I still have to find a secure source for a wee bit more dilithium crystals.
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| Science |
| Strategy Page: Rumors of a B-3 in the works! |
| 2008-03-11 |
| Stung by rumors that they were not serious about developing a new heavy bomber, the U.S. Air Force announced that it was developing such an aircraft, that it would be in service by 2018, and would be able to operate with, or without, a crew. The implication was that the design of the new bomber was already quite advanced, and that it was, like the B-2, being handled as a "black project" (all work done in secrecy, until ready for production.) So the military admitted they were making the B-3 because their feelings were hurt? The media should try that more often and see what shakes out of the tree. Maybe they'll find out about the transporter beam that is in the final stages of development. The new bomber would be similar to the current B-2 in many ways. That is, it would be stealthy, have a crew of only two, and be capable of staying in the air for over 24 hours at a time. The "B-3" would probably also be capable of super-cruise (travelling long distances at very high speeds), and would definitely have a full array of the latest sensors and communications capabilities. The biggest potential problem is cost. The B-2 bombers were so expensive that only 21 were built. One recently crashed. Adding in the development expenses, each B-2 cost about two billion dollars. If the B-3 costs a lot more, the air force will have a hard time selling it to Congress. This would be the case even if the air force came up with a design that amounted to a "semi-space" ship, that travelled at hypersonic speeds (enabling it to reach any point on the planet in a few hours). Price has definitely become a factor, and that may be why the air force has been reluctant to release any details on the next generation heavy bomber. My isn't this Anyway, when will commercial planes have hypersonic capability? Is it a fuel hog? If this article turns out to be more than just a fishing expedition by the media, then perhaps it won't be until mid-century before this happens, otherwise it won't be much of an advantage to have a stealthy bombing platform with hypersonic capability vs. a generic civilian platform with hypersonic capability. Maybe it's better to hold off if this is true. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #28 Bomb the muzzies with spare rib BBQ. Give them a little taste of infidel heaven. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-03-11 19:05 |
| #27 My vote is for cement-filled beer cans tossed out the window of a Death Star in low earth orbit. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-03-11 19:02 |
| #26 Try to make a turn at high G with a fricking bomber (that is a plane who carries over ten pounds of ordnance) Um... hate to burst your bubble, but fighters do that every day with a couple of 2000lbs bombs on them. Yes it slows the plane down a bit, but AFTER dropping everything, like I said before, a high g turn is more than feasible. B-1s still make 5g turns fully loaded, so your argument doesn't hold a lot of water. With a wing design that can spread the load over the entire airframe, 10-15g turn when loaded is possible. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-03-11 17:09 |
| #25 OldSpook, I never claimed to have invented the idea, but I do think it's the most likely scenerio. |
| Posted by: rjschwar(no t)z 2008-03-11 16:07 |
| #24 Now a B-3, with hypercruise and no pilots... that is just plain scary. It can barrel in at high Mach levels, drop JDAMs or cruise missiles, turn away at levels that would splatter a normal pilot all over the windshield and speed away at the same high speed all while remaining stealthy. Yaeh right. Try to make a turn at high G with a fricking bomber (that is a plane who carries over ten pounds of ordnance) and two things will happen: 1) your wings will fold and 2) your thirty tons of bombs will suddenly weigh three hundred tons and simply cut through the fuselage. The only advantage of an UAV design over say a B52 is that they don't neeed toilets. |
| Posted by: JFM 2008-03-11 16:00 |
