The Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Army Air Power has for the primary time demonstrated its means to utilise its new fleet of YY-20 aerial tankers to refuel its H-6 strategic bombers, extending the vary of its massive fleet of very diversely armed lengthy vary fight jets. The YY-20 was developed as a by-product of the world’s largest army transport jet in manufacturing right this moment, the Y-20, and first started fight readiness coaching in late 2022. With China beforehand having had a negligible tanker functionality comprised of three ex-Soviet Armed Forces Il-78M jets, and plenty of transformed H-6 bomber airframes, the YY-20 has lengthy been anticipated to play a central position in facilitating longer vary operations. A key cause for the dearth of funding in tankers is that Chinese language fighter plane have considerably longer ranges than their Western counterparts, with its most succesful fighters right this moment the J-20 and J-16 far outranging any of their Western counterparts when working on inside gas, whereas the J-20 has roughly twice the vary of its American rival the F-35. Chinese language bombers, nevertheless, are a lot shorter ranged than their American or Russian counterparts, with the H-6 being a a lot lighter design constructed for regional operations, slightly than an intercontinental vary design just like the American B-2 or Russian Tu-160. This makes the flexibility to increase the H-6’s vary significantly invaluable.
The H-6 is presently by far probably the most broadly fielded bomber class on the earth, with the Folks’s Liberation Army Air Power estimated to deploy roughly 270 of the plane. The bomber class is relied on for a variety of roles, with the H-6G variant having been configured for digital assault, the H-6J and H-6N for cruise missile carriage, and the H-6K for carriage of lengthy vary ballistic missiles, to call however a number of examples. The plane have lengthy been anticipated to play a central position in launching ballistic and cruise missile assaults on U.S. and allied forces throughout the Pacific within the occasion of a brand new battle within the area, however when paired with the YY-20, they will probably function a lot additional past the Second Island Chain to challenge energy into the broader Pacific. This vary extension enhances the advantages of integrating longer vary missile lessons, such because the CM-401 ballistic missile first seen carried by the H-6K in 2018. An additional much less advanced technique of extending the H-6 fleet’s attain has been to deploy the plane to bases on Russian territory, with the plane having landed in Russia a number of instances for joint workouts, and in June 2024 deployed from their for his or her first ever operations off the coast of Alaska. Because the YY-20 has continued to develop the attain of the Chinese language fleet, the event of a better finish tanker class designed to function in additional contested environments, and benefiting from superior stealth capabilities which are more and more broadly seen in Chinese language lengthy vary army plane, has broadly been speculated.
