IAF's Future Bomber

[Bhartiya Sainik]

If USA aint retiring its B52, let alone the B1Lancer, literally giving B52 a latest set of engines, why should we limit our bomber's profile only as a stealth one.

Bcoz USA has totally different geography, geopolitics, global agenda to dominate, global bases. So they need a good size bomber fleet & want to economize the airframe of B-52 as long it supports. Money saved at one place is money invested at other place. But B-2, B-21 will spearhead followed by B-2 followed by B-52. If we need a bomber then i would support a stealth one.

We can build a good low observability bomber with whole 4* 115kN engine like TU-160. We can use it to fire beyond 350km standoff, ITCM/ Brah Mos NG / Rudram3 salvos.

Perhaps we can start with a smaller one like Tu-22M.

Let Ghatak take role for dropping GB or Rudram-1/2 within 350km.

I don't think anybody will go for such small dedicated bomber with very limited payload.

 

[AGNI 6 ICBM]

DRDO-ADA have some experience on flying wing design "thanks to ghatak"...

Murica is operating b52 & b1b bcoz it has b2 as backup...

Ruskies & chynese are working on flying wing bomber pak da & h20....

So,I would prefer stealth flying wing bomber rather than variable sweep like tu 22, tu 160 & b1b....

Few people reported that we are going to buy/lease bombers from ruskies...senior air force officer said air wing of SFC needs bomber...so there is need of bombers...

murica might be our enemy in 2040's....so its wise to start R & D on bombers now...

Operating bombers from Agalega & Andaman will give us ability to hit targets in South Atlantic ocean & south chyna sea

Each bomber carrying 4 x Vishnu🕉 HCM each with ~1,500 km will be

 

[Bhartiya Sainik]

Our DoD & forces are not talking much about bombers. Our DoD doesn't get proper funding, so i don't think B-1, B-2, Tu-160, B-21 kind of big bombers would become reality soon.
Let's see some basic specs of current bombers:
Tu-22M - 24 tons load, 2 engines, Mach 1.9 max speed, 6,800 ms range
Tu-160 - 45 tons load, 4 engines, Mach-2 max speed, 12,300 Kms range
B-1 - 23 tons load, 4 engines, Mach 1.2 max speed?? 9,400 Kms range
B-2 - 18 tons load, 4 engines, subsonic speed, 11,000 Kms range
B-21 - 9.1 tons load?? 2 engines, subsonic speed, range undisclosed!!

We can consider both type of stealth bombers - subsonic & supersonic. It would also depend on engine available to us.
But 1st we need to make list of weapons, size & # to be carried.
- GPS guided glide bombs
- Cruise missiles
- Anti-ship missiles
- Anti-radiation missiles

 

[Nutcracker]

I don't think anybody will go for such small dedicated bomber with very limited payload.

What do you even mean by that ?
I said for 350km range Ghatak is ideal. It's job is to destroy SAM sites using HARM like missiles. After that our bomb truck su30 would take care once air superiority is achieved.

 

[Bhartiya Sainik]

What do you even mean by that ?
I said for 350km range Ghatak is ideal. It's job is to destroy SAM sites using HARM like missiles. After that our bomb truck su30 would take care once air superiority is achieved.

Let's keep ourselves in place of designer with limited resources. I mean eactly what i wrote- "small dedicated bomber with very limited payload", like F-117. I think our Ghatak/Aura/etc are going to be bigger jets.
We're already in era of multi-role capability 4gen jet, rather than 3rd gen dedicated fighter, interceptor, light bomber, attack jet. AFAIK only Russia so far with its vast popsicle land is considering dedicated interceptor follow-on MiG-41. Otherwise making dedictaed future small jet, manned or unmanned, is not economical & like going reverse gear against technology evolution.
However, if these boomerang shaped jets are given afterburner engines to dogfight & payload of atleast 6 AAMs & custom ARMs like AGM-88G-AARGM-ER then i can think about it. But then they'll also compete with AMCA which can also do the job. AMCA can also be transformed into UCAV. So we need to compare a tailed traditional stealth fighter design with tail-less boomerang design. Many people speculate tail-less 6gen fighter so it can impact all traditional tailed design projects like AMCA, KAAN, J-35, Su-57, Su-75, etc.