US Airforce B-1R

[PeriscopeDepth]

Jeez. Here I am arguing about airplanes with you again. Well, just the finer points this time.

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

We need the B-2. No way around it. We won't have a first strike bomber capability in the future if we got rid of B-2.

See below. Bunker buster is what makes it worth keeping for a conventional war, IMO.

No way, not even a B-1R, could penetrate the air defenses of a country with a few bucks in it pockets come even tomorrow.

F-22 can and will be used for this in the future. And won't cost over a billion bucks if it gets popped. Though I'm not sure if you're talking nuclear strike or not...

The B-2 is the only bomber that can go in with the first wave. So if you have some major Command and Control to knock out in the opening moments of an engagement, B-2 is the only answer for the job.

Which seems to be its only worth in a conventional war, IMO. It can carry EGBU-28 while maintaining full VLO, nothing else can.

The B-1 is only good after the C3 and air defenses has been neutralized. Hence why B-1 was on the chopping block in 2001.

Which will be within the first hour of any conflict. Unless it's that only "near peer" that justifies all those platforms we're buying that are Cold War spec'd.

Using B-2 to drop a command bunker in the near future may not be so viable. Because while invisible to radar, it will be optical and sound sensors that are cueing the next generation autonomously hunting SAMs. But again, only IMO. I hope I'm wrong.

PD

[SUBMAN1]

You're basing your opinions on a war with a semi poor country like Iraq. Try China - nothing will be gone in one hour. Or even North Korea for that matter. North Korea would make Iraq look like a cake walk. 80,000 shells should hit the South within your first hour.

-S

[TheSatyr]

Considering how many of our troops are tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan,I'm surprised North Korea hasn't attacked South Korea. This is a golden opportunity for them.

On the other hand,attacking SK and the USA might just piss off China so maybe that's why NK is behaving itself.

[Zachstar]

This is what they want to do to keep the B-1 flying well into the next few decades?

Not going to happen... If the soviet union were still around maybe... But today FA-22s amd F-35s with highly trained pilots can do the job of removing any threat before bombers pour in and devestate.

No B-1 is ever going to face a fighter unless there is a SERIOUS blunder in planning.

As for China? When you look deep enough past the BS spin you note that their forces are pathetic. Their Aircraft are usually purchased or copied from russia and do not have as many advanced features. Their Navy would be wiped out with our Seawolves, 688s, Cruise Missiles, and the surface fleet. No the damage they can do is economic not military.

North Korea? Someone has been playing too much Falcon 4.0

Russia? They like to screw with us but they are making far too much money by NOT acting warlike. Any war situation would see their country ruined...

As for the future?

Long Range Railguns
Unmanned Aircraft
Lasers
Um... Skynet

Almost nothing outside of Star Trek can defend against a Railgun Shot.

[Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

As for China? When you look deep enough past the BS spin you note that their forces are pathetic. Their Aircraft are usually purchased or copied from russia and do not have as many advanced features. Their Navy would be wiped out with our Seawolves, 688s, Cruise Missiles, and the surface fleet. No the damage they can do is economic not military.

North Korea? Someone has been playing too much Falcon 4.0

Russia? They like to screw with us but they are making far too much money by NOT acting warlike. Any war situation would see their country ruined...

As for the future?

Long Range Railguns
Unmanned Aircraft
Lasers
Um... Skynet

Almost nothing outside of Star Trek can defend against a Railgun Shot.

You and your clan sound real cuties while trying to be über jingoists Wait a sec, you already said "we are the best and we will get them without any problems" before Afghanistan and Iraq episodes :rotfl:
Last time I checked that Army has lowered their recruiting crieteria, and they won't mind recruits with prior criminal record

[Steel_Tomb]

Thats a BS proposal IMHO. They say "ripple off slammers at its maximum range" wtf? They would miss! All movement costs energy, when an aircraft is engaged it will get a RWR warning and turn cold, which shortens the weapons effective envelope. It would run out of energy and just fall to the ground, no chance of a kill from that range it just doesn't have the energy to reach a maneuvering target from RMAX.

And modern next generation fighters would pick up a B-1 from quite a distance, and without fighter escort they are sitting ducks. The video talks about the opposition as if they're poorly trained pilots with no clue of air combat tactics its all BS.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

This is what they want to do to keep the B-1 flying well into the next few decades?

Not going to happen... If the soviet union were still around maybe... But today FA-22s amd F-35s with highly trained pilots can do the job of removing any threat before bombers pour in and devestate.

No B-1 is ever going to face a fighter unless there is a SERIOUS blunder in planning.

Agreed. This sounds a lot like the purposed upgrades for the Navy's A-6 Intruders way back when that congrass can in favor of more F/A-18 Hornets.

As for the future?

Long Range Railguns
Unmanned Aircraft
Lasers
Um... Skynet

Almost nothing outside of Star Trek can defend against a Railgun Shot.

