PLA bomber/strike doctrine force+composition discussion (non H-20)

plawolf said:

Other than the US, who else has stealth bombers at present or in the near future?

It’s funny you say the H6K is a ‘poor man’ bomber, other than the US and Russia, which other countries still even can afford to have bombers?

I would also not classify the different between stealth bombers and legacy as akin of a howitzer vs sidearm.

Stealth bombers are much more limited in terms of munitions if they want to retain their stealth, whereas the H6 can carry far bigger weapons.

So while stealth bombers brings things to the table that conventional bombers could not possibly match, there will continue to be an important place for conventional bombers within the PLAAF even long after the H20 come online, just as the USAF continues to rely primarily on the B52 and B1 despite having the B2.

I view the relationship between the H20 and H6 more like getting a top of the line suppressed 300 blackout sniper rifle to supplement your 50 cal heavy machine gun.

Having the suppressed sniper gives you options you did not previously have, and makes it much harder for the enemy to comprehensively defend against you, but other times, you still just need a heavy machine gun.

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Do you think China needs a heavy bomber like the Tu-95/B-52 or a supersonic bomber like the Tu-160/B-1B?

ZeEa5KPul said:

Do you think China needs a heavy bomber like the Tu-95/B-52 or a supersonic bomber like the Tu-160/B-1B?

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Bear/Buff are outdated trucks, essentially remaining operational due to the amount of logistics hardware already existing in those airforces, making them stretch their lives as far as out as possible.
Blackjack/Bone, on the other hand, provide niche capabilities, that although in 80/90s would've been sought after, they are still vulnerable in highly contested environment.
Stealth is the only way to go in the coming years.

ZeEa5KPul said:

Do you think China needs a heavy bomber like the Tu-95/B-52 or a supersonic bomber like the Tu-160/B-1B?

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Honestly I still think they do, for all that stealth bombers boast of, there is still one thing that they will never likely over come. And that is cost.
A single B-2 cost a little more over 2 billion USD in today money. So much so that the USAF has only 21 built. So even if we bring up China's supposed advantage in cheaper production costs and wages, it must be remembered that the costs is subjective to the standard of living in that country. So there no reason to believe that China can afford the H-20 in any more significant numbers than the US.
That will relegate the H-20 to strategic strikes of high value targets, which creates a gap for a bomber capable of long range anti ship mission and/or constant suppressive raids to keep the enemy down because there will always be more targets of opportunity and value then there are H-20s to persecute.

So a non-stealth bomber that is capable of hauling long range ALCM is still a great capability to have. With an added bonus is that compared to a stealth bomber it is more likely to be more upgradable in light of more capable munitions, because weapons designers will not be constrained by the need to maintain stealth capability when designing their next weapon because there is none to worry about. The Russians had this problem with the Su-57 when they are forced to cut the length of the R-77 AAM to fit in it's weapons bay which will shorten it's range.

these glorified H6 bomb trucks would be in for a nasty surprise if they see real war

the entire fleet would probably be lost, in my opinion completely useless and China is basically trying to do the best they can with what they have which is essentially 1950s air frame too long too thin too light poor range and literally a outdated relic of the Cold War all should be scrapped

Comparing the H6 to a B52 is complete ignorance, its a design like the CH-47 Chinook and CH-53 Sea Stallion which Americans made in early 1960s and 1950s which were decades ahead of their time, real testaments to engineering at their time

there is no nationalism in saying a rubbish aircraft is great

A country like China in 2020 needs a larger long range stealth bomber which can give it global strike, and secondary fighter/bomber like JHXX to second it, away with these legacy H6 series and its variants

Bhurki said:

Bear/Buff are outdated trucks, essentially remaining operational due to the amount of logistics hardware already existing in those airforces, making them stretch their lives as far as out as possible.
Blackjack/Bone, on the other hand, provide niche capabilities, that although in 80/90s would've been sought after, they are still vulnerable in highly contested environment.
Stealth is the only way to go in the coming years.

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It is inevitable that an "all stealth" fleet of combat aircraft will emerge in the future for high intensity missions, ranging from strategic bombers to heavy weight and medium weight fighters and UAVs/UCAVs.

But that is quite far into the future and the money for an "all stealth" fleet simply is not there yet for most nations, and for bomber aircraft, non-stealthy aircraft are still able to carry respectable payloads including longer range stand off payloads that can make their effects felt even if the deployment aircraft remain inside their national airspace.


