B-3 Bomber announced

USAF Announces the B-3 Bomber.

Joked about in "Wag the Dog" the B-3 has been announced. Not a joke to the USAF as it will probably be 15-20 years from first pencil to paper to takeoff. So you are talking 2030 or so, making the B-52 fleet 70 years old at that time, the B-1 50+, and B-2 40. We already have 3rd Generation B-52 pilots, meaning they can sit with their dad and granddad and talk about flying them.

Imagine if you told a designer in 1950 that the plane had to last 70 years! It would never get completed.

USAF getting 100 of them. When I was in the aircraft boneyard they said they did not need 100 but Congress keeps sending them.

Will we really need another heavy bomber? Bombing from the air may be so un-PC by the time they take off that we may be afraid to use them. New tech may make them obsolete. OTOH, we keep saying military things have will never be needed again and turns out they are (e.g.: aircraft in Vietnam with missiles but no guns.)

Discuss.

There are quite a few people saying the Navy is putting out plenty of very vulnerable big ships that will just be big targets ... and that this will be found to be true soon enough in a perhaps brief but deadly naval war with China.

You almost have to assume that in the next serious shooting war that there will be aspects that the experts got all wrong as we go into it. The Japanese were far and away the most prescient in envisioning what WW2 would be like. They were really the first to be convinced that airplanes would trump all else in naval warfare and showed it with Pearl Harbor and the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse right at the outset. At first it appeared we had no solution to how to fight them at night, they were so much better at that, and had the best torpedoes by far. Breaking their code and developing radar [that they did not have] might be viewed as lucky strokes.

I hope I am not hijacking the thread by talking about naval stuff. As far as the new bomber goes, my thinking is that we don't need them. Of course it would be nice to have everything you could ever dream up for some possible new war, but I don't see us being able to afford it like we used to be able to. On the other hand, the B52 thing seems ridiculous.

Its like video games or grade C oriental movies.... one man with a pistol takes on tanks, troops, ships and planes and wins without ever reloading.

Everything is a "sitting duck" nowadays. One man, one RPG and all that aluminum superstructure slanted to bounce radar waves away from the source goes up in flames.

Look at the nuclear Bombers in the UK, the Vulcans that were about to be retired but were resurrected to a long distance bombing in the Falklands War. They landed one bomb on the end of the runway and bulldozers filled in the crater in four hours.

One cruise missle and its 'scratch one ship' . Everything is vulnerable. Show the flag? How? Refuel in a hostile port? Get nuclear ships that don't need refueling? Get to a crisis spot in six weeks? Support ground troops while flying at 400MPH?

Our next naval war will be with Japan, not China.

While I'm a military equipment fan, I'm pretty tired of our recent "accomplishments". It all seems to be doing something for the sake of doing something.

I mean, OK, we can go ahead and spend more than anyone. I don't really have a problem with that. But us spending more than the next ten countries combined, and all ten of those countries being our allies, yeah, it starts to get a little ridiculous. Especially when practicality is brought into the mix.

When's the last time we even used a bomber? The F117 in Desert Storm? Since then, I don't recall an encounter where a bomber is even practical. Seems nowadays the battles are guerrilla in nature, as opposed to two, clearly defined masses of units. Bombing doesn't work here, at least not the type where you need a dedicated bomber. Strike fighters delivering accurate single munitions certainly can take care of the small, isolated installations currently on our radar. Even those aren't exactly necessary when you have the whole of the US Navy in your pocket. Seems our artillery and cruise missiles do quite the job themselves, with zero risk of failures, pilot errors, weather difficulties, etc.

And even if a more typical war popped off, we're already so far advanced it's hard for me to envision any difficulty. Ever since WWI, when tech goes against tech, we win. Not even necessarily because of the airframe, but we have support, infrastructure, and training that far surpasses anyone else.

