You don't get a simple point do you.
Your comment was ambigious.
You said that for difficult targets the US military would not use their brand new super stealthy high tech currently vapourware B-21... that instead they would do what the Russians have been doing for decades... using standoff missiles instead of dumb gravity bombs.
So if they are not using their strategic bombers in a war against Russia or even China and that instead they will be using transport planes with the standoff weapons the Russians have been using for the last 40+ years then their strategic bombers are only useful against third world countries if they cannot be risked against an enemy air defence network.
The idea here is to increase the fleet of strategic bombers not by building more B-52, B-1, B-2 but by using existing transport aircraft as strategic bombers that can deliver long range strike weapons like JASSEM-ER.
Well the idea is bloody stupid... it would make more sense to adapt your strategic bombers into strategic cruise missile carriers... like the Soviets did in the 1980s, and keep your transport planes for transporting stuff which is what they were designed for.
Look at how pathetic the AC-130s are in the face of even just MANPADS... ironically using standoff expensive weapons on a transport plane is such an American idea.... many airforces have loaded dumb bombs on transport planes and flown over enemy positions above the height of MANPADS and just dropped bombs... it is cheap and simple. Dropping guided bombs or using some bombing avionics system to get it accurate so you can use dumb bombs with good enough accuracy to get the job done is something the Russians are doing, but what the Americans want to do is take a C-17... an enormously expensive transport plane and use it to carry stand off missiles their B-52s could already carry much more efficiently and cheaply to make it all nice and expensive while pretending to save money.
If the B-52s were expensive they would be gone.
The goal is to reconfigure Air Force airlift assets, which are normally employed for missions such as the transportation of personnel and equipment, so they can cheaply launch a mass of standoff weapons without having to move into contested airspace.
But those standoff weapons can't even make it to Syrian targets let alone Chinese or Russian targets and would present very juicy targets for MiG-31s... a C-17 doesn't have the electronic self defence avionics that a B-52 does...
This is just the case of Boeing trying to screw the US tax payer with planes they already bought too many of because the production model was a con.
But it worked so well they repeated it for the F-35... they will soon have 1,000 F-35s that still don't work properly...
This will save taxpayers billions in platform modification costs and also provides a new capability to get a large number of airborne [strike] assets into the theater.
No, it shows how backward the USAF is wanting a nuclear bomber instead of a standoff cruise missile carrying strategic aircraft.
Re your point about getting shot down, which aircraft is immune to that? A Tu-160, Tu-95, Tu-22 won't last long over U.S, NATO airspace either.
No aircraft is immune to that, but the B-2 and B-21 are first strike stealth weapons so they have to penetrate airspace with active air defence systems.
The new Russian air defence systems are linked to an IADS but can just as easily operate on their own and are fully mobile so even after SLBMs and ICBMs have landed many will still be fully operational and waiting...
And that is also the point... Tu-160s and Tu-95s carry 5,000km range stand off nuclear armed cruise missiles and they are working on a scramjet powered 11 metre long hypersonic missile with a 12,000km range called Gzur II, so the requirement to be stealthy for these aircraft is not that high... especially as they are not first strike aircraft that will likely arrive several hours after their ICBMs and SLBMs and even IRBMs from some locations have done their damage.
Where on earth did you get the impression that they'll keep the bombers in their hangars and that they won't be fit for purpose?
RTN basically said that when it is too dangerous to use their strategic bombers they will use transport planes with standoff weapons instead... what else are you going to do with bombers? Also while all these transport planes are flying carrying stand off weapons, then how are they moving troops and equipment etc etc?
How many paratroopers can a B-52 carry?
He showed a video from Boeing, but those transports will be busy doing other things, it makes more sense to equip your bombers with standoff weapons like the Soviets did in the 1980s.
Also I partly disagree on your point about the Raptor and Spirit, like it or not they are still capable aircraft and I imagine if push came to shove, the raptors would swat plenty of Sukhois... if they're not sat on the hardstanding being fixed.