In relation to the H-6s, the H-6K/J/N family are a mature, relatively affordable regional bomber capable of carrying a decent amount of weapons (6 large ALCMs or the equivalent weight in AShMs), and with capacity to integrate future new payloads as they are developed without having to consider the restrictions of an internal weapons bay.

Even in a high intensity war, the sheer number of H-6Ks and the number of KD-20s they are able to collectively carry and the range of the KD-20s means even without exiting Chinese airspace they are able to place significant targets in the region at risk.


For the purpose of being a regional bomber stopgap before proper stealthy longer range bombers emerge, the H-6K/J/N family are perfectly fine and are going to be with us for some time into the future, because at the end of the day those H-6K/J/Ns are still better than no bomber.

Well, the H6-Tupolev 16 airframe was introduced during Mao's time. Indeed, replacement is long overdue.

I think this is where you guys are wrong. H-6 is no better at surviving than a B-52 and yet it offers China something that gets as close to a heavy bomber as possible without having to develop one from the ground up. The materials and labour used to manufacture modernised H-6 isn't worth that much. It's far better to keep those jobs and production lines running. It's a similar reason to why the B-52 will continue to be modernised and built for DECADES to come. The B-52 fills a quantity (along with certain payload abilities) gap that the US wants to have. China can either mass produce the H-20 which will be prohibitively expensive or they can continue using upgraded H-6 for certain gap fillers when the situation suits i.e. have air superiority. The H-6 may not have the payload capacity, range, or speed compared to better bombers from Boeing and Tupolev but they provide PLA with a platform that literally only Russia and the US preserves.

If H-6 is discarded, what's going to be hauling all those air launched cruise missiles? Dropping dozens of bombs? as far as island chains. It's really mostly limited by its antiquated airframe but most electronics have been thoroughly upgraded. Since Xi'an can mass produce these blindfolded, I think there's no real opportunity cost for continuing H-6K and upgraded versions. H-20 and JH-xx in service will probably not even change this at all if H-6K costs are affordable enough. B-52 will survive as well as a Tu-22 and as well as a H-6K when you lose air superiority anyway. These are totally separate matters.

Personally what the Tu-16 really lacks is the payload and range that the Tu-95 and B-52 offers, it is not completely terrible, but the PLAAF had missed out on the 1950 to 1970 bomber era.

A bigger bomber also have the advantage of being capable of fielding more munitions per pilot trained. Which is something critical in a long war.

Bltizo said:

Even in a high intensity war, the sheer number of H-6Ks and the number of KD-20s they are able to collectively carry and the range of the KD-20s means even without exiting Chinese airspace they are able to place significant targets in the region at risk.

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Wouldnt ground based launchers be cheaper to achieve that target since we are talking about not leaving chinese controlled areas.
( considering difference between controlled airspace and controlled ground area isnt that high when we consider beginning of a conflict).

Bltizo said:

But that is quite far into the future and the money for an "all stealth" fleet simply is not there yet for most nations, and for bomber aircraft, non-stealthy aircraft are still able to carry respectable payloads including longer range stand off payloads that can make their effects felt even if the deployment aircraft remain inside their national airspace.

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Thats the thing with stealth aircraft if not with just any kind of platform. You need to be able to achieve economies of scale and buy dozens of these aircraft to reach any employable operational rate. Buying just a peacemeal quantity may not only jeopardize the operational rate/costs like the B2, but also may hamper complete integration into the strike force order of battle of these platforms.
As far as i see, any new non stealth platform entering service now will have a hard time maintaining its mission success rates within just a decade from now considering proliferation of A2/AD systems around the world.
You do, therefore, need to start manuevering your strike force towards platforms that have a certain passive capability to work around those denial systems. USAF too is having a hard time thinking how they are going to operate with non stealth tankers like the 46 Pegasus in the future.
USN may mitigate this to a certain extent by using Mq25 and F35 in conjunction.

Bhurki said:

Wouldnt ground based launchers be cheaper to achieve that target since we are talking about not leaving chinese controlled areas.
( considering difference between controlled airspace and controlled ground area isnt that high when we consider beginning of a conflict).

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You will be sacrificing alot of tactical flexibility for that, air launch cruise missiles have the advantage that they can be launched from practically any direction so long as the aircraft can get to that position. Ground based launchers are constrained by a predictable trajectory and flight path due to geography and fuel limits.

Combine air launch with the fact that many modern missiles are ground skimming capable, this gives the adversary very little time to react to a threat that is launched from an unexpected direction.