I for one would be very disappointed if countries didn’t spy on each other, even among friends. If you aren’t spying you aren’t trying. It’s blanket surveillance on your own people that’s messed up.

The diagram shows it is more closely sized to an F-106.
It is not even remotely close to the size of a B-58.

To compare the aircraft shot down by rear gunners in WWII to aircraft shot down by fighter pilots in “Nam is moronic on its best day.
His terminology is simply wrong as he seems to have no idea of what he difference is between a bomber and fighter bomber and they are in different worlds.

Eh… yeah. Thanks for confirming again people who use ad hominem attacks and get stuck on jargon are covering for a lack of substance.

It doesn’t matter what you want to call it. All bombers/strikers have range, payload, and self protection. It’s these parameters we’re interested in.

The B-58’s 29 meter OA length and 80 ton weight is a pretty close approximation IMO, despite being worlds apart in other ways.

Basically the whole history of supersonic strategic bombers have been a flop. B-58 was withdrawn in a decade. B-70 cancelled. B-1 cancelled and repurposed as B-1B, but in practice no better than B-52 with cruise missiles. It never achieved it’s intended high speed low altitude role until after the Cold War due to radar problems.

In retrospect a low altitude LO bomber should have served in the interim between the B-52 and B-2. Something like a stealthier Vulcan could’ve been built instead, and it would be relevant as a cheap bomb truck into the 2040s.

More like H-6 complement I think. H-6 replacement is likely to be flying wing bomber rumoured to be in development.

China is clearly betting heavily on its new WS-15 engine.

I don’t know, if it’s using two WS-15 engines, why not build a strike version of the J-20? This project doesn’t make sense unless they have a power plant with enough thrust for a bomber in the Backfire class IMHO.

It’s going to be hilarious when countries waiting for the affordable next gen fighters find out they are even more expensive than the last.

Was the SA-3 of that era significantly more effective than the SA-2? I saw some lethality figures in the 1970s that suggested that the difference was minimal.

In the summer of 1972, US intelligence believed that the SA-3 was about to be fielded in Vietnam. This could have temporarily increased US combat losses, since the existing jammers were designed to counter the SA-2. The solution was to rush ALQ-119 jamming pods to SE Asia under a programme codenamed �Pacer Granite�, but the SA-3 threat did not materialise.

Can’t say for sure, but the greater maneuverability combined with unfamiliarity should pose a serious threat. With Khe Sanh I was thinking the NVA would have a SAM they could forward deploy to protect their infantry in the field from B-52s. Laying siege against an American base without air defense was risky business.

If North Vietnam AF got Mig 23, at best it will only operational 1 sq by 74-75. Won’t get much impact in Vietnam war, but it will made impact when China invade Vietnam in 79.

The PLAAF didn’t participate in the 79 war, so no Floggers wouldn’t make an impact at all.

3D printing isn’t for speedy work, its for incredible detail and consistency. I can program a cnc cutting table, the 3D process is about 50K times more granular.

3D printing is too new to say anything definitive, especially when it comes to specialized fabrication of titanium. More likely the Chinese are just using it to replace forging. They never said that thing is the end result of what comes out of printing.

Surprised no one has mentioned Su-35 yet.