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Chapter 52 Air Force

Unlike the J-30 project, the Chinese Air Force bomber project has always been shrouded in mystery.

As early as early as 2030, "Jane's Defense Weekly" published an anonymous article, claiming that China's first strategic bomber had its first flight and would be equipped with the Air Force by 2035. Later, Lander Consulting Company submitted an assessment report similar to the White House and the Pentagon, that is, China has the ability to build strategic bombers with intercontinental flight capabilities before 2035.

This type of bomber is called h-30 by Western media.

Obviously, the reports from Western media are a bit exaggerated. You should know that before that, the number of Chinese bombers was only at h-20, and it made its first appearance in the Indochina Peninsula War. In this way, even if there are new bomber projects, the number cannot reach h-30.

At that time, the Chinese Air Force was indeed striving to seek a strategic bomber with intercontinental flight capabilities.

At first, the Chinese Air Force followed the development code of h-20, namely h-x, mainly to conceal Western intelligence agencies that are staring at China.

However, the project was put on hold shortly after it was launched.

The reason is simple: several Chinese aircraft manufacturers do not have the ability to design and produce intercontinental bombers, and do not even have the most basic technical reserves.

To put it seriously, West Air, which is well-known in large aircraft projects, doesn't even know how to design intercontinental bombers.

In the final analysis, the Air Force has put forward too high tactical requirements.

In the h-x project, the basic requirement of the Air Force is to have a combat radius of 8,500 kilometers and be able to carry strategic cruise missiles with a range of more than 4,000 kilometers.

This tactical requirement is aimed at the United States. To put it bluntly, only if the bomber's strike radius is close to 13,000 kilometers can it pose a threat to all large and medium-sized cities in the United States. Below this value, the existence value of the bomber will be greatly reduced.

Not to mention missiles for the time being, the combat radius of only 8,500 kilometers has stumped all engineers.

You should know that bombers are not transport aircraft. While considering combat radius, bomb load capacity, etc., various tactical performances such as penetration ability must be considered.

In fact, even the United States has never produced strategic bombers with a combat radius of 8,500 kilometers.

This is also easy to understand. The United States has air force bases all over the world. For example, bombers taking off from Guam only use short-range missiles, and only need a combat radius of 7,000 kilometers to cover China's mainland. China's overseas military bases are mainly concentrated in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. Without military bases near the United States, bombers cannot be deployed in front.

It is the excessively high tactical indicators that have stopped the h-x project on paper.

When the technology is not up to standard, the Air Force has to lower its requirements, such as shortening the combat radius to 6,000 kilometers and reducing the normal load to 12 tons. To put it bluntly, as long as it can carry six hypersonic cruise missiles with a range of 3,000 kilometers, it can strike targets 9,000 kilometers away.

It can be said that this is the lowest tactical standard, because from the northernmost part of China to the northwest of the United States, the shortest distance is 9,000 kilometers. If it is short, it can only deal with targets outside the United States, such as Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands.

The problem is that under this tactical standard, there is no need to conduct the h-x project separately.

To put it bluntly, the h-20 is fully capable of meeting the tactical indicators proposed by the Air Force.

The basic model of h-20 can reach a combat radius of 4,500 kilometers with a load of 20 tons. If the load of 8 tons is reduced, the fuel economy of the engine is appropriately improved, or by improving the internal structure and increasing the fuel tank capacity, it is fully capable of reaching a combat radius of 6,000 kilometers.

That's why the Air Force focused on the improvement of the H-20.

At that time, the h-30 mentioned by Western media was actually an improved model of the h-20. As for the h-x project, it was regarded as a long-term plan by the Air Force. If the h-20 improvement project could be completed before 2035, the h-x project would be restarted around 2036.

Obviously, this is a very wise choice.

By 2032, with the outbreak of Sino-Japanese conflict and the threat of war approaching, the H-20 improvement project immediately rose to a height second only to the J-30 project, becoming a major component of the Air Force equipment project and one of the largest expenditure projects in the Air Force.

The problem is that there is no need to improve the h-20 at all when fighting against Japan.

After taking charge of equipment work, Mu Haoyang immediately adjusted the h-20 improvement project and focused on the production of h-20.

However, by the beginning of 2033, 90% of the improvement work of h-20 had been completed.

At that time, the Air Force had invested in improving six H-20s, and all of them were used for engineering test flights. If everything went well, at the end of 2034, the first mass-produced H-20b (official number given by the Air Force) would be tested, and large-scale mass production work will definitely start in 2035.

It is obviously not cost-effective to terminate the h-20 improvement project at this time.

However, in terms of efficiency ratio, h-20b is no higher than h-20a (after h-20b was born, it was no longer the official military equipment number of h-20). Because the combat radius is to extend, the bomb bay of h-20b is reduced by nearly half compared to h-20a, so when performing conventional bombing missions, the combat efficiency is even worse than h-20a.

After weighing the pros and cons, Mu Haoyang decided to continue to promote the h-20b project, only reducing the scale of mass production.