IMO, the F16 is more than enough. Yeah, we may see the same F16's in combat, but ours has upgraded weapons systems and AWACS and a number of things to make sure we win, and win in a landslide. Who can compete with even this old and basic aircraft? Perhaps if the UK and Russia joined forces to take us on, maybe. Certainly the Su-33 and Eurofighter Typhoon would present a challenge. But in all other scenarios, it seems pointless. Just use the F16s and F18s we have, which are already more than enough. Go ahead and put JDAMS kits on the old Mk-82's, feel free to replace the targeting systems with something more modern. But the airframes are fine. Stop wasting my money.

Quote: Face

When's the last time we even used a bomber? The F117 in Desert Storm?

Wasn't that a tactical strike fighter?

The B-1 was used in both Gulf wars. I think the B-2 saw some action because it has the range.

In one of Stephen Coonts' books, one character muses the Pentagon wants a "mean, lean killing machine they can park at the White House lawn to scare the pants off the Soviet ambassador." That's what doesn't work against guerillas any more.

Quote: Nareed

Wasn't that a tactical strike fighter?

Pah. The "F" designation was PR, nothing more. The damn thing doesn't even have radar! No radar, no afterburners, no exterior armaments, sub-sonic maximum speed, low maximum G... there is not one single bit of "Fight" in this thing. There has not been nor will there ever be an air-to-air kill on its dossier. Therefore, it is not a fighter.

Even the "Strike" is a stretch, IMO. Technically, it can be fitted with AGM's like the -65 and -88. But the vast majority of its payload has been made up of GBU 10's and 12's, which are just Vietnam era Mk-82's and 84's with guidance cones and wing attachments added to them to make them "smart". Besides those, it carries JDAMS (another "smart" munition, guided to target by another person / aircraft) and can carry the B61 tactical nuke.

They did, on paper, create different versions. I know they toyed with adding radar to implement the use of AIM-120's, and I think they even considered making it carrier friendly. But there is no actual F117B or F117N or any other variant. There's just the F117 Nighthawk. That's it. And if a plane only ever carries bombs, and only ever drops bombs, then it must be a...

(hint: it's not a damn fighter =p)

Quote: Face

When's the last time we even used a bomber? The F117 in Desert Storm? Since then, I don't recall an encounter where a bomber is even practical. Seems nowadays the battles are guerrilla in nature, as opposed to two, clearly defined masses of units. Bombing doesn't work here, at least not the type where you need a dedicated bomber. Strike fighters delivering accurate single munitions certainly can take care of the small, isolated installations currently on our radar. Even those aren't exactly necessary when you have the whole of the US Navy in your pocket. Seems our artillery and cruise missiles do quite the job themselves, with zero risk of failures, pilot errors, weather difficulties, etc.

We used B-52s in Desert Storm but figured B-1/B-1B both too expensive to lose as well as it took 8 hours to reload them vs 1 for the B-52. B-1 was not made to carry non-nukes as it was thought that conventional bombs would never be needed again. Or it was 8 hours for B-2 for same reason. Been 25 years since I read it.

We used B-2s in Kosovo making it weird for the pilots who ran very long missions but could be told by their wives to pick up milk on their way home as they were based in the USA.

IIRC we used B-1 and B-52 in Iraq.

Designed in the 1970s and early 1980s, the B-1/B-1B had the same problem as many cars of that era had: lots of new ideas on paper that the machinery could not yet handle. Sort of like a project you built and after it was done never quite worked right.

I maintain that the bigger issue is political vs. practical. One bomb hits the wrong target and you have the peacenics demanding the POTUS be arrested for war crimes. You get a dictator tells them to paint a sign saying "BABY MILK FACTORY" and lay it in the rubble and the press runs with it.

Need to spend more time fighting insurgents and learning to occupy an enemy.

Quote: Face

Pah. The "F" designation was PR, nothing more. The damn thing doesn't even have radar! No radar, no afterburners, no exterior armaments,

Well, if you put radar on a low-visibility (to radar) design, and you turn it on, the plane is no longer of low-visibility. Likewise if you add exterior armament. Afterburners would make it a great target for heat-seeking missiles (BTW, I never heard a satisfactory explanation as to how one was downed in combat in Serbia).

