In the field of strategic bombers, the development methods of China and the United States are completely different.

Because it has mastered its technological advantages, it can even be said that the United States has more obvious technological advantages in the field of bombers, and its leading level is about ten years. Therefore, when developing new bombers, the United States pays more attention to technological advantages and has maintained its technological advantages as its main purpose.

For the Chinese Air Force, bombers are still "luxury goods" for the time being.

You should know that after the Second Korean War, the wars that China participated in were all near the local area, and the tactical aviation corps were able to perform most of the combat tasks. Even during the Second Indian Ocean War, bombers undertake many tasks, and later they seized the power of sea control as the fleet seized the power of seaborne aviation. Affected by this, the Chinese Air Force has not invested much money in the bombers.

Of course, when focusing on developing fighter jets, the Chinese Air Force did not have enough funds to develop bombers.

However, by 2045, this situation changed.

Under the threat of the world war, the Chinese Air Force not only needs a tactical aviation force that is strong enough, but also a strategic aviation force that is threatening enough.

In addition, the Second Indian Ocean War also gave the Chinese Air Force great inspiration.

When performing strategic strike missions, bombers' combat efficiency is much higher than fighter jets. If there are enough bombers, the combat intensity of tactical aviation can be reduced, thereby reducing the number of fighter jets purchased, reducing the burden on the air force, and improving the air force's strike capabilities.

To this end, the Chinese Air Force's requirements for the new generation of strategic bombers are very simple: when meeting basic technical requirements, the procurement and equipment costs should be reduced as much as possible, that is, it must be a strategic bomber that can be purchased in large quantities and is affordable to the Air Force.

The problem is that you can't have both fish and bear's paw.

To reduce the cost of procurement and equipment, there should not be too high technical requirements, otherwise a large amount of advanced equipment must be purchased to increase the procurement price and maintenance costs.

That's why the Air Force does not have high technical requirements for the new generation of strategic bombers.

According to the tender letter of intent issued by the Air Force at the end of 2045, the new generation of strategic bombers does not require supersonic cruise capabilities, the maximum penetration speed only needs to reach Mach 2, the maximum flight altitude is more than 18,000 meters, the most advanced stealth technology, the maximum bomb load capacity is about 30 tons, the combat radius at the maximum bomb load shall not be less than 4,000 kilometers, and the maximum combat radius shall not be less than 7,500 kilometers.

With the technical standards of the 1940s, these requirements are not excessive at all.

Of course, in addition to this, the Air Force has put forward extremely strict requirements on procurement prices and maintenance costs, that is, the procurement prices must not exceed two-thirds of h-30, the maintenance and maintenance costs must be reduced by half on the basis of h-30, and the versatility of ground equipment and h-30 shall not be less than 60%.

If this is included, the Air Force's requirements will not be low.

At that time, a total of three groups participated in the bidding, the most experienced of which were West Aircraft Group and South Aircraft Group, because these two state-owned enterprises were the design units of H-30 and H-20, and the main contractor and sub-contractor of the two bombers. The third competitor was "China Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd." jointly established by Longfei Group, Zhenxiang Group and Huakong Group, which also participated in the competition for the "j4" project.

Like the "j4" project, the Air Force also requires three companies to submit detailed design plans.

The difference is that in the end, all three companies entered the project implementation stage, namely, manufacturing prototypes and participating in a comparative test flight organized by the Air Force.

By the end of 2049, the Air Force announced the results of the comparison flight.

What surprised the outside world was that the Air Force gave up the West Air Group and Nanfei Group and chose to sign an engineering manufacturing contract with Zhongfei Group.

At that time, the Air Force only made one reason: China Flying Group did the best cost control.

The design plan of Zhongfei Group is also a flying wing lift body structure, that is, the entire aircraft is a huge wing, and all equipment such as the engine are placed in the flying wing. The biggest feature of this design plan is its outstanding stealth performance, and the lift-drag ratio during cruising flight, which can maximize the range and flexibly deploy the bomb bay, which improves mission elasticity. The disadvantages are also outstanding, that is, the maximum flight speed can only barely meet the requirements of the Air Force. Even if an engine with greater thrust is used, the lifting range is very limited.

Of course, the key is the cost.

The contract standards proposed by Zhongfei are extremely attractive, that is, the purchase unit price is 2.4 billion yuan, which is only 60% of h-30, and the maintenance cost for 25 years of equipment is 1.8 billion yuan, which is only 40% of h-30. Although the generalization rate of ground equipment is only 30%, Zhongfei agreed to repurchase some ground equipment for h-30, that is, the Air Force still only needs to pay according to the standard of replacing 40% of ground equipment.

