Funnily enough, the USAF is now proposing an unmanned flying-wing design "AAM arsenal ship" that is supposed to be able to "cross the Pacific" and armed with "dozens of A2A missiles":
A certain GJ-X at Malan: "
Hello there~"
Either eay, while it is reasonable to expect the GJ-X to be equipped with similar capabilities as whatever USAF is proposing above, if not some more (considering its immense size and volume) - Given China's expected primary theater of operations in the coming decades (i.e. WestPac and CentPac), perhaps the PLAAF (and maybe the PLAN as well) could require a similar-role platform that is somewhere in between the GJ-11/21 and GJ-X in terms of size, MTOW and payload capacity? That means being meaningfully bigger than the GJ-11/21 (hence greater payload capacity and combat radius/endurance), whlist still being meaningfully smaller than the GJ-X (hence not too expensive to be procured and operated in greater numbers, if not also permitting the potential development of a carrier-based variant).
Whether this UCAV is meant to occupy a VLO strike UCAV category of its own, or meant to complement before eventually succeed the GJ-11/21 - Maybe that's yet another point of contention.
