There are already some Chinese netizens who are wishing, if not outright expecting the H-20 to be some kind of huge, near-space, hypersonic orbital bomber that could lob ICBMs at the continental US.
Du's credibility certainly got some boost
The day the H-20 gets announced and displayed, is the day I'm holding my first ever party.
I want the H-20 to be a subsonic flying wing and will be extremely disappointed if it ends up being a supersonic, let alone hypersonic, white elephant that won’t have the range, cost effectiveness, and IR/radar stealth to actually matter.
subsonic flying wings aren't the end all be all. RCS is angle and frequency dependent and an aircraft will present a flat reflector (highest RCS) when either overflying or underlying a radar. Their size is in resonance with the wavelengths of many long range OTH radars including PAVE PAWS and Jindalee.
A flying wing with the B-2/21 planform with have all-aspect broadband stealth from VHF to Ka.
IDK about all aspect. A highly asymmetric shape is unlikely to have all aspect anything that is angle dependent.
That’s an F-22 which is not an all aspect wideband stealth aircraft. Only a large flying wing like the B-2 or the B-21 are all aspect wideband stealth. Flying wing drones like the GJ-11 are also all aspect stealth but its performance is worse at the very low frequencies (but still much better than any stealth fighter today).
VLO stealth bombers operates on fundamentally different paradigm from stealth tactical fighters like the F-22/F-35/J-20. A stealth fighter can be detected but is expected to survive using its own weapons and kinematics. A stealth bomber is designed to never be spotted at all. Hence the all aspect wideband stealth design to defeat long range surveillance radar. So the overflight situation won’t happen except by coincidence or by insane radar density.Overflight of radars that are off happens all the time. See Ukraine. The fire control radars stay off until target presence is confirmed by other means (early warning radar, IR, visual) and then they turn on at the last second for targeting at point blank.
And during overflight, the RCS is gigantic.
The opposing fighter fleet is huge, and all the F-35s, F-18s and a large chunk of F-15s and F-16s are equipped with IRST. IDK how many stealth bombers (which might number as few as ~20-50 at the start of the conflict due to expense, build time and complexity) will survive initial contact with F-35s and F-18s being vectored by early warning radars. I don't have the information to judge this.
That’s the GJ-11. Cheap, all aspect wideband VLO, exceptional range via clean flying wing design, high-high-high mission profile, and large fuel fraction. The value of kinematics is only justifiable if the performance of launched munition is greatly dependent on launch parameters (i.e. air to air missiles, rocket powered land attack missile like HARM). Otherwise, the penalty from supersonic flight on cost and mainteinance is prohibitive (see B-52 vs. B-1B).