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China’s new stealth aircraft can find and kill the B-21 ‘Raider’ with hypersonic missiles, computer simulation suggests
- The new US stealth bomber may be taken by surprise by ultra-fast missiles coming from near space with the unpredictable ‘Qian Xuesen trajectory’
- Beating the American bomber will be pivotal in any future conflict with China, as it has the potential to slip behind China’s core defence
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Stephen Chenin Beijing
As the race heats up between China and the US to develop the next-generation stealth aircraft armed with the latest weapons, a Chinese research team has staged a virtual duel between the two rivals to see what it would take to win a future air battle.
The results suggested that, with a combination of advanced hardware and new tactics, China could detect the opponents first.
In one war game, a B-21-like stealth platform and its companion drone were both shot down by China’s air-to-air missiles, which can reach a top speed of Mach 6.
But should the US mount a counterstrike, the seesawing fight for air dominance between the two most powerful countries would get so complex and intense, “it could take hours before the dust settles,” said the team, led by associate professor Chen Jun with the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xian, in a paper published in peer-reviewed journal Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica last month.
After months of delay, America’s new Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider took its first flight on November 10.
Though only capable of cruising at about 1,000km/h (620 miles per hour), slightly below the speed of sound, the next-gen stealth bomber will play a central role in the US Air Force’s Penetrating Counter Air (PCA) strategy that is tailored towards potential battles with the Chinese military.
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