America's Next Bomber: Unmanned, Unlimited Range, Aimed At China

The U.S. military is developing its next generation bomber with Chinese anti-access strategy — the ability to stop any enemy force from coming to fight with things like carrier killer missiles — in mind. The new bomber will replace older platforms like the 1950's B-52, the 1970's B-1, and 1990's B-2 stealth bomber. The new bomber will sport some unique qualities. It will have an option to be unmanned, will act similar to a UAV, have better stealth capabilities, will be connected to U.S. intelligence networks to create a 'smart' battlefield environment, and have near unlimited range thanks to in-air refueling.

the-diplomat.com...

Also most likely made in china.

military is developing

means they already have it, and they're just preparing the "common folk" to something thats already "fact".

I love "military moves". Nicely played.

Why would we initiate a 25 year old airframe?
It is much cleaner, simpler, quicker, and more devastating, to throw rocks from the sky
After all, All is fair in love and war, and we ALL know this

If it is supposed to counter missiles I assume it is designed with an integrated laser point defense system

Stripping away the bombast this is an unambitious bomber replacement program. It suggests fear, fear that US industry cant deliver anything on planned time and cost anymore. They are deliberately setting the bar low in hopes of getting it when they want it. Based on all recent experience with the 'too big to fail' F-35, that seems sensible.

Allowing all the military aviation companies to consolidate doesn't seem so clever now does it.

I've no doubt massively much more exotic prototypes exist in hiding but if they are not fielded they count for naught. You fight wars with whats manufactured and fielded.

If our development to fielded cycles remain as long as they are the Chinese will catch up and overtake.

They never would have told the world about the B-2 if the replacement wasn't already on line.

Originally posted by chevy369
They never would have told the world about the B-2 if the replacement wasn't already on line.

The F117 would be a better example to make your point.

The gap between first flight and public rollout of the B2 was fairly short. It was never a secret fielded capability in the way that the F117 was.

The prospect of another B2 program, where its so expensive you can only barely afford double digit number of airframes is what has terrified the DoD into this low ambition program.

Originally posted by chevy369
They never would have told the world about the B-2 if the replacement wasn't already on line.

Go a little deeper in your thinking on that point. The F-117A and the B-2 are subsonic airplanes of little actual utility as are the old B-52s.. The former two were public make-work creations that hid the real work of re-engineering UFO devices to our needs. The product of those efforts would be the triangles and their earlier designs the chevrons.

Now we got'um, plus, probably a bunch of other wicked things from the spinoffs. The old concept of "bombers" is as out-dated as that of the "aircraft carrier" and the "ICBM." Those things are antiques, holdovers from past wars The future is the US Space Force bringing warfare to you from space thanks to Reagan and the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars").

Originally posted by Mkoll
If it is supposed to counter missiles I assume it is designed with an integrated laser point defense system

China has a carrier killer missile, this is designed to take off without the need for a carrier, thus countering China's carrier killing capabilities.

reply to post by Mkoll


Laser point defense? where does it say that in the article? countering missiles might be done by jamming or flares.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


rail guns might negate the carrier killer missiles, but RGs are not in business as of yet, might be by 2020 or so.

reply to post by travis911


I wonder if this is the flying triangle people keep spotting?

Originally posted by victor7
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

rail guns might negate the carrier killer missiles, but RGs are not in business as of yet, might be by 2020 or so.

Maybe, but China having to worry about bombers coming from ANY base worldwide, and not launched off carriers, will prevent them from being able to mount an effective defense, and allow Carriers to be put in safe positions.

Edit: This is of course all speculation.

its about time America come half clean

and admit its the world terrorist all along

esp upon the "hand that feed u"

reply to post by travis911


The idea of a "next generation" manned bomber is almost inevitable, and though China will be a major player and already is, such concepts are developed based on a certain criteria. (1: A certain mission requirement and (2: The likelihood it will accomplish that against any adversary, just as the B2 was conceived to penetrate what was the USSR, and the most densely defended airspace including huge numbers of fighter-interceptors and SAM's. It was assumed if it could penetrate Russian airspace, then its capacity to go elsewhere would be, in part a given.

And yet it was in Bosnia and an innovative application of common cell phone technology that proved problematic for our bombers, and recall we did have one of our F-117 Night Hawk (mistakenly called by some "the stealth fighter", its a light precision bomber) aircraft lost over the Bosnian/Serbian theater in the 1990's. Though it was openly attributed to, literally a "lucky shot" from ground fire (ah hum), it is not impossible it was due to some rather innovative "nets" that involved just well coordinated but not very exotic technology. Point? Sometimes ones gazillion dollar plane can be screwed up by hitting it with a brick... This has not been lost on us. Or others.

The Russians have long had good reason to want to protect themselves against attack, or any violation of their territory. After all they almost had their country subjugated under Napoleon, and damn near animated thanks to Hitler. That makes a very formidable adversary.

