- An anonymous U.S. official has claimed that China’s stealth bomber will probably be “nowhere pretty much as good” as American bombers.
- The Xi’an H-20 bomber has been under development for greater than a decade.
- A brand new bomber would allow China to have a full-fledged “triad” of nuclear weapons, like the USA and Russia.
The U.S. government is just not impressed with China’s recent heavy strategic bomber—and it hasn’t even come out yet. In a briefing with defense media outlets, an unnamed intelligence official stated that China has encountered many engineering design issues developing its recent Xi’an H-20 bomber, and that the plane is “probably nowhere pretty much as good” because the American planes it’s designed to compete with.
Pentagon: Meh
The official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity, told DefenseOne that “once you actually have a look at the system design [of the H-20], it’s probably nowhere near pretty much as good as U.S. [low observable] platforms, particularly more advanced ones that we have now coming down.”
“They’ve run into a number of engineering design challenges,” the official added, “when it comes to how do you really make that system capability function in an identical technique to a B-2 or B-21.”
The H-20 bomber was originally announced in 2016, but there was little news in regards to the program since.
“All Problems Can Be Solved”
In March, China’s Global Times, a state-owned media outlet, reported that the H-20 bomber can be “well worth the excitement.” Wang Wei, a deputy commander of the Chinese Air Force, told the Times that close to the bomber’s development, “there isn’t any bottleneck, and all problems will be solved. Our scientific researchers are progressing well, they’re fully capable.”
Wang went on to refuse to match the upcoming bomber with its U.S. counterparts, stating that “China is not going to compete with the U.S., but will only defend (its) own security.” This could possibly be interpreted in a magnanimous, noncompetitive fashion, nevertheless it may be a reality check for individuals who expect China’s first manned bomber to be pretty much as good as its American peers.
Stuck within the Fifties
China’s current bomber is the H-6 (top), produced by the Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation. The H-6 first flew in 1959 as a licensed copy of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 (NATO code name: Badger) bomber. It’s a large, all-weather subsonic bomber with a crew of 4, and was originally designed to hold nuclear weapons.
The H-6 is an outdated design, and even though it has been upgraded throughout the many years, it suffers from payload shortcomings. The unique H-6 could carry as much as 20,000 kilos of free-fall gravity bombs, but with only two engines (even updated ones), the Chinese Air Force has been forced to develop specialized variants of planes. The American B-1 Lancer heavy strategic bomber can carry anti-ship missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, or free-fall bombs—each internally in bomb bays and externally on the fuselage and wing suggestions at the identical time. The shortage of powerful engines resulted within the H-6’s development being forked into an anti-ship missile carrier (H-6J), cruise missile carrier (H-6M), ballistic missile carrier (H-6N), and other variants. H-6 variants that carry missiles externally are usually not fitted with bomb bays to avoid overloading the plane.
Within the 70s and 80s, China was unable to afford the event of a contemporary air force (particularly a manned bomber) and as an alternative developed the Dong Feng (“East Wind’) line of ballistic missiles. The medium range DF-21, intermediate range DF-3, and intercontinental DF-5 were all able to carrying each conventional and nuclear weapons. While these weapons have been useful and spawned subsequent generations of recent missiles, China apparently sees the worth of manned bombers—they’re stealthy, and may evade enemy radar to creep closer to a defended goal.
The H-6 bomber is so old that, although there are reports it may well carry a nuclear free-fall bomb, little is thought in regards to the bomb itself. China doesn’t keep H-6 bombers on nuclear alert the best way the USA does, and the bomber doesn’t look like a part of the country’s nuclear war-fighting plans. China appears to be well aware that it’s unable to penetrate the air defenses of any competent adversary, and because of this, H-6’s nuclear capability is more theoretical than real.
A Generational Leap
In recent times, China has launched into a nuclear buildup that’s seen its inventory of nuclear weapons soar from roughly 250 (10 years ago) to roughly 500 (today). In line with a report published by the Pentagon, the variety of Chinese nuclear weapons will double to 1,000 by 2030, and is heading in the right direction to succeed in 1,500 (roughly the identical number as the USA) by 2035.
The event of a nuclear-capable bomber, together with China’s submarine and silo-launched nuclear missiles, will complete a nuclear “triad” of three disparate systems and elevate China to the identical level of capability as the USA and Russia. The upcoming H-20 will cement China’s position as certainly one of just three states that operate strategic bombers.
The H-20 is predicted to be a manned bomber—China’s first indigenous bomber design in its history. It can need to include stealth in an effort to have a likelihood at penetrating the North American early warning radar network, and a flying wing design (or at the very least a partial flying wing) is sort of a certainty. It can also must have the ability to hold nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and be large enough to have the range to fly to the U.S.-Canadian border.
While China has made major advances in defense technology within the last twenty years, a stealth bomber is probably going the country’s biggest technological challenge. China’s knowledge of stealth technology, which might inform the bomber’s overall shape, is unknown. China has never built a flying wing design before, while the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider bomber (currently in flight tests somewhere over the USA) is America’s third generation flying wing bomber. China will even need high performance engines, secure long range communications, recent thermonuclear warheads, nuclear-capable cruise missiles, and more.
Could China’s H-20 bomber be a hit? That is dependent upon the definition of success. If the definition is an improvement on the elderly H-6, then it should probably be a hit. If the definition is a bomber on par with the American B-21, and even the B-2, then it probably won’t be. That will disappoint H-20 fans, nevertheless it’s essential to take into accout it won’t be China’s last bomber.