China’s H-6J maritime strike bomber highlights not only its growing long-range anti-ship ambitions, but also the central role of networked kill chains in determining whether those capabilities translate into real combat power.
This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that China’s H-6J maritime strike bomber, a naval variant of the H-6K, has entered service as a core platform for long-range, precision air strikes and maritime surveillance, underscoring China’s efforts to strengthen its ability to deter and target high-value naval assets.
Cai Suliang, a member of an unspecified People’s Liberation Army (PLA) bomber unit, said in a state-run China Central Television report last week that the H-6J is distinguished by two external reconnaissance pods that significantly extend its ability to detect maritime targets over wider areas and at longer ranges.
The pods provide enhanced target cueing beyond onboard radar, improving strike effectiveness against slow-moving vessels, the PLA officer said.
The H-6J, which has trained in contested waters including the South China Sea, is primarily designed for anti-ship missions and is viewed as relevant to scenarios such as a conflict over Taiwan. China’s defense ministry confirmed the aircraft was operational in 2020 and assigned it to the Southern Theater Command Navy Aviation Force.
Chinese media reports that the H-6J carries YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missiles with a range of about 400 kilometers, has roughly double the weapons capacity of the older H-6G, an expanded combat radius of around 3,500 kilometers, and eight wing hardpoints.
The aircraft, derived from the Soviet Tu-16 design, appeared alongside other modernized H-6 variants at a Beijing military parade last year, reflecting China’s continued focus on anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities.
In terms of tactical usage, Chinese sources describe the H-6J as a “carrier killer,” with the YJ-12 missile’s 400-kilometer range enabling it to carry out attacks outside the range of the US Aegis missile defense system, SM-2, and SM-6 missile interceptors.
During an attack on an enemy carrier, the H-6J would be accompanied by the H-6G electronic warfare variant, with escort fighters moving to intercept enemy fighters launched from the carrier, covering the H-6Gs and H-6Js as the latter move toward the launch area.
The H-6Gs would jam enemy carrier-based fighters, airborne early warning and control (AEW&C), and ship-based radars such as the Aegis system. With enemy sea and air radar systems suppressed, the H-6J bombers could then launch YJ-12 missiles beyond the range of enemy defenses, with each H-6J carrying six YJ-12 missiles.
If an Aegis ship has 12 fire control channels, a group of more than eight H-6Js could perform a saturation attack to overwhelm the target’s defenses. Considering the H-6J’s payload, a regiment of 18 bombers can carry 108 YJ-12 missiles.
In a larger operational picture, the H-6J would be integrated into a larger maritime strike ecosystem. Dmitry Filipoff mentions in a May 2023 article for the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) that China has overlapping firepower capabilities to deter US and allied forces from its near and far seas.
Filipoff notes that the long-range component of China’s maritime strike capability is built on DF-26 ballistic missiles and bombers such as the H-6J. He states that these capabilities allow China to attack adversary forces starting at 2,800 kilometers from the mainland.
However, he identifies several vulnerabilities in this approach. First, he says that a limited combination of firepower – DF-26 ballistic missiles and bombers – could force PLA commanders to expend their most potent anti-ship weapons more quickly.
Second, he says that if the kill chains of ballistic missiles are compromised, bombers will need to fly closer to their targets to gather targeting data for the former, exposing themselves to attack.
Kill chains are the processes required to deliver bombs or missiles to a target. It consists of physical sensors, datalinks, platforms and weapons, each with unique characteristics and limitations. Each component has specific information, physical, and network needs.
Filipoff also notes that China may need to mass its bombers within a 480-kilometer radius to achieve massed fires on enemy targets – presenting lucrative targets for carrier-based fighters.
He notes that providing fighter escort for bombers 2,800 kilometers from the mainland remains a significant challenge, adding that while aerial refueling can extend the range of its fighter escorts, that effort may be handicapped if the skies above Taiwan, the Ryukyus, and the Batanes Islands are contested.
Should aerial refueling prove unfeasible, Filipoff says China’s carriers may have to operate beyond the First Island Chain, potentially exposing them to attack.
Aside from those vulnerabilities, Harry Kazianis highlights in an October 2025 National Security Journal (NSJ) article that bombers like the H-6J are large, slow, and easily detected by modern sensors. He stresses that bombers rely significantly on their escorts, electronic warfare support, decoys, and precise targeting information.
Kazianis warns that if the targeting information is delayed or incorrect, even a formidable missile salvo can land in empty water. Therefore, he contends that the H-6J is a significant threat primarily due to its network and weapons systems—disrupt the network, eliminate the tankers, and the threat decreases.
These ideas point to kill-chain warfare – targeting the processes that deliver bombs or missiles to their targets. Each node in these processes – surveillance systems that must locate US forces, communications networks that relay targeting information to the H-6J bombers, the H-6J bombers that launch the YJ-12 missiles and the systems that guide the YJ-12 missiles to their targets – is vulnerable to interdiction or disruption.
In view of that, J Michael Dahm mentions in a March 2024 testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission that PLA kill chains depend on achieving battlespace information dominance through tightly integrated space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), airborne sensors, datalinks, electronic warfare and centralized command structures.
To defeat these kill chains, he emphasizes counter-reconnaissance, electronic warfare, cyber operations, deception and physical attacks that disrupt sensor-to-shooter links, force PLA emitters offline and destroy system cohesion. He stresses denying information flow, not merely destroying shooters, as the decisive method for neutralizing PLA long-range strike effectiveness.
The H-6J illustrates how China’s maritime strike power rests less on any single “carrier-killer” platform than on its ability to preserve an intact kill chain linking sensors, networks, bombers and missiles under combat conditions.
The contest is not missile range versus ship defenses, but whether China can sustain information dominance long enough for massed fires to matter, or whether US countermeasures and strikes on enablers fracture that system and leave even large salvos tactically irrelevant.