And yet though a manned bomber is likely in some form, it may be unlike the traditional concept of a bomber. At well over 2.5 billion $$ a pop if made today the B2 is just way to expensive. And any manned design that follows in the "dedicated" strategic/advanced high value-tactical strike, as is the B2 now, the need for getting the most advanced technology into a modular and rapidly adaptable platform is inevitable. Just look at our current funding problems and cost over runs with the F-35, and worse the F-22. Thats just ridiculous.

And no nation not even mine can afford it. And since it seems very likely we will need to make severe cuts in DOD spending thanks to a congress that has its head up its *** because of that vital national security concern; Do anything but cooperate with Obama, and just get him out of office and screw the country. God I can't stand such tea party crap. There is a word for putting such ideology ahead of your country. Treason.

Moving right along, the need to have some kind of manned weapons platform in areas that are what I'll call "military aerospace control" and not just fighters and bombers, AWACS and airborne command and control, similar to NORAD Cheyenne Mountain having "Looking Glass", and other not as familiar national authority CNC aircraft. Like the Presidents so-called "dooms day plane", etc. Clearly doing it the old way won't work for more reasons then just costing obscene sums, unavailable if we keep doing it the way we always have... Lesson time people, be creative. So...

We have developed and are continuing to develop tremendous numbers in quantity and type of very advanced SM-UAV's specialized militarized unmanned aerial vehicle's, or robotic drones. Aside from the obvious advantage of recon drones , that we "stuck missiles on" and were effectively "militarized, this is a new category. UAV's from the ground up that can do amazing things that are THE main reason planes like our F-22 are kept on a computer controlled "leash". We have the technology to make the F-22 do amazing things, just doing so would kill the pilot.

A true "robotic drone" has an advanced degree of autonomy, and fall back options pre-programed so no remote control is required. Hence no signal to detect, screw with, jam etc. But the "option" to take it over even for certain "tweaking" is an obvious requirement and adds the flexible quotient no machine still can't come close to. Have "hunter-killer" or larger drones that may be even as large as 3/4 that the B1B bomber, but able to maneuver, launch smaller "armored hawks", offer advanced/flexible defensive and offensive capacity, be loaded to the gills with any type of ordinance.

A few years ago a H2 channel program had a future, but manned air defense version of the B1B bomber loaded with 40+ anti-air missiles that would be long range, and able to deal with saturation attacks by fighters, including the superb Russian SU-35/37's. One must assume drones will be built by whoever can. Very small ultra-G pulling Hawks, launched alone or carried by a "B1B like mothership" could pull unbelievable G's, and be armed with very novel weapons, always a rotary cannon, missiles, hard EMP capacity ECM, even "heavy" energy weapons beyond just screwing the electronics. True variable morphic geometry shape shifting could adapt in-flight. ...will continue...

reply to post by arbiture1200


...continued... I would love to see the face of the dude who see's an aircraft, ship, name it actually change shape in front of him. Way beyond primitive "variable sweep wings", but adaptive structural topology. Who knows what may be lurking out there... The Air Force can take a lesson from the Navy. Super heavily armed, with assault troop capacity, multi-role and theater capacity "arsenal ships" have recently been launched.

These surface ships, like most newer ships were built with stealth in mind. Newer versions should have tremendous increase in speed and maneuverability and will look seriously radical. And why there is less need, in concept for adaptive topology for a surface ship, it can be done and could have many advantages. I can think of a lot off the bat.

SSBN's, our ballistic missile carrying boats (subs) had to be de-commissioned by treaty and have their strategic nuclear Trident D2-3 missiles removed. The ones that were mentioned were of the Ohio class (some, not all of them, just the ones we had to remove from strategic nuclear patrol) What we did with the older Ohio's was to adapt them to carry SEAL teams, special sensor, perhaps innovative weapons (a whole lot of 'em) and certainly vertical launched cruise missiles. The options near endless and its nice for a change to see good use of US taxpayers money. Still superb in their capacity and the second largest (I believe) SSBN's deployed (the biggest of course is the Russian Typhoon, that bastard is big enough for its own zip code...)

With the end of the cold war the SSN attack subs, the newest the Seawolf and Virginia class, they had to adapt and were designed as were the arsenal ships to be modular and have compartment and equipment "swap out" capability. Very nice. The issue of what the Air Force does with the available aircraft is more problematic. Take the B1B bomber. For its day it employed very limited stealth concepts, but thats early 1970's technology for airframe shape (very important, as well as coatings which we keep improving.) and the "shape" is something we have a lot harder problem "tweaking".

Given the B1B was designed as being manned, that of course can change... But ideally we could build a limited number of airborne "arsenal like ship" aircraft. The ones that are manned, or need to be must be very capable of adaptive shape, capability, and modular. And we don't need nearly as manny manned as we can get away with with "robot-hawks". One would not want to be in (or near) an airplane pulling 50+ G's.