At the same time, the Air Force originally formulated a plan to improve the existing h-20a into h-20b was left behind.

According to the agreement reached by Mu Haoyang and West Aircraft, the h-20b will be mass-produced by the end of 2034, and the first batch of twelve aircraft will be delivered in the first quarter of 2035, all of which will be incorporated into the Air Force's strategic aviation force to replace the h-20a to perform strategic patrol missions. Thereafter, the production line will be maintained at a rate of two aircraft per month.

The most important thing is naturally the production work of h-20a.

Starting from the end of September 2033, the h-20a production line will be operated at full speed, with a production capacity of twelve aircraft per month. Before the end of the first quarter of 2034, Xifei must build a second H-20a production line and start production before the end of June 2034. In this way, by the end of 2034, Xifei will be able to produce at least 240 H-20a aircraft, expanding the Air Force's H-20a fleet to 300.

There is no doubt that this is a very crazy arms plan.

You should know that the US Air Force has only 180 strategic bombers in service, and even if the FB-22 is included, there are less than 300.

If we look at the unit bomb drop capability of the bomber, that is, the product of the normal combat radius and the normal bomb load, the Chinese Air Force will surpass the US Air Force in early 2035. The value of the 300 H-20a is 27 million, while the strategic bomber of the US Air Force is 24 million.

In combat against Japan, this ratio is higher.

For example, all three hundred H-20a are deployed in the eastern and northeastern regions of China, with a distance of less than 3,000 kilometers from Japan. The maximum load of H-20a is 20 plus 18, that is, 38 tons. Three hundred bombers can throw 11,400 tons of bombs in one dispatch, which is equivalent to 2,850 tactical fighters carrying four tons of ammunition, or tens of thousands of tactical ballistic missiles.

After Mu Haoyang made this request, the general manager of Xifei only said one sentence: He is preparing for the world war.

Of course, in war, h-20a can not only perform bombing missions.

If necessary, the h-20a can hang up anti-ship missiles to perform sea-making combat missions, and can also carry a reconnaissance pod to perform reconnaissance and patrol missions. In addition, if bombs and missiles are replaced with mines, the h-20a can also become a high-efficiency mine-bracing machine to perform blockade missions.

It can be said that as an air platform, bombers are much more widely used than fighter jets.

In a sense, it is the h-20a that brought the Chinese Air Force into the era of offensive and brought about essential changes in the basic tactics of the Chinese Air Force.

As a military power, this is a step that must be taken.

But in the Air Force, in addition to bombers and fighters, there are many other aircraft types.

For example, the Air Force is a strategic delivery force and requires sufficiently strong strategic delivery capabilities. The y-20 strategic transport aircraft and y-21 tactical transport aircraft play a pillar role in the Chinese Air Force. According to Mu Haoyang's plan, by 2035, the size of the y-20 fleet will reach 120 aircraft, and the y-21 fleet will reach 240 aircraft, ensuring that the 15th Airborne Army can be transported in one go.

Because of the modular design, both the y-20 and the y-21 can be easily modified into a tanker.

Of course, the Air Force also maintained a refueling aircraft group of about 80, and was mainly a yy-20 based on the y-20.

In the command process, the main force is the kj-1a strategic early warning aircraft.

This is also the first and second strategic early warning aircraft in the world that integrates early warning, air command, joint strike, strategic reconnaissance and electronic confrontation. The only one that can match is the US Air Force's e-12a, and no other early warning aircraft has such complete combat command capabilities.

It can be said that the kj-1a replaced several types of support aircraft.

However, the Chinese Air Force does not rely entirely on the KJ-1a. Because of its high cost, the output of the KJ-1a is very limited. In the Chinese Air Force, there are dozens of KJ-2a tactical early warning aircraft. In addition, the Chinese Air Force is also equipped with more than 20 DZ-27a strategic electronic reconnaissance aircraft specializing in electronic confrontation tasks.

According to Mu Haoyang's plan, only kj-1a will increase production.

This is also impossible. The military budget allocated to the Air Force is only 500 billion, and even if the additional funds obtained through defense bonds are added, it will not be much more. After mass production of h-20a, increasing the output of y-20 and y-21, and accelerating the j-30 project, there is no extra funding anymore.

Of course, this is not the main problem.

In the early stages of the war, the main function of early warning aircraft was to assist fighter jets in seizing air supremacy, and not only the air force, but also the naval aviation force was responsible for this task. After the air supremacy was seized, early warning aircraft will mainly command bombers, attack aircraft will strike ground targets, and the mission pressure will be greatly reduced.

More importantly, Japan is very close to China.

In most cases, early warning aircraft can move under the cover of local air defense systems, reaching hundreds of kilometers ahead, and can also receive full coverage of shore-based fighter jets. They will not face the Japanese Air Force directly, and the combat losses will not be too great, so there is no need to increase the procurement scale before the war.

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Chapter completed!