Meet the B-21

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: BigTrain

You mean at the high subsonic speed it was designed for?

You said it was supersonic before.

a reply to: BigTrain

I said it MIGHT be capable of slightly over Mach 1 for short periods. The requirements were for a high subsonic bomber, and that's what they built. Building a supersonic bomber for a subsonic requirement would have priced them right out of it.

And yeah they would get in trouble for it. The aircraft was paid for by the Air Force, regardless of it it won or not. That technically makes it their property to do with what they will. Even if it sits at Boeing or Lockheed, they could choose to do something with it later.

The Air Force officially set the minimum number of aircraft needed at 100.

fightersweep.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

well then it's official; we only get 10

a reply to: PhantomTwo

There's a big difference between this buy and others. They'll get at least most of them.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Doing fixed cost and unit buys now right? So we cant repeat the F-22 and B-2 problems?

a reply to: Pyle

Cost plus for EMD, fixed plus for LRIP 1-5.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I am still waiting for someone to screw it up because its Air Force procurement.

a reply to: Pyle

I have hope this time. The early part of the program wasn't run by the normal leadership.

Now that the B-21 is out can
I bring Doritos to work again ?
Or do I go on pretending there is no such
thing as A12's flying over Texas and Oklahoma?

a reply to: UnderKingsPeak

They weren't A-12s. The A-12 really never did fly.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Then both platforms are trash. subsonic dies in a real war, how the H*** you getting outta town when you half way around the world in somebody elses turf?. That means you can only use these platforms either:

1. Sneak Attack

2. Once total air supremacy has been established.

You will NEVER fly these birds into an active air combat scenario with enemy fighters lurking.

So again, we are back to the B-1b flying the majority of the bomb truck missions in 2020-2040. Its a money waste because you can't use it but oh say 2% of the time. How do we know this? Just look at the B-2. End of story.

a reply to: BigTrain

Once again, you're proving you don't know what you're talking about. Contrary to your opinion, speed isn't everything, and speed doesn't make it a great bomber.

a reply to: Zaphod58

It'd be like on one of those house hunting shows on HGTV when the realtor takes the family who's looking for a $250k 3 bed, 2 bath to see a beautiful 5 bed, 4 bath house with an indoor pool than ends up costing $600,000 and the family gets upset at the realtor for wasting their time.

a reply to: BigTrain

Using a faster aircraft will involve a trade-off in terms of cost, complexity, payload, and signature, or some combination thereof.

Example: From an IR standpoint, going faster than high subsonic actually increases the warning time (measured in minutes) to the enemy due to thermal heating. This does not include the effect afterburners have. Supersonic cruise also uses significant amounts of fuel (reducing range), generates a sonic boom, and requires greater wing sweep reducing cruise efficiency. Alternatively swing-wings could be used but these impact weight, complexity, cost, and possibly RCS.

Therefore, a large amount of the question is: Is it harder for the adversary to concentrate on detecting a large number of extremely stealthy aircraft compared to a reduced number of less stealthy but faster aircraft? Or some variation on this question depending in the tradeoffs I mentioned above. I don't definitively know the answer. But I do know that much of your logic is massively flawed and the answer would also depend on how the LRS-B is actually intended to be used or how you think it should be used. More on that later in this post.

You will NEVER fly these birds into an active air combat scenario with enemy fighters lurking.

LRS as a high level system is not entirely known, however it will include or operate in conjunction with:
- Space assets (possibly including X-37B) for ISR and communications
- ISR assets such as RQ-180
- AEW&C assets such as E-7A or E-2D

Generally speaking, the great range of such a longer range bomber would allow it to fly around the highest threat environments remaining undetected allow it to strike its targets, using the previously mentioned assets to find the target, the threats to avoid, and communicate this to the B-21. It's pretty unlikely that you're going to fly any heavy bomber into the highest threat environments like an "active air combat scenario with enemy fighters", supersonic or not. This isn't Rambo. If that's needed then use stand-off munitions.

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) (they receive most of their funding from DOD) investigated ways to offset "China" and they termed it AirSea Battle. Note that AirSea battle was actually part of the doctrine of the US military before it was renamed. I'm not sure how big the difference is between CSBA and the "official" version. My guess would be that they are similar. AirSea Battle also has similarities to AirLand Battle, which was the doctrine the US would have used to defend Europe from a massive Soviet invasion. AirLand Battle was also used in the first Gulf War.

