B21 finally made its official debut at 8:30 US time today. As the second-generation stealth bomber of the US military, B-21 is highly expected by the US Air Force, and U.S. Air Force Secretary Kendall called it a key weapon against China. Today we will give a simple interpretation of B-21 based on public information to see if it is as powerful as Lockheed Mart and Kendall said.
First of all, the location problem of B-21. This time, one of the first six built aircraft was unveiled. Judging from the appearance and the pneumatic layout of , the B-21 does give people the feeling of a B-2 youth version. Although the size data of the B-21 was not disclosed on site, compared with the staff next to us, we can roughly calculate that the height and wingspan data of its aircraft are 5.33 meters and 46 meters respectively. In terms of other parameters, the length of the B-21 given by foreign media is 17.16 meters and the wing area is 328.7 square meters.
As a comparison, the B-2 machine has a height of 5.18 meters, a wingspan of 52.4 meters, a length of 21.03 meters, and a wing area of 478 square meters.
H-6K has a fuselage length of 34.8 meters, a wingspan of 33.0 meters, and a height of 10.36 meters (to the vertical tail).
It is obvious that the size of the B-21 is one circle smaller than that of the B-2, but is equivalent to the H-6K, and is a medium- and long-range quasi-strategic bomber. Foreign media speculate that the maximum takeoff weight of the B-21 is about 80 tons, the maximum load capacity is about 12 tons, and the maximum range is 8,000 kilometers. There are only 2 engines, the model is the non-afterburning version of F-135, with a maximum thrust of about 13 tons and a total thrust of 26 tons.
For comparison, B-2 is 4 GE-F118-110 non-afterburning turbofan engines, with a maximum thrust of 8.6 tons and a total thrust of 34.4 tons. Considering the huge difference in maximum takeoff weight between B-2 and B-21, the B-21 has a higher thrust-to-weight ratio than B-2, and its takeoff and landing performance will be much better, and the takeoff and landing distance will be shorter. This is very important for B-21s that need to be deployed overseas.
Secondly, B-21's stealth performance is better. On the one hand, the fuselage size is a circle smaller. Under the premise that the stealth measures are completely consistent, the reflection area of radar is smaller. In addition, the appearance of the B-21 has also been modified based on the feedback of the use of the B-2. The engine intake duct of the B-2 is flatter, the surface of the fuselage, especially the belly of the fuselage, the fusion degree of the front face of the fuselage is also higher, and the stealth blind spots in the appearance are smaller.
On the other hand, because B-21 uses the latest stealth coating, it is said that it can achieve the so-called full spectrum radar, infrared and visible light stealth effects. Although there is no information about B-21's stealth capability for the time being, judging from its abandonment of the optimization of low-altitude penetration , the US Air Force is very confident in the B-21's stealth capability and believes that B-21 can easily penetrate China's air defense network without the need to pass low-altitude penetration.
and the stealth coating used by B-21 is better maintained and should be able to reach the level of F35, that is, the daily maintenance of the stealth coating is no longer needed for a special constant temperature and humidity hangar. This is very important for the overseas deployment of B-21 and the use of rapid attacks.
In addition, B-21 does not currently have the function of commanding drones. US Air Force Secretary Kendall mentioned that the B-21 would be equipped with unmanned wingmen, but quickly denied this statement, saying that the B-21 did not have any plans to match the unmanned wingmen. There is no mention of the 10 key facts of the B-21 released by Northrop Grumman on November 29 that the B-21 has this feature.
The explanation given by foreign media is that the B-21 is a stealth bomber capable of carrying out global strikes. If you want to develop a drone that can match it, you must significantly increase the size of the drone , which is too high and not cost-effective. However, the author believes that the B-21 cannot command an unmanned wingman. After all, this function is one of the necessary benchmark functions for the sixth-generation aircraft defined by the US Air Force. Later, the B-21 can be realized through software upgrades.
Then B-21 has the highest level of informatization and perception capabilities of the US military. and cyber-center combat capabilities. According to Grumman, the B-21 can play a key role in helping the US Air Force complete the most complex tasks, including electronic warfare, reconnaissance aircraft, and early warning aircraft, playing a key role. In addition, the B-21 also adopts an open architecture. Subsequent upgrades no longer require overall upgrades, but performance upgrades can be achieved by upgrading the avionics system software and replacing modular hardware.
In short, although B-21 looks like the B-2 Youth Edition, the United States dares to call it the first 6th generation machine, and its internal progress must be very great.
So the saying that seeing B-21 shrinks compared to B2 and thinks that B-21 is not threatening us is self-deception. US Air Force Secretary Kendall repeatedly mentioned in public that the B-21 was developed to deter China, and also claimed that the B-21 can not only lay mines under China's noses at the Taiwan Strait , but also can easily crack China's regional denial/anti-intervention (A2/AD) capabilities in the Taiwan Strait. Simply put, the B-21 came for our air defense network and Rocket Force missile launchers deployed along the coast. The B-21 is the biggest source of pressure for our army to fight against stealth in the long term in the future.
So how should we deal with the fierce B-21? One of the major advantages of
B-21 is its better stealth performance. On the one hand, it is a smaller radar reflection area. On the other hand, the stealth coating it uses has the so-called full spectrum absorption capability, and has excellent stealth effect on air defense radars in various mainstream working bands. This will undoubtedly greatly compress the detection distance and early warning time of our army's existing anti-stealth radar . Therefore, we first need to regain the early warning distance and early warning time taken away by B-21. Compared with the redevelopment of the new band of anti-stealth radar, increasing the detection distance of B21 by increasing the radar's power is a direct and effective way.
Take the 052C, 052D and 055 destroyers of the Chinese Navy as an example. Since the shaping time was earlier, the radar used was still a resilient phased array radar made of gallium arsenide material. By upgrading the latest gallium nitride material, the radar transmission power can be increased by 5 times, the search airspace area has increased by 5 times, and the detection distance can be increased by about 1.7 times while the scanning angle remains unchanged. This will offset the B-21's stealth advantage.
In addition, since the planned procurement volume of B-21 is very large, the United States will definitely deploy a large number of B-21s in the Western Pacific in the future. This not only means that the Western Pacific airspace will be very lively in the future, but also means that our air situation control pressure will be very high. If you are not careful, you will be exploited by B-21. Therefore, we need to equip more early warning aircraft and more ASCH ships. Only in this way can we achieve 24-hour and year-round monitoring of the relevant airspace. This will avoid being exploited by B-21.
Secondly, the great force is to develop new anti-stealing methods. No matter how good the B-21 stealth performance is, it is only aimed at radar. Therefore, we can develop optical and infrared detection methods in a targeted manner.
my country's Jilin-1 satellite high-performance optical remote sensing satellite once broadcast live videos of F-22 stealth fighter in flight. Obviously, the B-21 is not as fast as the F-22, and its size is much larger than the latter. Therefore, we only need to form high-precision optical and infrared satellite constellations and conduct real-time monitoring of designated airspace with ground and aerial radars to effectively crack the B-21's stealth ability.
In general, as the latest generation of stealth bombers in the United States, the performance level of the B-21 is undoubtedly top-notch. We cannot underestimate it just because its size is reduced. But there is no need to panic and underestimate ourselves. After all, we have the H-20 stealth bomber with a performance level no less than that of the B-21. Although it has not made a public debut for the time being, I believe its first flight and service will not be later than the B-21.As many foreign military media pointed out, it would not be surprising if you wake up one day and find that H-20 has appeared.
