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Thats nice to hear... |
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Good stuff, that ought to tide us over nicely until about 2012 or so when the X-45C makes manned bombers obsolete.
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Please divert them to the
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nice. reading threads like this always puts a smile on my face
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Now with 5X the whoop ass!
I love it! Peace through superior firepower, baby, yeah! |
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You're shitting me right? Been using them since the late 90s. Everywhere from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan to Iraq. |
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Yup! www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/afm151.htm
In all fairness though, the B2 has performed admirably for the last 10 years, bombing Afghanistan and Iraq from Missouri is no easy task. |
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I could believe that we bombed the Chinese to prevent them from using that new tech on our aircraft. Sounds like it would have been better to send in Jack than a B2 but whatever, I always figured there was more to that story.
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Except that JDAMs aren't released at low altitude. |
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B1's ability to dash at supersonic speeds is a flaw...it's much easier to pick up on IRST. |
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At night, at high altitude? And these are "independently targeted, “smart'' (GPS-guided) weapons, not just dumb bombs. |
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Its STEALTH, it doesn't need to be supersonic, and JDAMS and such can be dropped from high altitude. The planes are already built anyway, so why not make the best use of them? |
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D'ya wanna know a secret? You can also drop JDAMS from a B1's since 1998… and about twice as many of them So if the guys on the ground need support they have to wait for nightfall and no moon now? Hmmm, B1's go about their business in broad daylight… speed is life… |
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Not twice as many, 1/3 more. The B-2 has two rotary launcher weapon bays, the B-1 has three. The B-2 has considerably more range, unless you put a fuel tank in the B-1s aft bomb bay, and then they have the same payload and about the same range (if you keep the Bone out of burner). The speed difference is about .2 mach, high subsonic vs. low supersonic isn't much of an advantage. I love the B-1 but the B-2 is a damn fine bomber, British penis envy notwithstanding. |
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So while this STEALTH bomber is doing bomb runs at noon it cannot be seen now? What has it? A Romulan cloaking device so people on the ground can't look up and see it or a pilot in the air can't see it either? Funny thing about it being STEALTH and not needing to go supersonic… if this is so, why did they make the F-22 VERY supersonic? Prolly for the same reason as they are laying off the F-117, you can only deploy a subsonic STEALTH aircraft at night and no moon.... A B-2 in daylight = large, slow, non agile target So, you're back to 'Plan A'… call on the 'Bone'… speed is life… |
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So you're saying the B-1 is less vulnerable only because it is faster? As for agile, it's still a bomber, what do you expect it to outmanuever? Gunfire? Don't have to worry about that at high altitude, which is what JDAM allows. Never mind it is also more visible on radar, generates more heat, etc. |
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NO way can you use a B2 in daylight in an oppossed environment… it would be an easy kill for a fighter using nothing nore sophisticated then the Mk1 eyeball and cannon fire… I doubt if there is any fighter in the hands of a BG's that can catch a Bone running fast on the deck turning and burning…
Pointless comment, merely serves to diminish your professionalism… |
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And a B-1 is more vulnerable to radar guided and heat seaking missiles.
Let's review the successes of low altitude bombers. We've got the Tornado, which suffered heavy casualties in an opposed environment during the Gulf War. We've got the F-111, whose terrain following radar warned of its approach, and it also suffered casualties bombing Libya. If my numbers are right they also lost six during Desert Storm. Sure they can avoid fighters; although, with modern look down/shoot down radars and missiles this has never really been tested in combat. However, they also open themselves up to all sorts of hazards from the ground. The B-1 more so, simply because of its size. |
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Yes I have, not that impressed. Those issues mean little in a visual arena… trying to put a big old B-2 over a contested target at 40K ft in daylight would be suicide without fighter and SEAD support… Wait a minute, that's the same requirement you'd need for a B-1. The B-1 if you recall was originally designed to attack the Soviet Union. The idea, back then, was there wouldn't be too much airspace that was contested because the ICBMs would have done much of the suppressing already. |
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As to the Tornados… attacking air bases has always been the most dangerous mission a bomber can undertake… and the nature of the JP-223 anti runway bomblet dispenser required you to fly down the runway straight and level at 50 ft and 500knots, as soon as that crazy stupid weapon was discarded the looses stopped. As to the F-111's Libya was a CFT avoiding groundfire as was the one loss (EF-111) in GW1 The highest loss/damage rate by % in GW1 was AV-8's and Harriers… subsonic planes… |
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Looses? Not a good day for the Queen's English.
Does the reason for the loss matter at that point? It was avoiding groundfire something that doesn't have to be done if you're flying high enough.
