China's growing status and influence in the international arena has clearly made some countries, such as the United States, feel threatened. They try to limit China's development through economic and technical means, but China's"The Belt and Road Initiative"The strategy has allowed it to build extensive connections around the globe and its economy has jumped to second place in the world.
At the same time, the United States is trying to deter China militarily, continuously increasing military spending, developing more advanced equipment and *** to threaten China. It is reported that the B-21 bomber, the latest developed by the US military, will make its first test flight this year and is planned to be put into use around 2026.
However, China will not be intimidated by these threats and will continue to adhere to the path of peaceful development and safeguard national sovereignty and security.
In the eyes of Americans, China is identified as their number one threat. The United States has done everything it can to deal with China, and for now it seems that it can only rely on a strong development of armaments, deterrence or confrontation.
For the United States, in order to ensure that it has a strong air power in a possible modern air battle, they must solve the problems faced by the current air force with aging fighters and insufficient response capabilities in modern air combat.
According to the Air Force Magazine, although the number of fighters in the US Air Force has always ranked first in the world, this is far from enough for the US military, because aging fighters will seriously affect the combat effectiveness of the US military.
The technology of old fighters has fallen behind and will not be able to occupy an advantage in modern air combat, and the annual maintenance expenses have affected the purchase of new fighters. The Air Force Magazine bluntly said that Congress's obstruction of the retirement of old fighters would hinder the modernization of the Air Force.
The U.S. Congress recently finally relented and decided to scrap more than 15 warplanes, including the F-200E, to balance the Air Force's capabilities.
These fighters that are about to be retired have been in service for 30 to 40 years, and it is difficult to cope with modern air combat, and retirement may be the best destination for them. So the question is, after these old fighters are decommissioned, who will be able to fill this vacancy?
According to the US military, they have developed an "Air Force Transformation Plan" totaling up to $4.8 billion for the development and procurement of new fighters, including even the legendary "sixth-generation aircraft".
This plan includes the new F-35 fighter, the first-class bomber B-21 and the next-generation fighter NGAD. Among them, the B-21 is undoubtedly the one that attracts the most attention from the Chinese people.
In the face of the previous remarks of the United States ** that the B-21 was specifically aimed at China, the attention of the Chinese to this new ** has skyrocketed. Behind this concern is an alertness to potential threats and concerns about China's sovereignty and security.
On December 2, 2022, the U.S. Air Force and Norge unveiled a prototype of the new B-21 strategic bomber, named after the famous "Doolittle Air Raid" by the United States on Tokyo, Japan.
In fact, as early as 2016, the United States announced the code name of this new strategic bomber, and claimed that it was mainly aimed at possible wars in Asia. This is because at that time, the foreign strategy of the United States had changed, and Obama proposed the "Asia-Pacific rebalance" strategy, which refocused the attention of the United States on the Asia-Pacific region and tried to restrain China's development with new fighters.
We are not unfounded, and every time the United States talks about Asia, it always deliberately includes China. The research and development of the B-21 stems from the growing concern of the United States about the Chinese power, especially the service of new fighters and warships, which makes the United States feel a huge challenge.
Therefore, the United States decided to develop a new fighter to meet such challenges. Before the release of the B-21, the United States vigorously boasted about its performance, and even claimed that the B-21 could easily break through China's air defense system, wantonly bomb China, and prevent China's rise.
According to the United States**, our army's DF-41 missiles can carry 6-10 nuclear warheads, and the maximum range reaches 14,000 kilometers, reaching the US mainland, which makes the United States, which is not strong in intercontinental missile defense capabilities, worried.
Therefore, the United States intends to use the B-21** bomber to carry out precision strikes on important targets such as missile silos and missile launchers in our country to eliminate the threat of DF-41 to the United States.
According to reports, the performance of the B-21 is very advanced, and its advanced fuselage coating gives it powerful stealth capabilities, and the United States confidently claims that none of the world's most advanced air defense systems can detect the B-21, let alone intercept it.
The B-21 not only has excellent long-range flight and aerial refueling capabilities, but also has multiple functions such as unmanned and nuclear strike. In addition, it can also carry a variety of stealth cruise missiles and precision-guided ground-penetrating missiles, which is undoubtedly a "killer feature" on the battlefield.
What's even more gratifying is that the B-21 costs only $700 million to procure, which is $200 million less than the B-2, which allows the United States to equip more than 100 B-21s to better meet the "challenge from China."
Ardent supporters of the B-21 claim that the superior performance of this advanced ** bomber will force the enemy to constantly upgrade its air defense facilities, thereby increasing the cost of air defense.
It is estimated that in order to defend against one B-21, it is necessary to mobilize eight missile launchers, 112 anti-aircraft missiles, and a large number of advanced radars and other facilities and equipment, which will undoubtedly cost a lot of financial resources.
It was argued that such a high cost of defense could exceed the cost of manufacturing the B-21, dragging down the opponent's finances. So, is the performance of the B-21 really so powerful that we can't intercept it?
The performance of the B-21 may not be as powerful as the United States** claims, after all, it has not yet made its first test flight. Although the United States announced that the B-21 will make its first test flight in 2023, it has now been 8 months and there has been no movement in the test flight.
A few months ago, the United States claimed that the B-21 was already "ready to take off", but until now we have not seen any signs of its test flights. Whether the United States will be able to complete the test flight this year still needs to be questioned.
If the first test flight of the B-21 had to "skip the ticket", then we have reason to doubt whether its performance is really as powerful as they say.
China has set up a tight line of defense, making it impossible for the United States to easily intrude into China's airspace. China has a large number of equipment to deal with such fighters, such as "Hongqi-9" anti-aircraft missiles, J-20 fighters and 055 destroyers, which can effectively intercept enemy aircraft.
In addition, China also has hypersonic missiles that are difficult to intercept, can remotely lock on to the B-21, and carry out precision strikes, and the United States has not been able to surpass China in this field.
Since the B-21 also relies on stationary airfields for takeoff, the United States can only attack China from ** or Australia. However, with the deployment of a large number of anti-aircraft missiles and fighters along the southeast coast and the South China Sea, coupled with the cooperation of AWACS aircraft and anti-stealth radars, intercepting the B-21 will no longer be a problem.
In addition, China's anti-stealth fighter system has been quite perfect. Demonstrated at the Zhuhai Air Show, China's anti-stealth fighter radar has reached the standard of export. China has adopted a variety of anti-stealth target strategies and designed a variety of radars, including meter-wave and decimeter-wave radars with "band anti-stealth", as well as "multi-base radars" that enhance air defense by deploying multiple anti-stealth radars in different areas, and "passive passive radars" that passively absorb radar signals without actively emitting radar waves.
The B-21 fighter will have nothing to hide in front of the YLC-2E radar, China's anti-stealth fighter system has been very perfect, a huge radar network covers the motherland, and it is undoubtedly an impossible task for B-21 to penetrate China's air defense system.
The Air Police-500 radar has a very strong ability to detect low-detectable targets, and with the cruise of the J-20, the patrol range of China's Air Force will be further expanded, and the B-21 can be completely excluded from China's coastline.
Some people joke that if the B-21 successfully enters our airspace and bombs major cities and important targets, it may be that our country is trying to "make dumplings" and deliberately let them in.
But this is very unlikely, our army will not risk it and will keep it out before the invasion of the B-21. While we don't have to worry too much, we can't underestimate the U.S. military, which still has an advantage in many areas.
We must pay full attention to the United States in order to be truly invincible.