China Buys Tu-22MB Bomber Production Line from Russia

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Tu-22-420x297.jpg

Aviation News EU said:
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December 28, 2012

China buys production line for Tu-22MB bombers from Russia for US$1.5 billion including transfer of all the technology.

China has already imported 6 such bombers which are better than China’s own H-6 bombers being able to carry a bigger load and with a longer range.

The Tu-22MB Tupolev Backfire is a supersonic, swing-wing, long-range strategic and maritime strike bomber.

According to Chinese military expert Ma Dingsheng, the swing-wing of Tu-22MBenables it to conduct maritime attack. It can first adjust its wings in a position that enables it to fly at super-low attitude without being detected by enemy radar. When it comes near its target, it changes its wing position to enable it to clime up quickly to conduct sudden attack.

However, Ma said that for production of the bombers, China still needs quite a few parts that it cannot produce especially the engines. It is thought that there is a contract to supply the parts for the production of 36 such bombers.

China has to develop its own ability to produce the parts, especially the engines. Otherwise, if Russia refuses to provide more parts, China will be unable to produce more and even have difficulty in maintenance of the bombers.

Saw this today. What do you think? Another red-herring story? Or the real thing?

First I had heard about the PRC already having six of them. Anyone else hear of this?

The TU-22M is a very dangerous weapons system to this day. The US used the F-14 and Phoenix Missile to counter for carriers. The F/A-18F and the latest AMRAAM missiles have the same capability.

The Russians were prepared to deploy one or two regiments of these aircraft against each carrier. Will China build that many?

Interesting development if true.
 
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Equation

Lieutenant General
Tu-22-420x297.jpg



Saw this today. What do you think? Another red-herring story? Or the real thing?

The TU-22M is a very dangerous weapons system to this day. The US used the F-14 and Phoenix Missile to counter for carriers. The F/A-18F and the latest AMRAAM missiles have the same capability.

The Russians were prepared to deploy one or two regiments of these aircraft against each carrier. Will China build that many?

Interesting development if true.


I say in 5 years watch for China's much improve version of this Russian TU-22M, including engine, avionics, and radar and sensors.
 

Skywatcher

Captain
Huh.

I'm inclined towards skepticism because of all that business over the Su-35BM and Lada SSK, but Aviation News is at least reasonably reputable, IIRC.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Huh.

I'm inclined towards skepticism because of all that business over the Su-35BM and Lada SSK, but Aviation News is at least reasonably reputable, IIRC.
Agreed and agreed for the same reasons. Will be interesting to see if this is true.

I say in 5 years watch for China's much improve version of this Russian TU-22M, including engine, avionics, and radar and sensors.
Interesting.

Well, the TU-22M is definitely not a "Stealth" aircraft, but it is fast and it can carry very modern and dangerous SSMs very quickly to a target area.

But, the Russians fugured they would need a regiment or two of these aircraft to take down a US carrier group...will China build that many?

Interesting development.

No they haven't???
First I had heard of the PRC having 6 of them already too. Anyone else hear of this?
 

kyanges

Junior Member
A quick search yielded this:

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Most of the other links point to this article as well. So the story has been floating around since at least August.

And it's from "Want China times". It's all kinda... dumb sounding, honestly. At least we won't have to wait long for verification. It says they'll be flying by next year. Sure.
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
A quick search yielded this:

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Most of the other links point to this article as well. So the story has been floating around since at least August.

And it's from "Want China times". It's all kinda... dumb sounding, honestly. At least we won't have to wait long for verification. It says they'll be flying by next year. Sure.
Well, Aviation News EU is typically not so easily taken in...but I know it will not procude aircraft by next year. the EU article did not mention anything like that.

I guess we will see. If a contract of this nature...$1.5 billion US is still a large order...actually happened, we will see some kind of more official mention and documentation of it soon.
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
Interesting.

Well, the TU-22M is definitely not a "Stealth" aircraft, but it is fast and it can carry very modern and dangerous SSMs very quickly to a target area.

But, the Russians fugured they would need a regiment or two of these aircraft to take down a US carrier group...will China build that many?

Interesting development.


True, but today's TU-22M (even a full regiment) will have a tougher time getting close to a US Navy CVN battle groups with much improve radar and sensors as well as C.I.W.S.

Here's a video clip from that movie "The Sum of All Fears" that showed what's it's design intention were.

[video=youtube;nhj8ITvp-pw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhj8ITvp-pw[/video]
 

Engineer

Major
Stories like this have been floating around for nearly 10 years. Every single year you hear stories saying China brought X amount of Tu-22 for Y billions dollars. To this day, there is not a single Tu-22 seen in China; not even in a museum.

This thread should be locked.
 

SteelBird

Colonel
Yeah, this news has been around for quite some time. Phoenix TV even report it in their military program. The bomber was called H-10 or something like that. But we all know that this is nowhere from fact!
 
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