Then there is the entirely amazing area of super-maneuverable and unmanned attack aerospace planes. For someone operating in a micro-gravity environment often referred to somewhat incorrectly as "zero G" at very high altitude, in low Earth orbit for example, ultra brain splattering maneuvers can be more abrupt in space because they don't have the problem of atmospheric friction.

And even in the air, you can have incredible attitude change (flying rings around who ever) with no control surfaces, wings, stabalators, etc with advanced thrust vectoring. I have heard, again rumor of air-to-air missiles using just that and having no "wings" etc. They could easily go 4,000mph at least or hypersonic+. Range might be limited, or not, depends on the design. A very fast missile could also have considerable range with certain propulsion designs. So for something like a true aerospace fighter, that could handle the atmosphere and space would always be a bit of a trade off. In space it will not look like Luke Skywalker's X-Wing, but something closer to an area rule lifting body, perhaps with deployable wings for the atmosphere might make sense.

But to build that AND have it keep a crew man alive defeats the very ability of having no one one board. Not that "a few" that would be manned make sense. But again more akin to a version of a "mini-arsenal ship", and that would be more then capable of doing a number of things and might be capable of if a manned version having a crew of say 6-to-8 like a carrier based duel turboprop E2 Hawk Eye AWACS. But with teeth, if needed.

But when it comes to the classic "job descriptions" of bombers and fighters, that actually changed a long time ago. But it was more of using a crow bar to adapt a dedicated airframe from say strictly a fighter, largely by hanging ECM "pods" from wings, to what many fighters are often outfitted to do, be ECCM/ECM "spoof" aircraft. A changeable physical shape, and modular mission specific swap-outs would go way beyond anything commonly seen now. And when you start talking about the interesting world of the "other" (military) space program, it gets very interesting. Frankly, I don't see how we can afford to do this any other way.

If they are looking at "on time" and "on cost" they might want to consider going with the proposed FB-22:

en.wikipedia.org...

It wouldn't be exaclty global, but would give you a decent ranged strike aircraft with stealth capablities.

There was also the B-1R project:

en.wikipedia.org...

B-1R
"The B-1R is a proposed upgrade of existing B-1B aircraft.[129] The B-1R (R for "regional") would be fitted with advanced radars, air-to-air missiles, and new Pratt & Whitney F119 engines. This variant would have a top speed of Mach 2.2, but with 20% less range.[130]

Existing external hardpoints would be modified to allow multiple conventional weapons to be carried, increasing overall loadout. For air-to-air defense, an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar would be added and some existing hardpoints modified to carry air-to-air missiles. If needed the B-1R could escape from unfavorable air-to-air encounters with its Mach 2+ speed. Few aircraft are capable of sustained speeds over Mach 2.[129]"


Neither of these would be a "global strike aircraft" but would be good interim or cost saving alternatives.

The whole US Air Force is running in to an "airframe" issue. Things have gotten so expensive since the 90's that they just don't have the numbers of aircraft they remotely need (based on current power projection/national defense needs). Only about 60 B-1's out of 100 are still flying. Only 20 B-2s (they originally wanted 132), Only 130 something F-22s were built,oriiginally they wanted 300-500. The F-35 is in jeopardy. Only about 220 or so F-15s (of all makes) are planned to make it much past 2025). There have been proposals to buy the Navy's SuperHornets for the Air National Guard, because it looks like there just won't be a decently priced and available new fighter as airframes run out. The Air National Guard has the bulk of the air defense mission for CONUS, the USAFs most basic mission, defending our airspace.

reply to post by SrWingCommander


Very interesting post. I was unaware of the B1-R concept, but it certainly makes sense. Sounds like a good idea, and one that would lend itself to a more advanced platform (a FB-22 variant) for air defense. I just see the future of fighters as being unmanned. No human could survive the things UAV's can do. You can maneuver, attack, and repeat. Or from a more exotic "stand off position", you can orchestrate action from a distance. That "orchestration" would start and end with human controls, so consider this.

As far as I'm concerned, I have long been a fan of UAV combat aircraft, as long as human commanders have the ultimate control. In order to assure that, you have to build many more "fighters" and also make them not just expendable, but disposable (a bad word these days). If you were to attack a target with unmanned air vehicles, and we succeeded but the enemy took out say 50%, would you accept the remaining surviving aircraft back?

What if the enemy had planted a virus in the "survivors"? So in order to work, in my scenario your "spear head" soldiers, the unmanned UAV's in one scenario must always have CnC from the human operatives. And don't trust anything that returns. That allows you to destroys the "surviving" UAV's, and keeps the Command and Control firmly in human hands. Given the current cost of manned fighters, and the fact the computers have to keep them from splattering their brains in the F-22's pilots helmet, you know? It could work.


I also agree the air defense mission of the CONUS is the essential mission and given the number of fighter-interceptors we have, we have a problem. That must be our first concern, period.

This flying beast immediately came to my mind. This sounds like the exact thing that happened in Terminator.