The first claim that China could shoot down the B-21 with a hypersonic missile was in a November 27 article in the South China Morning Post, which argued that the US military's latest B-21 stealth bomber would be shot down by a Chinese hypersonic missile with an unpredictable "Qian Xuesen trajectory" and that all US stealth fighters would be unable to penetrate China's core defense sphere. On November 28, the Eurasia Times published an article quoting the South China Morning Post report, and speculated in more detail about how China would achieve such tactics, and concluded with a forward-looking prediction that in the future China will have better ways to detect and attack U.S. stealth bombers.
This Chinese paper, which was valued by two foreign media, was actually published earlier than the B-21's first flight time. "Future Air combat Fire field Research" was published in the Journal of Aviation in October 2023, and its six authors are from China's "Chengdu Aircraft Design Research Institute of AVIC" and "School of Electronic Information of Northwestern Polytechnical University" two famous research institutes. Therefore, this paper describing how to deal with the US military's "future penetration air control" tactics, and the implicit assumption in the paper that a future simulated air battle between the two countries can not only map to the real US military B-21, B-2 and other stealth military aircraft, but also appear similar to the J-20 dual aircraft formation or coordinated air combat with "loyal wingmen". Of course, the B-21 will eventually be shot down by a Mach 6 hypersonic missile!
The reason why China wants to do such research is to cope with the advanced tactics developed by the US military against China. Years ago, the U.S. military felt that China's skyrocketing capabilities in "anti-access/area-denial capabilities" would make it impossible for the U.S. military to achieve theater-wide air superiority in combat with China. Therefore, in 2016, the US Air Force first proposed the "penetrating air control" operational concept in the "2030 Air Superiority Flight Plan". Simply put, relying on system support in time, mainly using air strike platforms with high stealth capability such as fighters, bombers, electronic fighters, drones, etc. to break through China's tight air defense network at a specific time and region and launch strikes on our key strategic and tactical targets to help the U.S. military open the gap and grasp the tactical idea of air supremacy.
In addition to the existing F-22, F-35 and B-2 strike platforms with "strong penetration capability" in the hands of the US military, the latest first flight will unify the US bomber force, and the US military has repeatedly publicly claimed that the B-21, which was born for the implementation of "penetration air control" tasks, will undoubtedly be the most effective strike platform for the US military to "Pierce" China's air defense network! Although there is no information on the ammunition carrying of the B-21, due to its smaller body size than the B-2, US military experts believe that it can only carry one powerful GBU-57/B large ground penetration bomb, but can carry about 40 JDAM "Joint Direct attack Munition", while estimating that its bomb bay is only half the capacity of the B-2. Or more than 100 of the latest GBU-53B high-precision glide bombs.
