The B-21, a new generation of stealth strategic bomber in the United States, made its public debut for the first time and aroused widespread concern from the outside world. The American military media "1945" spoke highly of this bomber, believing that it had quite obvious advantages over the B-2 in stealth performance and cost of use.
At the same time, "1945" believes that the U.S. B-21 has the ability to strike deep into China's hinterland, and can bomb any key target with free access, and the current Chinese air defense means cannot threaten this latest stealth bomber. So, is it reasonable for the American media to make such a confident assessment of the B-21?
How well did the B-21 perform?
Before evaluating the views of the American media, we first need to look at the performance level of this so-called "world's most advanced stealth strategic bomber".
In terms of appearance, the B-21 is very similar to the B-2, both adopt the classic flying wing layout and piggyback air intake, and reduce the surface area of the fuselage through the design of the wing-body fusion, so as to achieve a lower RCS value.
However, the B-21 also had some changes, such as the removal of the leading edge aliasing on the B-2, and the size of the fuselage was one size smaller than that of the B-2, which resulted in the B-21's performance actually being reduced compared to the B-2.
According to the instructions of the American military industrial enterprise Northrop Grumman at the B-21 press conference, the take-off weight of the B-21 is between 70~90 tons, the bomb load is 6~11 tons, and the range can reach 9000~10500 kilometers without refueling in the air.
However, the B-21 has an advantage over the B-2 in terms of low deployment costs and excellent stealth capabilities. At present, although the US B-2 bomber has strong performance, it is also quite expensive, with a single cost of more than $2.5 billion, while the latest B-21 bomber costs only $500 million, equivalent to 20% of the B-2 bomber.
Therefore, in the case of limited military spending of the US military, the number of B-21s deployed in the future will inevitably greatly exceed that of the B-2, thus allowing the US military to build a larger air strategic strike force.
At the same time, with the blessing of a series of latest technologies, the stealth effect of the B-21 is also better than that of the previous generation of stealth bombers.
The RCS value of the B-2 bomber can be controlled at about 0.05 square meters, and the smaller B-21 will obviously have a smaller radar reflection area, the American media "Military Watch" believes that the RCS value of the B-21 may be less than 0.03 square meters, and the stealth effect is between F-22A and B-2.
Ignoring Chinese air defense? Overconfidence
Through the analysis of the B-21 bomber, we can clearly see that the latest B-21 of the US military actually has a decline compared with the B-2 in terms of single performance, but the scale advantage is very obvious.
According to the 2020 Strategic Scenario Report of the U.S. Strategic Command, if the United States wants to eliminate the threat of China's rocket force "once and for all", it needs to send 16 B-2s, more than 350 F-35s, and more than 200 air tankers.
However, if the B-21s, which have obvious advantages in scale and cost, carry out strategic bombing missions, then the US air battle group can be replaced with 48 B-21s, more than 450 F-35s, and more than 100 air tankers, so as to reduce the number of logistical aircraft and increase the number of fighters, thereby increasing the intensity of seizing air supremacy.
Obviously, the biggest boost of the B-21 to the U.S. military is not the combat capability of a single aircraft, but the overall combat system of the U.S. military has been upgraded and optimized. So, does China have the means to deal with the U.S. B-21? In fact, in the "Golden Helmet" air force competition held by the People's Liberation Army in 2021, the outcome of the stealth aircraft's rash invasion of China's airspace has been made clear.
In this "Golden Helmet" competition, Gao Gaoqiang, the captain of an aviation brigade of the People's Liberation Army, piloted the domestic stealth fighter J-20 to play the role of the "invading party" and try to "invade" the defense area of the Chinese Air Force.
Gao Gaoqiang's personal flying quality is very high, and he himself has won the honor of "Golden Helmet" and is an elite pilot in the army. But even such a hypothetical "strong combination" of the imaginary invader will still not be able to break through the PLA's air defense system.
Gao Gao Qiang admitted to his failure in an interview with CCTV reporters - he was finally shot down in a simulated confrontation while driving the J-20.
The J-20 is the stealth fighter with the world's most comprehensive performance and the fewest shortcomings, with a fuselage RCS value controlled below 0.1 cubic meters, and has super-maneuverability and supersonic flight capabilities that stealth bombers do not have.
But even so, the J-20 piloted by elite pilots still can't escape the end of being shot down by China's air defense, so where does the larger and slower U.S. B-21 get the confidence that it can "enter no man's land" in China's airspace?
Chinese air defense: shoot down when you find it
In fact, the PLA does not lack anti-aircraft weapons to shoot down B-21s. The S-400 air defense system, introduced from Russia, not only has the 91N6E over-the-horizon search radar, but also has an interception radius of up to 400 km for its anti-aircraft missiles, which has an extremely loose strike time window.
At the same time, the domestic Hongqi-9BE air defense system also has an interception radius of up to 350 kilometers, and in the case of meter-wave anti-stealing radar, it also has the ability to threaten the B-21.
Although the stealth effect of the B-21 is excellent, the construction of China's anti-stealth perception system has also begun to bear fruit.
In 2019, the domestic meter-wave radar deployed in the Northern Theater of the People's Liberation Army detected an F-22A stealth fighter transferred from Japan to South Korea 450 kilometers away, its RCS value is less than 0.01 square meters, and the stealth effect is better than that of B-21 and B-2, but it still has not escaped the "sharp eyes" of domestic meter-wave radar.
Considering that the B-21's fuselage is smaller than that of the B-2, and the built-in bomb bay will also be smaller, it is likely that it will not have the ability to launch long-range air-launched missiles, and can only bomb in the way of flying over the target. Therefore, if the B-21 wants to carry out a strike mission against China, it must "put its own risk on its own" and fly over 2,000 kilometers of Chinese airspace.
In this process, China's layer-by-layer air defense system will be like a fishing net to catch this group of "big fish", and at the same time, hundreds of J-20, J-16 and other tactical aircraft of the Chinese Air Force will also shoulder the task of intercepting and launching devastating strikes against intruders.
No matter how you look at it, the idea that the US military wants to rely on the B-21 to implement strategic deterrence against China seems overconfident.