For the Air Force, this is definitely an unstoppable temptation.

You should know that the China Flight Plan is more than 40% cheaper than the West Flight Plan and the South Flight Plan!

According to this standard, when the procurement and equipment costs are equivalent to that of the Air Force, the Air Force can purchase an additional 60% and the overall strike capability of the aircraft fleet can be increased by more than 40%.

Of course, if the procurement scale is expanded, the procurement price can be further reduced.

In the world war, this is certainly an important factor with a decisive influence.

You should know that in the World War, no bomber can achieve a design life, and only the low-priced bomber has the basis for large-scale equipment.

It later proved that the Air Force's choice was not wrong.

This new bomber, which was later given the H-40 number, produced 400 before the outbreak of World War III. After China completed the war mobilization and authorized other aircraft manufacturers to participate in the production, the monthly output of the H-40 reached an astonishing 800. You should know that even under the same circumstances, the monthly output of the H-30 was difficult to exceed 200, while the new bomber developed by the United States during the same period had only about 300 during the war.

The huge output is enough to make up for the performance shortcomings.

In fact, in large-scale wars, especially in world wars, scale is often more important than performance. Weapons and equipment that are easy to produce and maintain are the best weapons and equipment. More importantly, after the country enters a state of war, the first thing to consider is the production of weapons and equipment. For example, during World War II, the United States and Britain had mastered jet engines and were able to manufacture jet fighters, but neither the United States nor the United Kingdom replaced piston fighters with jet fighters because jet fighters did not have the ability to mass-produce large-scale production at the time, and a large number of mass-produced piston fighters were enough to defeat their opponents by their number advantage.

Of course, mass production of h-40 is also related to the tactical ideas of the Chinese Air Force.

In several large-scale wars that China has experienced, tactical aviation forces are the leader. After seizing air supremacy and at least gaining air superiority, bombers will be dispatched to expand the range of strikes. In this way, bombers will basically not encounter threats when they are on the battlefield.

Although some people had already proposed that, unlike the war in the United States, the Chinese Air Force bombers must carry out bombing missions with the enemy's air defense firepower and air defense fighters, after weighing the pros and cons, the Chinese Air Force still believes that the penetration of bombers will not be too difficult.

The reason is very simple. In the early stage of the war, China's situation will not be very good, and will focus on strategic defense. Therefore, the main task of the Chinese Air Force is to guard the local peripheral defense line. The pressure of tactical aviation is much greater than that of strategic aviation, and there is no chance of strategic bombing the enemy. Even if it is necessary to counterattack, it should aim at the enemy's frontier military bases, such as Guam, Australia and other places. The distance from China's local peripheral defense line is within 2,000 kilometers, basically within the cover range of the sixth-generation fighter jets and carrier-based aviation. In other words, even if bombers are needed, it can provide full escort and greatly improve the survival rate of bombers. As for bombing the US land for more than 10,000 kilometers, it is not within the consideration of the Chinese Air Force. Even if there is this need, the navy should undertake the strike mission.

Taking these considerations into consideration, what the Air Force needs is a cheap bomber.

Of course, this does not mean that the Air Force does not need advanced bombers.

When the H-40 project entered the engineering and manufacturing stage, the Air Force awarded the development contract between West Air and South Air, that is, the two companies continued to develop new bombers.

This is mainly done to accumulate technology so as to quickly develop and manufacture new bombers during wartime.

From the projects of large electric transport aircraft, advanced fighter jets and new bombers, it can be seen that the development model of the Chinese Air Force after 2045 is completely preparing for the world war, that is, concentrating its efforts on conquering key projects according to the standards of the world war.

It is undeniable that this method of concentrating efforts on major tasks can achieve immediate results.

Even according to Western media estimates, after 2050, the overall combat capability of the Chinese Air Force will be more than doubled compared with that in 2045.

In fact, this is still a very conservative estimate.

If we look at the strike ability, it has been improved at least twice.

It is also undeniable that this development method is difficult to sustain. Not to mention, the continuous increase in military expenditure is enough to crush China's economy. If the economy is destroyed, no matter how powerful the military power is, it will have no foundation for existence, let alone win in the war.

Of course, relatively speaking, the Air Force's equipment planning is still the most gentle.

The reason is very simple. The gap between the Chinese Air Force and the US Air Force is not obvious. Moreover, the construction of air force equipment pays more attention to early technical accumulation. Many projects do not need to rush to enter the engineering manufacturing stage. They only need to complete development work before the war, and then produce on a large scale in the war period. In addition, the difficulty of replacing the air force is relatively small, and there is no problem that it takes several years to adapt to new equipment.
Chapter completed!