(snip)

The AirSea Battle campaign has two stages. The initial stage, commencing with the outbreak of hostilities, comprises four distinct lines of operation:

>>Withstanding the initial attack and limiting damage to US and allied forces and bases;

>>Executing a blinding campaign against PLA battle networks;

>>Executing a suppression campaign against PLA long-range ISR and strike systems;

>>Seizing and sustaining the initiative in the air, sea, space and cyber domains

(snip)

If US forces possessed a significant long-range strike capability, thereby enabling them to penetrate China’s borders from all directions, then PLA air defenders would be compelled to either thin out their defenses in the Western Pacific, divert substantial resources to defending other regions, or accept significantly greater vulnerability along undefended areas

(snip)

csbaonline.org...

LRS-B is for deep-strike, not a replacement for tactical fighters. In a war against China (or Russia for that matter) the "sneak attack" part is huge. The adversary can be attacked from all directions, at a time and place "we" choose, after having studied their vulnerabilities. If they decide to defend themselves by moving their forces around, then they simply open up more holes in their defenses and are vulnerable to more "sneak" attacks. Eventually their battle networks will be so degraded and ISR and strike systems destroyed, that the US Navy and tactical fighters can move in closer to the mainland.

Of course, that's the idea, whether it works is a whole different story.

I think you read more about AirLand Battle or AirSea Battle and how the US intends to counter China or Russia. For China at least, you have no hope of trying to beat them head-on it has to be asymmetric.

subsonic dies in a real war

Both the F-117 and B-2 have been successfully used in real wars.

So again, we are back to the B-1b flying the majority of the bomb truck missions in 2020-2040.

B-1B wouldn't come close in capability to the B-21 in such a high-end scenario, too easily detectable. B-1B would still be useful though, just not "behind enemy lines" so to speak.

Also the B-1B is limited to Mach 0.95 at low altitude and 1.25 and high altitude, the speed advantage over subsonic aircraft isn't that great. Main reason it's used is it's the cheapest strategic bomber per flight hour, it's also a conventional bomber (nuclear has been deactivated), it can operate from relatively short or hot and high runways, and SNIPER pod has been added. The B-2 meanwhile is extremely expensive to operate, nuclear capable, extremely stealthy, and given only 20 are in service with production ended, it would be rather silly to waste them on missions where their capabilities are not strictly needed. This is the same reason it would be daft to waste the F-22 on CAS. Thus if the LRS-B program is successful in delivering 100 aircraft at an "affordable" cost there is no reason it cannot completely supplant the B-1B.

End of story.

Start of story.

a reply to: Barnalby

There are times when having speed would be great, but building a supersonic bomber is usually an exercise in compromise that results in having a bomber that isn't as fast as you wanted, has reliability issues, and when supersonic lights up every sensor that isn't three quarters blind to start.

The B-21 on the other hand might be slow, but it has a signature that makes the B-2 and F-22 look like B-1s and F-15s, is effective against low frequency and UHF radars, and will get in and out without being seen.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Barnalby

"and will get in and out without being seen".

Cheeky ;-)

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Barnalby

The B-21 on the other hand might be slow, but it has a signature that makes the B-2 and F-22 look like B-1s and F-15s, is effective against low frequency and UHF radars, and will get in and out without being seen.

The idea of course is all-spectrum low observability, which means

a) obviously X-band radar, but that's well known

b) lower frequency radar. For that you need a large craft with no lengths of panels less than a certain fraction of wavelength. And the lower the frequency, the more tricks with ECM you can do.

c) infrared. Very high bypass, maybe EM cooling? If you can get the frequency of maximum emission into a band which is absorbed well in the atmosphere....

d) optical, all the Deep Black stuff here

Now consider that flying at night.

Enough speed to be unstoppable is an IRBM/ICBM warhead, that will be the huge danger to ships, but not aircraft.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Barnalby

There are times when having speed would be great, but building a supersonic bomber is usually an exercise in compromise that results in having a bomber that isn't as fast as you wanted, has reliability issues, and when supersonic lights up every sensor that isn't three quarters blind to start.

The B-21 on the other hand might be slow, but it has a signature that makes the B-2 and F-22 look like B-1s and F-15s, is effective against low frequency and UHF radars, and will get in and out without being seen.

I guess if there was never ever a dogfight again then the B21 would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. What happens when it is seen with somebody's eyes in a fighter that was scrambled after the enemy spies who sat near the b21 home base runway and emailed their buddies back home to say they are taking off and headed your way?

Sometimes the most advanced most expensive thing can be countered with he simplest of methods.

a reply to: BigTrain

Right, because a mach 1.2 bomber (the B-1) will never run into the same situation, and always get away when it does.

No bomber ever built is going to ever get into a dogfight. Not even the B-1. The most they are going to be able to do is get low and as fast as they can (which is less than Mach 1 at low level for the B-1). Once you're down low, terrain does wonders to hide you from sight too.

Of course we're going to lose some though, just as we will lose F-22s and F-35s. It's called war, and not everything will go perfectly your way. You'd lose some of your supersonic bombers too. Speed doesn't mean invulnerability.