Quote:

Therefore, it is not a fighter.

Strike fighter. The kind that drops nasty things on people's heads in precision, tactical situations.

The Navy has a more logical naming system. Planes meant to engage and down other planes are called "fighters" and given an "F" designation. Planes which drop bombs or launch missiles at non-airborne targets are called "attack planes" and given an "A" designation. This way you can instantly see what an F-4, F-14, A-4, A-6 and even an F/A-18 are supposed to do (BTW my all-time favorites are the F-14 and A-6).

The air force calls anything short of a baby jumbo a "Fighter." I don't know how they ever bought the sole exception A-10 (also a favorite of mine; it's more a gun with a plane built around it).

Quote:

Even the "Strike" is a stretch, IMO.

One would think the "stealth" tiny, subsonic, low-IR plane would be ideally suited to function as a Wild Weasel.

Quote:

They did, on paper, create different versions.

If you look at all planes "created" on paper, it's amazing. Hell, if you look at the paper space program after Apollo, it's freaking awesome! Paper, it turns out, is rather cheap <w>

Quote: AZDuffman

I maintain that the bigger issue is political vs. practical. One bomb hits the wrong target and you have the peacenics demanding the POTUS be arrested for war crimes. You get a dictator tells them to paint a sign saying "BABY MILK FACTORY" and lay it in the rubble and the press runs with it.

It's surely political, but not for your reason. It's political because of money. We got out of the swath of destruction game after 'Nam. Even the crusty A-10 has laser designation and LITENING pods and AGM's and JDAMS. The F-15 wasn't ridiculously superior because of the airframe, it was ridiculously superior due to its radar and the AIM-120. We don't roll out a carpet of Mk-82's anymore. We find, lase, hit. That is done by systems. It's done by on board computers, it's done by AWACS, it's done by soldiers on the ground, it's done by the heads on the munitions. None of it is done by the plane itself.

The F-22 and now the F-32(?) is all about money. Contracts. Cronyism.

Quote: Nareed

Strike fighter. The kind that drops nasty things on people's heads in precision, tactical situations.

The Navy has a more logical naming system. Planes meant to engage and down other planes are called "fighters" and given an "F" designation. Planes which drop bombs or launch missiles at non-airborne targets are called "attack planes" and given an "A" designation. This way you can instantly see what an F-4, F-14, A-4, A-6 and even an F/A-18 are supposed to do (BTW my all-time favorites are the F-14 and A-6).

I know, I still disagree.

"Strike" I won't argue. "Striking", to me (and I think backed up by the powers that be) is attacking specific ground targets in-country, and the F117 sure does that. I won't fight the use of Strike. Go ahead and call it the A117.

But "Fighter" has not one iota of business being there. F-16? Absolutely. F-18? You betcha. But fighting is air-to-air. No AIM-9's, no AIM-120's, no Sparrows, it doesn't even have a GD gun. The only way it's bringing down another plane is if you reinforce the nose and boost the turbofans to be capable of "ramming speed" =p

Quote: Nareed

One would think the "stealth" tiny, subsonic, low-IR plane would be ideally suited to function as a Wild Weasel.

LOL! Methinks it's a bit frail for that. I mean, I don't know how it was designed, but I can't imagine a stealth plane being reinforced to sustain damage. And while its radar signature (or lack thereof) and cool engine may make it hard to lock upon, Wild Weasel is well within visual range and there's the small arms threat. Dunno if there's any willingness to risk a nine figure plane for that type of mission, to say nothing of the tech being taken when one is shot down.

Plus, if it ended up being good at it, they might finally retire the A-10. I would literally cry.

This is getting out of my area but seems to me that big heavy bombers are relics of the cold war. We should be emphasizing drones.