| #23 AS, yes, the fighter mafia is the cause of most of the AF's problems because they have been the senior leadership for most of the last 30 years. As for the procurement problems, they stem in a large part from a decision that the AF made back in the 70's to establish "management" as a professional career field. Instead of taking officers from the field (pilots, maintenance, etc)to backstop the procurement bureaucracy, the AF took college graduates and trained them to become managers, not withstanding that they didn't have even a wee bit of understanding about what they were managing. This has resulted in a procurement system that is long on procedures and legalisms and short on common sense. At the end of the day, most of the stuff that finally gets on contract the user finds unusable. The system spends millions to make sure that no one steals a nickel, but slows procurement down to the point that the "Enterprise" (another "leadership" euphemism to describe what is supposed to be a fighting force) almost chokes and stops. |
| Posted by: RWV 2008-03-11 15:26 |
| #22 rjschwartz, go look up the "rods from God" concept about low orbit or suborbital KEW weaponry. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-03-11 14:43 |
| #21 The points RWV makes in #9 also apply to the Navy; the F/A/G (fighter attack guys, anything that starts with a 'F') won out over the light / medium attack (anything that starts with an 'A') and got a 26,000 pound payload truck replaced with a 6,000 pound, half the radius POS. then they got the organic tanker assets ( first the KA-6, then the S-3 w/ buddy store) by hanging a store on this same POS, at the cost of running bombs. after the initial attack run, the command and control assets are gone so non-stealthy birds can make their runs and deliver mass quantities of ordnance. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2008-03-11 13:46 |
| #20 I believe a better option is to have a suborbital plane capable of dropping bombs anywhere in the world and being back in 90 minutes or less. By 2018 we could have such a beast, heck the technology is there now if we have the willingness to spend. By 2018 I believe we'll be to the point of using primarily concrete bombs for fear of collateral damage and because the kinetic energy invovled from an orbital drop would be incredible. They are also cheaper, and finding a way to drop them accurately without the advanced targeting systems on the actual bomb (thus no cost or evidence) will be a big deal. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-03-11 12:18 |
| #19 Of course, the rest of the world better hope we develop a new bomber. The alternative is hypersonic missile from CONUS to anywhere, which will cut way down on the time to get on the red phone and ask "can't we talk about this?" |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-03-11 11:27 |
| #18 It's taken the Air Force eight years (and probably more, depending on how the various lawsuits go) to buy a new tanker... it's taken them three years or so to sort out the lawsuits re: their purchase of a new Chinook helicopter for SAR work. BUT... all the problems the AF has are the result of the fighter mafia. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-03-11 11:00 |
| #17 The Navy is having the same problem. Look at the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class "destroyers". The blue services are spending too much time and wasting too much money developing wonder weapons to defeat the enemy as if it were a mirror reflection of us and not enough to defeat the enemy we actually face. And the Army still can't develop a superior rifle for the infantrymen who get killed. Sheesh. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-03-11 10:45 |
| #16 I still have to find a secure source for a wee bit more dilithium crystals. |
| Posted by: doc 2008-03-11 10:37 |
#15  As an aside, this is one of the strongest heraldric symbols ever. The clenched fist...mailed...with lightning bolts shooting out of it. You can't get much more powerful than that without going outside the genteel bounds of heraldry. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-03-11 10:03 |
| #14 HAHYAGHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG look at that command patch...I thought we'd never see the likes of that again...ROCK ON |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-03-11 09:51 |
| #13 Is it a fuel hog? The F-22, which has hypercruise, is no more a fuel hog than other fighter aircraft. The engines allow it to go supersonic without using an afterburner, so they are fairly efficient for a fighter. It takes time to get up to speed, but no more fuel than normal acceleration. Now a B-3, with hypercruise and no pilots... that is just plain scary. It can barrel in at high Mach levels, drop JDAMs or cruise missiles, turn away at levels that would splatter a normal pilot all over the windshield and speed away at the same high speed all while remaining stealthy. Talk about a military equipment hard on! w00t! |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-03-11 09:48 |
