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Utopia Talk / Politics / Northrop unveils the B-21 in 9 days
murder
Member
Wed Nov 23 17:03:28
Go ahead and pretend that you're not excited.

All indications are that it will look like a scaled down B-2

Hopefully it's cheap enough to operate that we can buy ~ 200 of them so we can bomb more countries with impunity. ;o)

murder
Member
Wed Nov 23 17:04:01
http://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/air/b-21-raider/
habebe
Member
Wed Nov 23 20:26:36
You know instead of just making super duper next gen shit, the military should work on making some cheap mass produced shit too.

Hopefully this doesn't cost an arm amd a leg.
murder
Member
Wed Nov 23 21:19:43

It will. Anything stealth is going to be expensive and it's going to need a shit ton of maintenance.

Seb
Member
Thu Nov 24 05:46:42
Not convinced this is what the future wars will need. Even against peer or near peer adversaries.

Ukraine shows that the US wouldn't risk a proxy war becoming a direct conventional war against a nuclear power - so who are the non-nuclear near peers where a B21 would be useful?

Habebe is right - I think western countries need to look far more on mass produced cheap COTS based capabilities like quad copter drone swarms etc.



murder
Member
Thu Nov 24 11:59:51

"Habebe is right - I think western countries need to look far more on mass produced cheap COTS based capabilities like quad copter drone swarms etc."

Someone has to drop the 2000 lbs bombs to wreck facilities and wreck runways and bridges and so on. Quad copters can't do that. And they also suppress enemy air defenses in the early days of a conflict vs a nation that actually has any.

But mostly these bombers are part of our nuclear triad.

Hrothgar
Member
Thu Nov 24 12:08:19
Aren't the G4 aircraft basically the NATO "mass producible" status now? F-16's, F-15's, and equivalent European models?
murder
Member
Thu Nov 24 12:39:02

Anything is mass producible. It's just a matter of committing to buy it in large numbers. Which of course requires a commitment to operate and maintain them in large numbers. And there's zero chance of that.

Seb
Member
Thu Nov 24 13:00:12
Murder:

"Someone has to drop the 2000 lbs bombs to wreck facilities and wreck runways and bridges and so on"

You need a B52 replacement - possibly unmanned.

B-21 assumes that the way you degrade air defences is by flying manned platforms into contested air space and dropping a bomb on them, rather than saturating them with lots of cheap standoff munitions.

It's also possible the way you do SEAD is with swarms of quad-copters delivered from some kind of unmanned drone.

"Which of course requires a commitment to operate and maintain them in large numbers. And there's zero chance of that."

You want easily surgeable production lines for cheap disposable unmanned munitions or drones.
Pillz
Member
Thu Nov 24 13:23:21
Mass produce F-16s and F-15s? For who? Are you retarded? Who is going to pay for 4th Gen fighters? The F-15XE might be an attractive sell to some but afaik it is already cancelled

The US is pushing F-35s on every ally they have. Russian jets are more appealing from a cost perspective for developing nations, and its probable African air forces, should they ever really exist, will use Chinese jets.

Lol @ f-16 planned to be in service until 2060 world wide
Pillz
Member
Thu Nov 24 13:27:21
And Seb is right for once. The future is here and it's called drone warfare.
Pillz
Member
Thu Nov 24 13:32:07
I wonder if Japan, China, Russia or the US is the first to attempt dedicated drone carriers
murder
Member
Thu Nov 24 14:46:53

"It's also possible the way you do SEAD is with swarms of quad-copters delivered from some kind of unmanned drone."

I don't understand the appeal of "swarms". It seems like a half-baked idea. There's no point in deploying swarms of anything when you can drop one bomb or missile to destroy the target.


"You want easily surgeable production lines for cheap disposable unmanned munitions or drones."

Anything you can easily surge is going to be crap. Anything cheap is going to be crap. The cheapest thing in combat is one shot, one kill. Taking the target out with the first shot means that the operation can move forward. You send a bunch of shit drones carrying small payloads out to do the job and uncertainty goes through the roof. They would have to be large enough to carry a meaningful payload and handle the weather. They would have to be hardened against hijacking or jamming or spoofing ... at which point what is the point of them?

A bomb can glide 70 miles to a target. Put a small motor on it and it can reach anything you need to reach.
Seb
Member
Thu Nov 24 16:30:57
Murder:

Point about swarms of cheap as shit drones is while the pk for any one might be lower, the pk for the swarm is high, and it costs much less than a really expensive missile where it is economical and viable to shoot down three attacking missiles with 9 interceptors.


"A bomb can glide 70 miles to a target. Put a small motor on it and it can reach anything you need to reach."

You can also shoot it down. And we are getting our munitions into the same cost/benefit space that our manned platforms are in where the unit price goes through the roof, and we cant afford to build enough of them to keep an ongoing production line which pushes costs further up.

There is a point where quantity has a quality all of its own. Wunder weapons did not work for Germany in WWII - we won by being able to out produce them. Ditto the cold war.

I'm betting that despite stealth etc. the era of being able to harden missiles against interception is coming to an end. Saturation of countermeasures will be more reliable.

murder
Member
Tue Nov 29 06:26:28

http://www...-next-for-the-stealthy-bomber/

He explained that the B-21′s advancements in stealth capabilities, use of open-systems architecture, and inclusion of Joint All-Domain Command and Control technologies to share data across platforms will make it “the first of the sixth-gen systems.”

============================
On Dec. 2, we’ll unveil the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft. Stay tuned for your first look at the B-21 Raider.

— Northrop Grumman (@northropgrumman) October 20, 2022

============================


Can't help the feeling that this is being oversold just a bit. Probably more of a B-2.1 than a "sixth generation" aircraft.

Seb
Member
Tue Nov 29 07:13:14
Murder:

B2 was 80s tech, I suspect it probably will be a step change in what it can do from an information and networks perspective.

We are used to talking about generations of fighters and thinking in terms of more kinetic capability (better Stealth, higher speeds, more manouvreability etc).

What does that look like for a plane that has a mission to penetrate enemy airspace and attack very high value fixed targets?

Probably improved information warfare capabilities, stealth and college and control (direct attack drones, call in missiles etc. to support the main strategic attack).

Seb
Member
Tue Nov 29 07:14:08
What would a sixth generation bomber be?

Probably not something that screams asking at Mach 12 too fast to intercept. That's called a missile.
murder
Member
Tue Nov 29 07:29:45

"What does that look like for a plane that has a mission to penetrate enemy airspace and attack very high value fixed targets?"

I don't know because I don't know what the B-2 is already capable of.


"Probably improved information warfare capabilities, stealth and college and control (direct attack drones, call in missiles etc. to support the main strategic attack)."

Simply being improved would be overselling. I suspect what they really mean by 6th generation is that it will be optionally manned.

http://www...y/Article/2682973/b-21-raider/

Which the current generation of bombers are not.

jergul
large member
Tue Nov 29 08:45:06
So, has the release been delayed yet?
Average Ameriacn
Member
Tue Nov 29 09:01:01
Raid over Moscow?
murder
Member
Fri Dec 02 20:31:29

meh

Just as I thought ... B-2.1

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