H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)

CasualObserver said:

Is China aiming VLO for H-20? Considering that J-20 and J-35 are LO planes and that they don't have the experience that the US had developed over decades, It'd be a really hard task to develop a VLO plane for the first time. But I'd also assume achieving VLO would be easier to do so on a bomber rather than on a fighter plane.

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Based on what they have unveiled so far, it looks like they are aiming there. If we base it on huitong's page, they've been developing it since early 2000s. It was rumored to have only really picked up after Y-20 development was finished, but that's a long development cycle. If you read huitong's portion on this , there is a lot of stuff going on there since 2015. I'm sure they are mostly using technology from mid 2010s, but they've been actively working on it for about 10 years already. That just speaks for how hard this project is.

I also agree that it's probably easier to do a stealth bomber than a fighter jet plane. If we look at B-21, it really looks very similar to B-2. Which just shows how great the original B-2 planform was. I think it's been known for a while what the "ideal" planform for stealth bomber looks like. Without high requirements of maneuverability, they can focus on just emphasizing stealth from high altitude. That's probably easier to achieve than VLO on fighter jet. It's also probably why bombers were the first aircraft to become LO and then VLO.

XAC is really new to this game. So, we will need to see how well they integrate their own subsystems into that type of planform. Of course, a large part of stealth is the workmanship and maintenance. In the J-20 project, CAC has shown much improved workmanship in its mass produced version. It's a big ask for XAC to do the same.

AndrewS said:

Back in 2005, a H-20 programme would have been seen as unaffordable. But it's easily affordable now.

Based on the B-2, the H-20 R&D costs could be $24Bn over 8 years. That works out at $3Bn per year.

Then building 10 H-20s per year would be $6Bn per year (based on B-21 flyaway costs of $639Mn)

In terms of operating costs, let's say $40Mn per year for each bomber (based on the B-2 annual sustainment cost of $44Mn)

So after 10 years, a fleet of 100 H-20s would cost $4Bn per year to sustain.

After 20 years, the H-20 fleet would cost $8Bn per year for sustainment.

I also see large numbers of inexpensive SDBs glide bombs being a very useful payload for a stealth bomber

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I don't think H-20 will be anywhere near as expensive to procure or maintain as B-2. America is willing to spend twice the amount of money for extra 10% in capability. Not sure China is willing to do the same. With more mature technology, B-21 is expected to be cheaper to build and operate. Although, I guess we will find out if that works out. Either way, I don't expect H-20 to cost that much. I also don't know if China needs 100 H-20s. That sounds like a lot.

latenlazy said:

I actually think we should expect the H-20 to be as stealthy as the B-21. The component technologies for the H-20 should he a lot mature than for when the J-20 was being developed.

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I don't know how much more stealthy B-21 is over B-2. The planform seems pretty similar to me. They did remove the low altitude requirement of B-2 for B-21, which was what made rear view less stealthy on B-2. I'd expect H-20 to be similar to B-21 in that aspect. I also expect H-20 to have S-shaped intake like B-21. In some area, H-20 may turn out to be more advanced than B-2. Overall, that's still a big ask for XAC to do. I think PLAAF would satisfied if they got a bomber that's a lot cheaper to operate/maintain than B-2, has similar stealth capabilities, better avionics/situation awareness, slightly lower payload and shorter range.

Even if that's not as capable as B-21, it'd a lot cheaper. They will probably be able to build more of them. More importantly, they can enter any of the nearby contested spaces and neutralize air defense. Just think about a couple of H-20 escorted by J-16Ds/J-20s approaching Indian air space. They'd be able to jam up Indian air defense, fly over there undetected and completely neutralize that with large quantity of bombs. That's something they'd have trouble doing right now. That's a real force multiplier that exceed even the impact of J-20s.

Bottom line is that people can spend all day getting excited about 6th fighter or hypersonic missiles or UCAVs. None of that will be able to penetrate air defense and take out military bases as well and as cheaply as a real VLO bomber.

It's kind of interesting that USAF is planning to retire B-2 and B-1B ahead of B-52s. At the end of the day, it shows you really just need 1 really advanced type of bomber that can get into contested spaces and a more archaic type of bomb truck that can carry a lot of stand-off missiles.

tphuang said:

Based on what they have unveiled so far, it looks like they are aiming there. If we base it on huitong's page, they've been developing it since early 2000s. It was rumored to have only really picked up after Y-20 development was finished, but that's a long development cycle. If you read huitong's portion on this

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, there is a lot of stuff going on there since 2015. I'm sure they are mostly using technology from mid 2010s, but they've been actively working on it for about 10 years already. That just speaks for how hard this project is.

I also agree that it's probably easier to do a stealth bomber than a fighter jet plane. If we look at B-21, it really looks very similar to B-2. Which just shows how great the original B-2 planform was. I think it's been known for a while what the "ideal" planform for stealth bomber looks like. Without high requirements of maneuverability, they can focus on just emphasizing stealth from high altitude. That's probably easier to achieve than VLO on fighter jet. It's also probably why bombers were the first aircraft to become LO and then VLO.

