewS

I can't say much about H20 or PAKDA - we haven't even seen them. Best I can tell is use analogy.

What we can tell is that B-2 was meant to be a ISRA asset (famous TEL hunting mission) from the get go, it's the first deployed aircraft with LPI targeting radars (by far the most advanced for 1990s...in some ways probably still some of the most advanced around) after all.

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Today, every modern radar is AESA and should have a software defined LPI mode?
It's an inherent part of how AESA radars form narrow pencil beams and can frequency hop, compared to older radars.

Gloire_bb said:

Equally, B-21 (which we saw and which are likely intended to be procured in hundreds) is specifically and visibly equipped with large, multiple large downwards covers which are almost certainly radars.

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The AN/APQ-181 is like ~1500kg and an APG-81 is ~100 kg? And an APG-85 is $9 Mn

That's not much, given the overall weight/costs of the B-2 and B-21. So they might as well put a lot of sensors on them.

In addition, modern radars should be GaN which means more power and less weight.

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So if the H-20 is significantly larger than the B-2, I expect it would have a lot of sensors as well.

AndrewS said:

Most of those US fighters will be 5th gens, so detectable with long-wave radars?

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I mean, H20. Of all things, it's almost certainly a broadband VLO.

AndrewS said:

Today, every modern radar is AESA and should have a software defined LPI mode?
It's an inherent part of how AESA radars form narrow pencil beams and can frequency hop, compared to older radars.

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Now, yes. But B-2 is a 1990s aircraft, first flown well before J-7E. Back then, LPI was kinda absolutely unique, only demonstrated on one X plane before.
(and btw it was LPI PESA. Now probably replaced with AESA, but Idk).

AndrewS said:

The AN/APQ-181 is like ~1500kg and an APG-81 is ~100 kg? And an APG-85 is $9 Mn

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No idea. But you can see them over the black squares. It's a long strip of them on both sides.

Gloire_bb said:

in some ways probably still some of the most advanced around) after all.

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Extreme doubt. Radar, RF and electronics is an extremely fast evolving space, especially in the 90s. The radar(s) used on the B-2 back then are antiquated museum pieces by now.

MeiouHades said:

Extreme doubt. Radar, RF and electronics is an extremely fast evolving space, especially in the 90s. The radar(s) used on the B-2 back then are antiquated museum pieces by now.

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It had extreme multi-target recognition/assignment capabilities back in the 1990s(famous demo with many dozens of JDAMs in one salvo, assigned from aboard in one pass).
Granted, it's mostly for the lack of such need, but I doubt it's matched by anything other than still not operational B-21 to this date.

In any case, they had a major (MLU?) upgrade just a couple of years ago (2023-24).

Gloire_bb said:

It had extreme multi-target recognition/assignment capabilities back in the 1990s(famous demo with many dozens of JDAMs in one salvo, assigned from aboard in one pass).
Granted, it's mostly for the lack of such need, but I doubt it's matched by anything other than still not operational B-21 to this date.

In any case, they had a major (MLU?) upgrade just a couple of years ago (2023-24).

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High bandwidth simultaneous engagement capabilities for sensor systems aren’t that novel today.

latenlazy said:

High bandwidth simultaneous engagement capabilities for sensor systems aren’t that novel today.

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I still struggle to come up with any other modern aircraft that can assign and engage dozens of targets in this manner.
Aircraft that can carry enough ammo don't really do pen, aircraft that do pen can't carry enough warload to justify it.

Gloire_bb said:

I still struggle to come up with any other modern aircraft that can assign and engage dozens of targets in this manner.
Aircraft that can carry enough ammo don't really do pen, aircraft that do pen can't carry enough warload to justify it.

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That’s mostly just because we haven’t had any new larger bomber platforms, where that sort of fully integrated onboard capability is valued as part of the performance requirements. Most aircraft that can carry enough ammo for this sort of onboard capability to be worthwhile are old, and tactical doctrine doesn’t change around old systems. Instead what we see is that these kinds of high bandwidth target engagement capabilities are off-boarded onto dedicated ISR systems to fulfill more modularized kill-web based tactical doctrine.

ismellcopium said:

...I thought Temstar's implication was that the US wants such a AAM to use against the H-20?

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No, he is saying that Yankee implied the US wants to develop 1000 mile air to air missiles because they've observed ("heard") testing of China's 1000km air to air missile or SAM.

There were talks of Chinese hypersonic, 1000km+ SAMs and/or air to air missiles. IIRC some of those hints surrounded the CJ-1000 for the SAM discussion.

These air to air missiles would be around YJ-19 sized so could only be carried by platforms like H-6 and future H-20 and J-36.