Xi'an H-6J - The Navy's God of War

MightyBaozi · January 13, 2025, 12:50pm

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Xi’an H-6J

The Navy’s God of War

Background and History

H-6's Origins

The origins of the Xi’an H-6 and the Tu-16 Badger:
The program was born after the success of other long range bombers that defined the role of these heavy aircraft and was aimed at delivering a successor to the Tu-4. The aircraft was designated in two different ways, Tu-16 for the Russians and Xi’an H-6 for the Chinese. In early 1956 the Soviet government was more than happy to help China build a fleet of medium-bombers with the goal of leading a nuclear capable fleet that would ultimately be under the Soviet guidance. This eventually never happened since China wasn’t happy with that, but it initially provided for the first steps needed for China to set up a proper manufacturing base for such a massive aircraft.

Technology transfer and production:
China was in dire need of Soviet help when it came to the project and, as in many other cases, the Soviets delivered with plenty of help both in terms of technology and by setting up the industry to manufacture such an aircraft. China had, at the time, quite a young manufacturing and industry base, meaning that the Soviet guidance was without any doubts required for the project to stay alive.
The first agreement was to construct the first assembly line for the H-6 in Harbin and to provide all the technical documentation for it. The first two Soviet built Badgers were delivered to China in 1959, acting as a pattern aircraft, then the third one eventually became the first Chinese built H-6 as a prototype thanks to a kit that was sent to them alongside the help of specialists from the Kazan factory No. 22. By the time the first airworthy aircraft was being produced, China decided to send roughly 200 additional qualified workers from Shenyang to give additional help.

A detailed look at the rough construction numbers give us quite an understanding at how important and difficult this, so far, trouble-free project really was.
The program required massive modifications to the manufacturing plants and the addition of new assembly lines, needed for the astonishing production of 240.000 parts per unit. Some data shows that the construction required 148 tons of raw materials, 25 km of cables and 2 km of pipes.

As part of the technology transfer the engines were also included with the delivery and consequent production under license of the RD-3M-500 engines, later renamed to WP-8 at the Xi’an Engine Factory.
The first flight was taken by a hybrid between a Tu-16T and A version on the 27th of September 1959, with the second one coming short after.

The moving incident:
As said above, up until the first few flights the program continued without any major problems, but then China decided to move THE ENTIRE production line to the Xi’an Aircraft Factory to let the Harbin institute work on the H-5, the reverse engineered Il-28 that we already have in game.
Problems rose up, and not just the obvious stuff. As expected, moving and entire manufacturing line to a city almost 2000 km far was quite troublesome but that wasn’t even the main issue. In fact, during the transport it was said that a decent amount of documentation disappeared, with China giving the blame to the Soviets. This led to the need of reverse engineering the 2 Soviet produced Tu-16s and led to the inclusion of more Western-like manufacturing techniques to cope with the need of a more precise level of accuracy needed. Under the influence of Chief Engineer Lu Songshan, the use optical telescopes and micrometers was incorporated.

The H-6K

Prelude:
By the start of the 21st century the PLAAF had a need for a strategic bomber that could replace the quickly aging H-6s/Tu-16 derivatives. China’s bomber force was lacking the characteristics of a fully modernized one, therefore a new option was in the sights of the PLAAF. After what seemed to be an unexpected failure of the acquisition of an entirely new bomber aircraft, a new opportunity arose to bring the Tu-16 family back into the new century.

Development:
The development of a new and highly modified H-6 began around the year 2000 and the main contractor for this task was XAC - Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation. The development is estimated to have lasted around 6 to 7 years until the first flight test underwent the 5th of January, 2007, documented by a blurry photo of the bomber.
The changes compared to the first variant of this bomber were noticeable, among them there were the complete redesign of the nose cone, now characterized by a more modern look and a big radar residing within it; a completely new cockpit housing a 3 man crew (Pilot, Co-pilot and WSO behind them) and a 6 MFDs setup. The safety of the crew was also kept in mind since each crewmember has an ejection seat. Other structural changes were done to the intakes, going from an almost triangular shape towards a wider spherical one, a new set of engines that were speculated to be the D-30KP-2, which was a believable rumour, later confirmed, considering the presence of the Ilyushin Il-76MD transport in the ranks of the PLAAF, another user of said engines. Then an entire set of RWR and MAWS sensors applied to the entirety of the fuselage, plus various antennas such as the SATCOM antenna on the top and the datalink one on the bottom rear part of the fuselage. The last exterior change is the chin-mounted FLIR/TV turret. Other speculated changes were the usage of lighter materials to cope with the added weight of the modifications, such as the use of lighter and stronger titanium alloys and composite materials. This last improvement was also rumored to be the reason why the weapons load also managed to increase significantly, some say from 9 to 12 tonnes.

The engine:
An interesting factor, and quite troublesome as per usual when it comes to this time period in China, was the engine. It in fact involved the need of a foreign engine due to the continued lack of better domestic options. In this case the D-30KP-2 was the candidate for the new H-6K bomber, an engine quite convenient for China due to the presence of another aircraft that used said powerplant amongst the PLAAF, the Ilyushin Il-76MD transport aircraft. The deal was quite controversial and believed to be discussed multiple times, which led to China’s acquisition of 55 D-30KP-2 engines.

Development costs:
One of the key elements to consider was the halt of production back at XAC after 1990, a procedure needed to modernize the entire factory and provide the new systems to produce the new bomber aircraft. Another interesting fact was the early lack of “trust” shown by the PLAAF towards this project. They in fact considered the Tu-16 family to be too old and unfit to cover the main bomber role needed by the airforce. Decision that initially meant the programme costs were exclusively covered by XAC’s own funds.

PLAAF acquisition:
After the development process ended, the flight testing phase began in 2007 and continued up until late 2010 with a prototype spotted at Xi’an-Yanliang and recognizable by the designation “861”. At least one additional prototype, number 862, was later produced and given to the PLAAF for evaluation and testing at CTFE. The first hint of PLAAF acquisition and commitment to the programme was the aircraft in yellow zinc primer (the colour usually used by the PLAAF when it comes to production aircrafts) sitting at Xi’an’s tarmac. The rumours were once again proven right by the next aircraft spotting, which showed two new H-6Ks in PLAAF colours and markings, characterized by the 1109x designation (11095/6/7…).

Designation and nickname:
The designation of the H-6K is one of those classic confusing moments for any PLA watcher (looking at you ~~PL-16~~ PL-15E ) , as it breaks the usual designations followed by the H-6 family variants, with the K after the M, which should be the other way around.
Instead, what isn’t controversial is the nickname given to the aircraft, God of War, written in Chinese on the first prototype of the H-6K (Zhan Shen 战神, God of War).

The H-6J

The H-6J is a specialized version of the H-6K, with its main focus being anti-ship missions. The bomber aircraft does in fact boast a wider arrange of anti-ship weaponry such as the 7 x YJ-12s, 6 on the outer pylons and 1 inside the bomb bay. This new naval version is the successor to the previous H-6D and it retains the characteristics of the H-6K. The bomber is believed to have entered service in 2015 and it has so far helped the PLANAF gain a significant advantage in terms of heavy anti-ship duty, with more than double the range of the previous H-6D.

One significant detail that can help us recognize a H-6J are the EW pods mounted at the end of the wings, which are quite common on this variant of the aircraft. Specifically, we’re talking about the KG-800 ECM pods.