Our H-20 has not been able to come out, is it the best problem? This question not only makes us curious at home, but also speculated abroad. But it's worth noting that their speculation seems a bit far-fetched. A research report from Stockholm, Sweden, has ranked the world's nuclear forces, and one of them has attracted people's attention: the H-20 will make its first flight this year, the overall experiment will be completed by 2025, and a complete combat force will be formed in 2028. However, one of the statements in the report is incredible, which compares our H-20 with the American B2 bomber and suggests that the H-20 may be a high imitation of the B2. This argument is really untenable.
The American B2 bomber is an impressive flying machine, born in the nineties of the last century, and its manufacturing cost is high, about $2.4 billion each, and the cost makes the United States can't help but complain. Although the United States had a very strong overall strength at that time, only 21 B2s were built. The cost of maintaining a B2 is about $900 million a year, and that's still a figure in the nineties, and the cost is probably even higher today. What's even more staggering is that, on average, in order for a B2 to fly for an hour, it takes 117 hours of maintenance. This high maintenance cost makes the B2 a very expensive and difficult to maintain system.
The design concept of the B2 bomber mainly includes stealth capability, range and bomb load. Although the B2 has excellent stealth capabilities and range, its bomb load is relatively low, at only 22 tons. In contrast, the Chinese J-16 fighter is capable of carrying bombs of up to 14 tons and even long-range cruise missiles, while the B2 cannot do this. Given the development of modern radar technology, the B2 may not be as difficult to detect in modern warfare as it seems. Therefore, should we rethink the direction of development of strategic bombers?
Taking the maturity of UAV technology as an example, we can ** a completely new strategic bomber design concept. Now, we can have drones on missions with bombers, which can greatly increase the bomb load, and the drone's aerial refueling technology can help solve the problem of short bomber range. This design philosophy is very different from the B2 and may be more adapted to the needs of modern warfare. Moreover, if we further imagine that UAVs are capable of fighting with strategic bombers, then do bombers still need to be manned?
Perhaps, the reason why our H-20 has not been released is because our scientists are aware of these problems and are working to solve these challenges. Rather than being limited to traditional design ideas, perhaps we should be more bold in innovating and combining modern technologies such as drone technology with strategic bombers to create a new type of aircraft that is more suitable for the needs of today's warfare.