| #12 Costs favor long range missiles and low cost aircraft. Tomahawk: $600K Stealthy JASSM = $1M B2 w/ R&D: $2.1B = 2100 JASSM or 3500 Tomahawks This new bomber won't be any different because the funds won't be authorized to build it in quantity. Buy cargo aircraft conversion with bomb bays. In a high intensity war bombers won't survive repeated missions over hostile territory, so fire long range missiles instead. For brush wars, any heavy aircraft will do. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-03-11 09:40 |
| #11 As painful as it sounds, it might be tactically better for the congress to demand that the AF develop a decidedly low-tech bomber, of the old school, that is, a higher altitude cargo delivery plane. Since developing air superiority and suppressing enemy SAM activity has been such a high priority, after the initial battle, US bomber needs have been essentially cargo delivery. The aircraft don't need all the high tech defensive gizmos that cost a fortune. This is why B-52s are still in such high demand in conflicts. They are very low cost and low maintenance to operate compared to more modern bombers, yet perform the same mission just as well or better. In a future conflict, the AF should use its high tech bombers just at the start, then send them back home when all their special and expensive capabilities are no longer needed. At that point, you need a reliable work horse. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-03-11 09:28 |
| #10 The delivery system isn't important. It's the ordnance delivered on target. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-03-11 09:16 |
| #9 As an old bomber guy, let me add a few thoughts to the mix: 1. From 1945 to 1965, the AAF and AF bought ~4500 bombers; from 1965 to present, 123. 2. The fighter mafia is getting its butt kicked daily by Congress and the UAV crowd. Case in point, you don't exactly see the sky filled with Raptors. 3. The B-52 will never be stealthy, but has phenomenal endurance and a huge payload. 4. Obsolescence is relative to mission, not technology. The basic philosophy of using the B-52 hasn't really changed much. Something else (formerly missiles, now LO aircraft) will kick down the door. Then the BUFF comes through and kills all the bad guys. The BUFF has been upgraded to handle all the modern weapons systems and is continually improving its systems. The latest is the CONECT program. 5. The AF fighter mafia has just about ruined the AF in its quest to "recapitalize" the fighter fleet. It keeps cutting money from other elements to fund new fighters and Congress keeps the money and doesn't buy fighters. The contraction of the force is real and is starting to impact capability. 6. As far as bombers go, there is a movement to get the band back together again. AF Cyber command (AFCYBER) stands up 1 Oct 2008. In spite of the name, one look at the command patch tells you all you need to know about it. 7. I doubt if there will be another manned bomber. The developments in UAVs are breathtaking and UAVs are significantly cheaper than manned aircraft and much more acceptable politically. |
| Posted by: RWV 2008-03-11 09:16 |
| #8 Just because it's still useful in certain situations doesn't mean it's not obsolete. The AS/400 is obsolete as hell, and they're still being used. A B-2 with its stealth rendered useless by new tech will be about as useful as a tub of warm pudding. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-03-11 08:34 |
| #7 Yeah, the B-52 sure is obsolete. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-03-11 08:13 |
| #6 The B-2 will be as obsolete as the B-52 in another 10 years...without its stealth it's actually a pretty crappy aircraft. |
| Posted by: gromky 2008-03-11 06:56 |
| #5 ...Well, nobody should get too excited about it. The EARLIEST IOC for a B-3 will be around 2025-2030 as the last B-1s leave service (B-2 is expected to be around til about 2035-2040)and by that point there won't be any constituency for a new bomber. The Fighter Mafia will have won simply by attrition. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2008-03-11 05:01 |
| #4 The increases production costs could be offset by the closing of golf courses. No pilots, etc. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-03-11 02:17 |
| #3 1.33 Gigawatts isn't as hard as it used to be. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-03-11 01:28 |
| #2 To good Joe. Be sure to use the dynamic flux capacitor. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2008-03-11 01:22 |
| #1 Sounds like the USAF = US Space Force + B3 needs a PU286 EXPLOSIVE FLUX CAPACITOR-R-R, ala Marvin Martian + Doc "Back to the Future" Brown, as opposed to SADDAM's SUPERGUN DESIGN. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-03-11 01:06 |