H-6 Bomber Aircraft Discussions

Richard Santos said:

it is interesting the Chinese never dealt with the geometry of the tail, which was dictated by the 1940s era need of a manned tail gun turret. The turret and gunner position is long gone, but its outline and the fuselage geometry to facilitate its presemce is still there. Paint the windows back on and you wouldn’t notice the tail gun turret is gone.

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I can think of some reasons they didn't bother to change the tail geometry. A slight change in tail geometry would likely result in a complete redesign of the tail and maybe even the whole aerodynamics of the plane. It would certainly take some time to develop, and China has a strong need to maintain a sizable fleet of modern bombers to deal with regional threats. H-20 hasn't come out yet, so the only modern bombers currently in service are H-6 J/K/N variants. Halting the production of those variants just to change the tail is certainly not an optimal choice. Another reason that I could think of is the former tail gunner position might be replaced by some electronic equipment, hence despite the gunner is no longer present, there's still a need to keep that position, and hence they didn't bother changing the tail geometry.

It may look like an old plane from the outside, but trust me the inside has completely changed, the engines, the radar, and the electronic equipment are all brand new.

China isn't special in this case. Russia and america are all renewing their old bombers to prolong their life span, without really changing their aerodynamics either. Just like what China did, most of the renewals concern the internal equipment.

Re-posting a lost image. Click for the original.

So what capability does H6-J added? H6K is the CM lobber with modern avionics and H6-N has air launched ballistic missile. Anyone know what's the trick of H6-J? Except an extra pair of hardpoint ofc.

Deino said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1289834399043743749

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Crazy how much info gleamed from publicly available sat photos, one would think some sort rudimentary overhead covering would be common place even if hangers are not?

kriss said:

So what capability does H6-J added? H6K is the CM lobber with modern avionics and H6-N has air launched ballistic missile. Anyone know what's the trick of H6-J? Except an extra pair of hardpoint ofc.

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Here is Henri K take on H6J. anybody know what the new jamming pod do like the old version just create big noise But the newer one can create a phantom target and fooled the missile
The H-6J, anti-ship bombers that can equip up to 6 YJ-12 supersonic missiles, from the Southern Theater Command, in flight training. Note in particular its 8 pylons, including 2 used to carry self-defense electronic jamming pods.

More pictures of H-6J:

Hendrik_2000 said:

Here is Henri K take on H6J. anybody know what the new jamming pod do like the old version just create big noise But the newer one can create a phantom target and fooled the missile
The H-6J, anti-ship bombers that can equip up to 6 YJ-12 supersonic missiles, from the Southern Theater Command, in flight training. Note in particular its 8 pylons, including 2 used to carry self-defense electronic jamming pods.
View attachment 62446

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So essentially H6K with upgraded EW suits? I wonder whether old H and K variant can be upgraded to J standard.

From Huitong, H-6J's cockpit (top image). The second image dates from the development stage years ago, probably a mockup to nail down the cockpit design.