Re: Question regarding the future of the H-6 bomber
That website has a lot of marketing (male cow's excrement). The Kh-41 project has been dropped long time ago because no one is financing and buying (they were expecting China who didn't bite). There is no airborne test of the Club either. The rest is valid. However, it offers nothing that the current Su-30MKK can't handle. Furthermore, the Su-30MKK integrated these weapons long ago---the Su-30MKK is the first Russian plane that is legally certifiable as a multirole fighter. And I don't think it entered service in 2004 as a few examples aer expected to be constructed later the decade.
The development of the Kh-59MK antiship missile, export only, for the Chinese market tells you that China wasn't even looking airborne Sunburns and Klubs. The fact that this missile is cancelled---leaving the Su-30MK2s with only a short ranged AshM the Kh-31A---tells you a bit that China no longer has any appetite for Russian AshMs, and would prefer to make use of its own airborne variants of YJ-83, -62 and -63.
The problem is, we don't know if the Russians would agree to integrating these weapons into their aircraft, or if the Chinese would be willing to share the control codes and protocols to the Russians to make it happen.
So no, it's not a serious alternative to the current JH-7As and H-6s. Furthermore if the Chinese did buy the Su-34, they got no airborne AshM to use it (read above for the 3 projects that are cancelled) with except for the Kh-35 and Kh-31A, both of whom do not outperform any current Chinese airlaunched AshM. The Kh-59MK was probably cancelled because it does not outperform the airlaunched YJs, not to mention its engine layout, compared to the YJs, give it a bigger radar signature.
The only serious missile that the Chinese may have been looking at is the Kh-55. We don't know if the Russians are willing to sell. The interest on the Tu-160 is part of this. Ukraine is said to have sold China six Kh-55s. Jane's reported/speculated on an H-6 variant designed to carry it called the H-6K.
If Su-34 can be made to carry Kh-55, maybe China can consider. China was offered Tu-22M3 as the Russians can't sell their Tu-160 which is their crown jewels, so the Tu-22M3 is the next best thing. However, that is also rejected. Ukraine is said to have destroyed their remaining fleet of Tu-22M3 and Tu-160, though I wondered what "destroyed" really means *wink* *wink*.
Nonetheless, China does not appear to be interested on Tu-22M3, despite such aircraft was brought into the Sino-Russian exercises in August 2004 to show to officials.
I might say at this point, the road seems clear H-6 will stay around for a while, maybe even a decade or two, as a cruise missile carrier for indigenous ALCMs and AshMs, including successive variants of the YJ-83, -63 and -62.
