According to Global Network , on December 3, US time, the US Air Force and Northrop Grumman officially released the B-21 "Striker" new stealth strategic bomber. The ceremony was held at the Pamdale factory in , California. The aircraft adopts a stealth design and is expected to fly for the first time in 2023, enter service from 2026 to 2027, and achieve initial combat capabilities in 2030.
Read major media reports, many people regard the B-21 stealth bomber , which has just been released by the United States, as a prehistoric beast. Don’t be scared by the Americans. In fact, this is an bomber with obvious "shrinkage". The main flight performance of
B-21 is likely to be weaker than the H-20 bomber being developed by China, especially the range and takeoff weight. The technical indicators of B-21 bomber will be greatly "shrinked" in size, range, bomb load, and engine count, but the stealth performance and combat adaptability will be improved.
Judging from the scene pictures of the US Air Force's B-21 debut ceremony, the B-21 is basically a reduced version of B-2, and it still has a flying wing layout, a load-type air intake duct, and the tail nozzle is located below the fuselage. Compared with the B-2 bomber , the air intake of B-21 is significantly different from the B-2. The air intake of B-21 is smaller, and the intake of is smoother in combination with the upper surface of the wing, and there is no bulge of the engine nacelle like B-2. The B-21 also cancels the leading edge serration, with a streamlined cross-section and a partition in the middle. The fusion transition between the cockpit, air intake and wings is smoother.
US military claims that the B-21 bomber is the "first in the sixth generation system" model, and has made significant progress in stealth capabilities, the use of open system architecture, "all-domain joint command and control" (JADC2) technology, and cross-platform shared data operations. The characteristics of the
B-21 bomber are that it has full spectrum panoramic stealth, photoelectric sensor upgrades, NGJ electrical warfare equipment, relatively low price, lower take-off and landing conditions, and a combat radius of about 4,000 kilometers. Stealth penetration, electronic warfare , mine warfare multi-task combat capabilities are enhanced. In recent years, the United States has tried hard to avoid the devastating blow to in , and at the same time, it has devoted itself to building the distributed strike capabilities of Second Island Chain and Australia. Weapons such as B-21 are the product of this strategy.
Comprehensive data released by the US military, the B-21 stealth bomber's length is only 16 meters (slightly longer than the J-10 aircraft) and its wingspan is 42 meters. The B-21's stealth performance is further improved compared to the B-2, but the B-21's main landing gear wheel is reduced to two, and its maximum take-off weight should be less than the B-2. The main flight performance is similar to that of my country's H-6N, with a maximum take-off weight of 68 to 80 tons, a range of no more than 8,000 kilometers, a bomb load of only 5.5 tons to 9 tons, and an engine may only be 2.
In fact, B-21 is the cheap shrink version of B-2, or the youth version of B-2, which is not a thing that goes against the will of heaven. The biggest advantage of the B-21 bomber is that it is cheap, which greatly reduces the cost. The unit price is only 600 million US dollars, so it can build 100 aircraft, or even more.
The United States developed the B-21 bomber entirely because the performance of the B-2 bomber is too outrageous, too expensive, too huge to use, too few in quantity, and cannot play a pillar role in the confrontation between major powers.
The B-2 bomber that was put into service in 1997 was very powerful. Without refueling in the air, the combat range can reach 12,000 kilometers, and once refueling in the air can reach 18,000 kilometers, and only 21 aircraft were produced in total. Each aircraft costs US$2.4 billion. By weight, the unit weight of the B-2 is two to three times more expensive than gold at that time, so it is called "flying gold nuggets."
In addition, since the B-2 bomber has been in the past many years, some electronic equipment and technologies have become aging, and the combat planning is not very suitable for future wars, such as joint combat with the drone , it requires a new stealth bomber with a large number of equipment, relatively cheap prices, and can be manufactured in large quantities.
The actual combat of the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield proves that any advanced weapon with advanced performance cannot play too much role if it does not have a cost advantage or scale.
For example, Russian long-range aviation bombers have been given various praises by the outside world, but their firepower is not strong in actual combat. One of the reasons is that there are too few bombers that can be used. There are only 16 -160 that can fight cruise missiles , and there are only 35 modern and improved -95MS. The combat effectiveness of this little bit of the bomber is not as good as that of the Chinese Air Force's more than 100 H-6K series bombers, although many people disdain for the H-6K.
In the future, the US Air Force will retire B-2 and B-1A bombers, retaining about 70 B-52H bombers with old but huge bomb loads, as well as more than 100 B-21 bombers. Yes, the world's most advanced B-2 "Ghost" stealth bomber will also be retired in the future. By around 2040, the US military will only retain the latest B-21 Striker stealth strategic bomber and the oldest B-52 Stratosphere Fortress strategic bomber.
Conclusion: The overall combat capability of the US B-21 stealth bomber is likely to be comparable to that of China's H-20 long-range bomber, or slightly weaker.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said that the next few months are very critical. The H-20 that China is developing is also very close to completion. The H-20 will compete with the US B-21 to compete for who will be the first to fly first. Both the world's latest and most advanced stealth strategic bombers are already very close to their first flight.
After a while, a similar scene is likely to happen in China. When color strip was unveiled, a H-6X Plus Pro Max was revealed!
Hong-20: That’s right, it’s just going down!
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