A whole bunch of smaller rail guns can defend against another rail gun. Or another Railgun firing something akin to Grape Shot. Think of its as "Kinetic Chaff", the incoming round strikes a number of pellets traveling at at high velocity and they eather brake the incoming round up, reduce its velocity or both. Its sort of like the rubber ball box they shoot a gun in to get a bullet for ballistics matching on shows like CSI. The down side is that a defending city or base would eventually have a wall of used pellets around it unless someone goes out and collects them.

[Zachstar]

To knock a bullet or shell out of the air is hard enough. These are going to be going MUCH faster.

And if you manage to knock that one down? Great! Now what about the 30-80 incoming behind it?

[SUBMAN1]

I love the invincibility mindset of these fellow Americans. Hardly the case, and that mindset will get you into quick trouble.

Originally Posted by Steel_Tomb

They say "ripple off slammers at its maximum range" wtf? They would miss! All movement costs energy, when an aircraft is engaged it will get a RWR warning and turn cold, which shortens the weapons effective envelope. It would run out of energy and just fall to the ground, no chance of a kill from that range it just doesn't have the energy to reach a maneuvering target from RMAX.

2 things make this plausable - 1 is that RMAX works since the target won't be manuavering since this won't even know a missile is in flight untis the AMRAAM turns on its seeker - already too late at this point.

The F-22's AESA radar doesn't scan like you are used to - it is not mechanical like the old days and modifies its wavelength continuously. It will allow an F-22 to look at them without their RWR going off for one (the RWR never gets a solid signal and treats it as noise), and two, the F-22 is feeding the data to the B-1R's who launch on this shared data, so no one expects anything until the RWR's start going off for AMRAAM's in their terminal phase - panic time!

#3 - you are also dealing with AIM-120D's with a max range of 120 nmi.

-S

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Zachstar

To knock a bullet or shell out of the air is hard enough. These are going to be going MUCH faster.

And if you manage to knock that one down? Great! Now what about the 30-80 incoming behind it?

Speed works against it too. At high speeds a smaller object traveling at lower velocities causes more damage. Put up clouds of smaller objects in a narrow corrador to insure a hit in this case a hit would just be a slight transfer of momentum between both objects nudging one off course. This is one of the tactics NASA is talking about to knock an Astroid off a collision course with Earth.

Side note: Could you imagin what this scattershot would do to an aircraft or a cruise missile? Kind of like a stick of butter hitting a brink wall. Or what a couple thousand 1in projectiles traveling at mach 7 would do to an platoon of APCs filled with troops? To quote Sev Trek cartoon: "He's dead Jim, someone get me a sponge!"

BTW A land based weapon genneraly has a much larger supply of ammo avilable while a ship would need to rearm from an AOR.

Of course if you had a rail gun for defense why not just turn it on whoever is attacking you with one or is about to. Since a land based one can be larger than one mounted on a ship the defender gets a range advantage in additon to an advantage in ammo.

Against 3rd world countries rail guns will work great but against someone with equivlent technolgy its a diffrent story. New tech can cut both ways.

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

You're basing your opinions on a war with a semi poor country like Iraq. Try China - nothing will be gone in one hour. Or even North Korea for that matter. North Korea would make Iraq look like a cake walk. 80,000 shells should hit the South within your first hour.

-S

And almost every gun that fired those shots would be plotted within seconds and picked off by return fire.

Wonders of radar

[XabbaRus]

Some people have been reading too much Dale Brown.

Lets wait for the stealth B-52 proposal.

[Zachstar]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Some people have been reading too much Dale Brown.

Lets wait for the stealth B-52 proposal.

I'm thinking more along the lines of his StealthHawks... For Railguns.. It has been worked on for years and the Navy is less than 2 decades away from a big deployment of the weapon. 2 decades is short compared with how long it took to get the FA/22 online and for the meantime our laser technology is good enough to zap planes and warheads midflight. In the meantime tho we do NOT need to be setting the military up for more embarrassing budget cuts by considering such crazy things such as this B-1R. More than likely the B-2 program is going to be cut and we don't need anything else going with them. The whole idea of a manned bomber is becoming more and more useless. Once F/A-22s and other aircraft remove the serious air defenses. B-52s can sit WELL out of range and basically act like transport craft doing airdrops of multitudes of cruise missiles. Like it was mentioned earlier. B-2s are RARELY sent alone and most of the time are used as Glorified B-52s. There will never again be a situation desperate enough to warrant sending multi billion dollar craft deep into protected territory. Therefore they are useless. And once other nations start deploying lasers... The age of manned bombers will end.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

You're basing your opinions on a war with a semi poor country like Iraq. Try China - nothing will be gone in one hour. Or even North Korea for that matter. North Korea would make Iraq look like a cake walk. 80,000 shells should hit the South within your first hour.

-S

I agree. I think China is a greater threat, espcially since they are modernizing their military. North Korea would level Seoul before we could make a decision to do anything. I'm not worried about arab or persian nations as they are using second hand Soviet aquipment they bought at Goodwill. And even if they bought their stuff at St. Vincent's, their training is....:rotfl:

The new incarnation of the B1 reminds me of the SSGN.

[Zachstar]

By the time China halfway modernizes it's military.. We will have weapons systems online that will easily defeat any advancements they have made.

So will their fighter bombers actually be able to bomb at night now?