Subsonic planse flying low-level missions, ie CAS. In particular, the AV-8 series is very vulnerable to ground fire. Again, you're subject to ground fire because you're flying low. Now let's get back to why you fly low. Two reasons really. It reduces the enemy's radar coverage. You fly low enough to get in the gaps. Two, you fly low to put unguided ordinance on target. The B-2 reduces radar coverage by its very nature. With JDAMs you don't have to fly low to put ordinance on target. What was your argument again? |
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B1 and B2 are both great American aircraft. Both have been tested in combat, both are performing missions which were not their orginal priority. I don't see the problem, If we need to use a B1, send a B1. If we need to use the B2, send it. If we need both, go ARFCOM and get both. Both great tools in the toolbox that are the envy of other nations.
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I recall that the Chinese had one of our crashed F 117's in their embassy. That was the only target identified by the CIA in the entire war. |
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Maybe… but using a hugly expensive, super stealthy precison strike bomber to do saturation laydown bombing (and lets face it, you just know the Blue Suits will start using it for that rather than attacking 80 different targets on a mission) makes as much sense as hanging a 5" gun off a CVN and using it for naval gunfire support, works fine… but just a tad overkill on the choice of delivery platform… Keep the B-2's for what they do best… dropping large bunker busters on high value 'hard' targets, rather than mud moving which the B-52 and B1 do just fine. |
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like arfcom, we got both! |
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Actually, that's not what the "bluesuiters" will use it for. Over the last 15 years they've revolutionized the way air wars are fought. This capability allows them to be even more dynamic. They will get inside the enemy's OODA loop and stay there dismantling them systematically. |
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... true, you just don't very often in this business |
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Gee I wonder what Curtis LeMay would have done with a squadron of those lovelies?
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Hmmm. Bombed Japan back into the Stone Age? |
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HAHA! OODA loop! I can't believe you just typed that. yes, I know what it means - I just can't believe you managed to use it in conversation - especially regarding aviation. Matt |
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Nah… <USAF OODA Loop> Hmmmm… looks dangerous over Afroislamichinastan General… we might get our best toy broken… Fuck that!! get the Navy to hit it… Fancy another round of Golf Colonel?…<USAF OODA Loop> ANdy |
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It must be that USAF JPME course I'm taking. Don't tell anyone. |
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What, then, should be made of the Serbs downing
an F-117 with a barrage of Russian-made SA-3 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)?23 Although an authoritative public accounting of the shootdown is not available, numerous factors probably contributed to the loss. Support assets may not have been positioned properly, the missile site was either unknown or the SAM had been moved from a previously known location, the F-117 was flying along a route repeatedly used to strike key targets, (thus allowing the enemy to anticipate the aircraft’s location based on dead reckoning from a known point and time), and some operator error or technical malfunction may have kept the bomb bay doors open longer than planned, providing a targetable radar return.24 In any case, the downed F-117 is a dramatic reminder that stealth aircraft can be shot down, and that survival against sophisticated defenses requires continual attention to all-aspect low observability and innovative tactics. In this regard, stealthy aircraft are not much different from stealthy submarines, which have had their share of losses when stealth was compromised, however briefly. Northrop grumman finding http://www.analysiscenter.northropgrumman.com/files/analogues_stealth.pdf |
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Never played anything except miniature golf. This course is on my own time. |
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B-1s during the day, and B-2s at night obviously. This is like why I have an M4, a .30-06 bolt action, an AR-180B, and hope to get a FAL. Different rifles for different jobs. |
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Golf is not really a 'Navy Thing'… The green don't stay still… ANdy |
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B1 was certainly no shrinking violet when it came to price. B2's price may have been less if we built more than 21. I agree that 96 SDB's in a B1 is where it's at. That should make the boys on the ground happy. |
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I don't see this as a movement toward having the B-2 perform a CAS role for troops on the ground who need help. It seems to me that this is simply giving the B-2 the ability to strike at small targets if necessary. For example, we plan a land invasion with tanks, and send in a few B-2s to wipe out the enemy in a certain area to give our tanks a clear path on the first night of a war, before we've achieved air supremacy or taken out enough SAMs to clear the way for traditional air support. Obviously I know the standard plan is to wait for air supremacy before we start the ground war, but it gives you the option if you ever need it. Or, for example, if the enemy was keeping a large reserve force holed up in a base far inside the country, we could simply send in a B-2 and wipe it all out. Or if the enemy's tanks were retreating, you could send a single B-2 and clear them out in one night instead of several days of attacks with fighters. Maybe a B-1 would be more suitable for those attacks, but if it was a high risk environment (lots of SAMs and aircraft) and the enemy's tanks were a high value target for whatever reason, a B-2 might be sent.
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We were offered 20 more at $500M each, should have took them. It would bring the unit cost down and stop the penny penchers from crying about the "$2B bomber". Big airplanes are expensive anyway, anybody know what list price on a B-777 or 747 is? Now imagine if you only built 20 777s. |
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