XAC is really new to this game. So, we will need to see how well they integrate their own subsystems into that type of planform. Of course, a large part of stealth is the workmanship and maintenance. In the J-20 project, CAC has shown much improved workmanship in its mass produced version. It's a big ask for XAC to do the same.

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For stealth airplane production, it's not even about workmanship anymore.
The parts have to be produced by robots to the required accuracy, otherwise you end up with the F-22 nightmare where the parts on each airplane are all slightly different and have to be custom-made.

tphuang said:

I don't think H-20 will be anywhere near as expensive to procure or maintain as B-2. America is willing to spend twice the amount of money for extra 10% in capability. Not sure China is willing to do the same. With more mature technology, B-21 is expected to be cheaper to build and operate. Although, I guess we will find out if that works out. Either way, I don't expect H-20 to cost that much. I also don't know if China needs 100 H-20s. That sounds like a lot.

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I agree, but there are many doubters.
So its easier to go with US cost levels with only a minor adjustment for Chinese cost levels.
And it just reinforces the point that an H-20 looks very affordable given current levels of demilitarised defence spending from China, whichever way you look at it.

Well, if you assume 20 airbases to be attacked daily plus H-20s only being able to fly a sortie every 2 days, 100 H-20 bombers doesn't seem excessive.

Note the US is starting with a minimum of 100 B-21s, but it may end up as 200. Remember the US would be looking at 150+ airbases located in mainland China. But if the H-20s can deny the use of all airbases within 5000km of China, all those B-21s and US tankers will have a difficult/impossible job.

AndrewS said:

For stealth airplane production, it's not even about workmanship anymore.
The parts have to be produced by robots to the required accuracy, otherwise you end up with the F-22 nightmare where the parts on each airplane are all slightly different and have to be custom-made.




I agree, but there are many doubters.
So its easier to go with US cost levels with only a minor adjustment for Chinese cost levels.
And it just reinforces the point that an H-20 looks very affordable given current levels of demilitarised defence spending from China, whichever way you look at it.

Well, if you assume 20 airbases to be attacked daily plus H-20s only being able to fly a sortie every 2 days, 100 H-20 bombers doesn't seem excessive.

Note the US is starting with a minimum of 100 B-21s, but it may end up as 200. Remember the US would be looking at 150+ airbases located in mainland China. But if the H-20s can deny the use of all airbases within 5000km of China, all those B-21s and US tankers will have a difficult/impossible job.

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From the US perspective with the B2 and F-22, 100 B-21 may end up as 20...

Chinese ''cost'' is not comparable they are not in the same system. Politics and cost screw up production big time in the US, it's still their achille heel.

China achille heel in the past was the industrial base and knowledge. They have checked the boxes on these and they will have the plane in the quantity they need.

From the US perspective with the B2 and F-22, 100 B-21 may end up as 20...

Atomicfrog said:

Chinese ''cost'' is not comparable they are not in the same system. Politics and cost screw up production big time in the US, it's still their achille heel.

China achille heel in the past was the industrial base and knowledge. They have checked the boxes on these and they will have the plane in the quantity they need.

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This is some serious bullshit ,pure ideology with no substance

Philister said:

From the US perspective with the B2 and F-22, 100 B-21 may end up as 20...

This is some serious bullshit ,pure ideology with no substance

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It's just historically accurate... And anything about cost cannot be compared between China and the West. They build bridges and infrastructures at less than a quarter of the cost... it's like comparing apple and orange.

CasualObserver said:

Is China aiming VLO for H-20? Considering that J-20 and J-35 are LO planes and that they don't have the experience that the US had developed over decades

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Do you consider F-22 and F-35 to be VLO aircraft or LO aircraft?

The B-21 is supposedly a twin engine aircraft while the H-20 should be quad engine. They can do that because the F135 derived engine should have way more power. The B-2 was a quad engine which uses engines derived from the F-16's F110 engines. So at least the powerplant should have way less parts. Northrop Grumman also has a lot of experienced staff in building airframes. For example they bought Scaled Composites some years back. So I doubt it will use that many parts overall to build. Were it not for the stealth coatings this would have potential to be a cheap aircraft to build and operate for US standards.

When I talk about workmanship, it's not about manual labour, but rather the end product. What is the construction quality like? You can have the best planform, but lose out stealth if the construction quality is not consistently high. That's something America, with its advanced aerospace industry, has been able to continually improve for years. J-20's construction quality has been very good so far. We will see how well XAC manages with a larger aircraft.

I don't think we need to use current USAF projections of B-21s to determine how many H-20s China will procure. As we all know, the initial USAF requirement don't always come to reality once they are faced with budgetary realities. There were supposed to be over 100 B-2s also. Of course, the NG proposal was picked due to their ability to keep cost under control. But if you have lived in America in the past year, you will know how rampant inflation is at the moment. Bottom line, we won't know how many B-21s will eventually join service for many years.