Raptors wont be a problem... they have less than 190 of them so they will most likely be deployed to CONUS to defend against incoming cruise missiles... they simply don't have the flight range to come over the poles with the bombers and even if they did the MiG-31s have R-37Ms to swat them at long range... the R-37Ms have an almost ballistic trajectory to maximise range and coming down near vertically on an F-22 and I rather suspect it wont be as stealthy as you might think... certainly any inflight refuelling aircraft can be clubbed to death. The B-1Bs they are deploying to Norway have their bases inside the 400km range of the S-400 batteries stationed at Murmansk, and MiG-31s would clean them up too.
In comparison the B-2 is a subsonic target that their ground based radars will detect at enormous range like the Australian radar network detected them from about 6,000km when they were heading for the Middle East. A subsonic flying wing with no defences is not a challenging target for a supersonic fighter.
American planners haven't been great, it is fair to say they didn't acquire enough B2s and F22s.
Actually I would argue they bought too many of both... they have only started using F-22s recently and the B-2 hasn't done anything a B-52 could not do so far.
Their ideal post cold war plan would have been to cancel the B-2 and F-22 before any were made. Start with the F-35 but don't require it to be a VSTOL fighter... just design two versions... a carrier capable cat assisted take off model for carriers and for land and a VSTOL subsonic version for their Marines if they are so desperate for such a thing. The standard version would be a stealthy manouverable sophisticated 21st C F-16, and the VSTOL would be a sort of 21st C Buccaneer... but don't emphasise the stealth too much and make them super expensive like they did.
They could adapted the F-35 to a larger twin engined model later on when Russia and China started to develop but for most of the 1990s and early 2000s Putin was trying to get the west to create a partnership with Russia rather than being an aggressor as depicted in western press.
eventually refers to a way to deliver TACTICAL stand-off weapons.
Nothing to do with the role of STRATEGIC bomber the B-21 will have.
Needless to say also Russia is doing the same. With Il-76.
No they wont.
For the Russians their strategic aircraft are cruise missile carriers and infact the White Swan and Bear have lost their ability to carry conventional bombs and just carry stand off weapons. For conventional bombing at the moment they use the Su-34 for medium range and Tu-22M3M for long range... AFAIK they don't have any strategic nuclear free fall bombs... they are all theatre bombs carried by the Su-34 and Tu-22M3M.
In the future Russia might use a few dumb bombs on Il-76s for supporting landing troops, but for the stuff they are doing in Syria with Backfires dropping bombs they will use the PAK DA which will carry bombs for theatre conflicts and standoff nuclear weapons for strategic roles.
is out of place. It's a form of parallel development of basically the same thing with same function. And same limited role.
The suggestion that the Russian air defence network is too tough to crack and that they expect to launch enormous numbers of standoff weapons from transport planes is ridiculous... such tactics would be asking for a flight of MiG-31s to launch a high speed attack to shoot down those transports and those standoff weapons would struggle to make a dent in the Russian air defence network let alone start to defeat actual targets.
Naturally also the Backfire could carry stand off and long range antiship missiles, so even it could perform same role than the other two when facing NATO.
Actually its primary role was theatre SEAD strike with those big anti ship missiles with their big heavy HE warheads replaced by compact small nuclear warheads and more fuel to maximise the range at which they could destroy the HATO air defence network and HQs and Comms centres.
B-21 and PAK-DA are however very similar: so smearing one and promoting other would be only a sign of chauvinism at this point of their parallel development.
Not at all... the PAK DA is only intended for a theatre bombing role and in the strategic role would never carry bombs... that is idiotic.... even against an enemy with weak air defences like the US and HATO.
Russia doesn't have an analogue to the JASSM-ER.
Kh-102 has a flight range of just over 5,000km, so you are right... it is not an analogue of the Jizzm.
Air launched kalibr with 2500km range :
That is a Navy weapon... the standard weapons of the Bears and Blackjacks will be nuclear armed 5,000km range Kh-102s. Previously they used the 3,000km ranged Kh-55SM as its standard cruise missile payload. An enlarged Kalibr using the new technology developed for the Kh-101/102 is entering service with a range of 4,500km in the conventional warhead model for ground targets.
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