lcloo
Major
Other than B-52, TU-95 and H6 and B2, many of the post WW2 strategic heavy bombers, especially the supersonic bombers, had faced one problem after another, not due to their designs difficulties or technology but by the changes in opponents' advance in defense strategies and innovations in air defense weapons.
The Mach 3 XB-70 Valkyrie was cancelled due to advance in Soviet SAMs as well as ICBM in USA, the crash of the prototype was the last straw. UK's AVRO 30 supersonic bomber project was cancelled due to advancement in ICBM in UK, ditto for Soviet Union's super sonic M-50 bomber.
The unsophisticated looking and slow B-52 ironically is probably the most succesful bomber may be due to its flexibilty to change its roles from nuclear bomber to conventional bomber and again change to cruise missile carrier. PLAAF's H6 has similar changes as well.
B2 and B21 has advantage of stealth but their value is more on deterence which is mostly political as they can threaten opponents just by flying outside their territorial air space once in a while whenever political situations were getting tense.
Now, back to H20. I believe designing and building a stealth H20 should be no problem for China, but what value would H20 contribute to China's nuclear warfare roles, what kind of opponet's air defense against steath bomber would be like now and into the future, will it face the fate of XB-70 due to suddent appearance of new air defense weapon? Will it be so expensive to make and maintain as the B2 bombers? How to make H20 versatile to satisfy current situations and able to adapt to future changes?
In short will the design of H20 be really effective and worth the time. money and effort? This is probably the reason why project for H20 has been drag on for so long. If H20 does appear as suggested, that meant they probably found a solution to future proof this bomber design. It will be curios to see if it will be slow speed or a supersonic bomber.
My bet is we can see its shadow shapes in the current 6th gen prototypes and various next gen UCAVs.
The Mach 3 XB-70 Valkyrie was cancelled due to advance in Soviet SAMs as well as ICBM in USA, the crash of the prototype was the last straw. UK's AVRO 30 supersonic bomber project was cancelled due to advancement in ICBM in UK, ditto for Soviet Union's super sonic M-50 bomber.
The unsophisticated looking and slow B-52 ironically is probably the most succesful bomber may be due to its flexibilty to change its roles from nuclear bomber to conventional bomber and again change to cruise missile carrier. PLAAF's H6 has similar changes as well.
B2 and B21 has advantage of stealth but their value is more on deterence which is mostly political as they can threaten opponents just by flying outside their territorial air space once in a while whenever political situations were getting tense.
Now, back to H20. I believe designing and building a stealth H20 should be no problem for China, but what value would H20 contribute to China's nuclear warfare roles, what kind of opponet's air defense against steath bomber would be like now and into the future, will it face the fate of XB-70 due to suddent appearance of new air defense weapon? Will it be so expensive to make and maintain as the B2 bombers? How to make H20 versatile to satisfy current situations and able to adapt to future changes?
In short will the design of H20 be really effective and worth the time. money and effort? This is probably the reason why project for H20 has been drag on for so long. If H20 does appear as suggested, that meant they probably found a solution to future proof this bomber design. It will be curios to see if it will be slow speed or a supersonic bomber.
My bet is we can see its shadow shapes in the current 6th gen prototypes and various next gen UCAVs.
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