I do think we can use USAF's bomber plan as a guidance of what makes sense for PLAAF in the long term. That seems to be a good number of H-6 variants on the low end that can launch all sort of LACMs, ASBMs, UAVs and hypersonic gliders. Keep about 100 of the more modern ones around. On the high end, you can probably have at least 50 to 100 H-20 produced over its life time. In the beginning, they can probably only produce a handful a year. VLO stealth bombers are true force multipliers. A few of them can make a huge difference. USAF will never export them. So, only 2 countries will have them. Nobody within H-20's combat radius will have a chance of training against the H-20 threat. Especially when you pair that up with J-16D or J-20D EW aircraft. They are going to be able to fly over India and Japanese islands and flatten military bases unopposed.

I would be curious if the speculated JH-XX project actually exists. It would be a huge undertaking for XAC to carry out H-20 + JH-XX + all the Y-20 variants. I'd think you can probably develop a fighter bomber version of 2 seat J-20 with a lot of work. But with 2 seat J-20, it's probably best for them to just develop larger UCAVs that the backseat pilot controls.

tphuang said:

When I talk about workmanship, it's not about manual labour, but rather the end product. What is the construction quality like? You can have the best planform, but lose out stealth if the construction quality is not consistently high. That's something America, with its advanced aerospace industry, has been able to continually improve for years. J-20's construction quality has been very good so far. We will see how well XAC manages with a larger aircraft.

I don't think we need to use current USAF projections of B-21s to determine how many H-20s China will procure. As we all know, the initial USAF requirement don't always come to reality once they are faced with budgetary realities. There were supposed to be over 100 B-2s also. Of course, the NG proposal was picked due to their ability to keep cost under control. But if you have lived in America in the past year, you will know how rampant inflation is at the moment. Bottom line, we won't know how many B-21s will eventually join service for many years.

I do think we can use USAF's bomber plan as a guidance of what makes sense for PLAAF in the long term. That seems to be a good number of H-6 variants on the low end that can launch all sort of LACMs, ASBMs, UAVs and hypersonic gliders. Keep about 100 of the more modern ones around. On the high end, you can probably have at least 50 to 100 H-20 produced over its life time. In the beginning, they can probably only produce a handful a year. VLO stealth bombers are true force multipliers. A few of them can make a huge difference. USAF will never export them. So, only 2 countries will have them. Nobody within H-20's combat radius will have a chance of training against the H-20 threat. Especially when you pair that up with J-16D or J-20D EW aircraft. They are going to be able to fly over India and Japanese islands and flatten military bases unopposed.

I would be curious if the speculated JH-XX project actually exists. It would be a huge undertaking for XAC to carry out H-20 + JH-XX + all the Y-20 variants. I'd think you can probably develop a fighter bomber version of 2 seat J-20 with a lot of work. But with 2 seat J-20, it's probably best for them to just develop larger UCAVs that the backseat pilot controls.

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Based on what leaks we have wouldn’t a JH-XX most likely be done by SAC?

tphuang said:

When I talk about workmanship, it's not about manual labour, but rather the end product. What is the construction quality like? You can have the best planform, but lose out stealth if the construction quality is not consistently high. That's something America, with its advanced aerospace industry, has been able to continually improve for years. J-20's construction quality has been very good so far. We will see how well XAC manages with a larger aircraft.

I don't think we need to use current USAF projections of B-21s to determine how many H-20s China will procure. As we all know, the initial USAF requirement don't always come to reality once they are faced with budgetary realities. There were supposed to be over 100 B-2s also. Of course, the NG proposal was picked due to their ability to keep cost under control. But if you have lived in America in the past year, you will know how rampant inflation is at the moment. Bottom line, we won't know how many B-21s will eventually join service for many years.

I do think we can use USAF's bomber plan as a guidance of what makes sense for PLAAF in the long term. That seems to be a good number of H-6 variants on the low end that can launch all sort of LACMs, ASBMs, UAVs and hypersonic gliders. Keep about 100 of the more modern ones around. On the high end, you can probably have at least 50 to 100 H-20 produced over its life time. In the beginning, they can probably only produce a handful a year. VLO stealth bombers are true force multipliers. A few of them can make a huge difference. USAF will never export them. So, only 2 countries will have them. Nobody within H-20's combat radius will have a chance of training against the H-20 threat. Especially when you pair that up with J-16D or J-20D EW aircraft. They are going to be able to fly over India and Japanese islands and flatten military bases unopposed.

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I think it very likely that 100+ B-21 will be fully produced.
The B-2 programme was only cancelled because the USSR collapsed and the US had global military supremacy.

The Russians are supposed to have a PAK DA stealth bomber prototype being assembled now, but how many go into service is another question, given the struggle to fund the Su-57 stealth fighter.

As for the H-6, I think it's worth keeping this at a low production level, say 6 per year. With a 30 year lifespan, you would end up with a fleet of 180 to act as missile trucks. And they'll still be useful in 50 years time in that role.