April 9, 2016: A pair of U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, taxi after landing at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. (Reuters/Air Force)
Military.com: Without New Nuclear Weapon, B-52 Bomber Mission Ends, General Warns
If the United States doesn't invest seriously in the Long Range Standoff Weapon, commonly known as LRSO, it can kiss the future of the B-52 Stratofortress bomber goodbye, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said Wednesday.
Gen. John Hyten said the LRSO is necessary for the B-52 long-range bomber because the B-21 Long Range Strategic Bomber -- the Pentagon's latest classified multi-billion dollar program -- can carry out only one nuclear mission at a time.
"We expect [the B-52] to be a nuclear-capable platform" lasting into the 2050s, Hyten told the audience during a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
The LRSO program would replace the AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missile, known as ALCM, developed in the early 1980s.
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WNU Editor: The B-52 will still be used for this .... Today's B-52s Are Not The B-52s That Your Dad Flew (January 18, 2015). On a side note, I am surprised about this ....
.....B-21 Long Range Strategic Bomber -- the Pentagon's latest classified multi-billion dollar program -- can carry out only one nuclear mission at a time.
I guess they are cutting corners for this future bomber.
6 comments:
More fiction from the pork barrel champs. The B21 can drop one nuke (i.e., B61 bomb) at a time because IT'S A NUKE. You don't drop sticks of those puppies on ISIS positions to carpet bomb them. 340 kilotons will take out most cities, never mind point targets. Dropping two at once isn't a freaking mission requirement.
More fiction from the pork barrel champs. The B21 can drop one nuke (i.e., B61 bomb) at a time because IT'S A NUKE. You don't drop sticks of those puppies on ISIS positions to carpet bomb them. 340 kilotons will take out most cities, never mind point targets. Dropping two at once isn't a freaking mission requirement.
The whole point of the B-52 was to be able to target numerous targets. It looks like that doctrine is now passe.
Guys. .. it's Semantics here. .."one mission" can mean anything. There's no technical reason why the B52 couldn't carry more. A B52 can easily carry 5 tons of payload. If the holding/weapons delivery mechanism isn't equipped to handle more, that's a technicality and upgrades can change this (as has been done many, many times to the B52). So yeah, in theory and practicality a B52 could "carpet nuclear bomb", but if that makes a lot of sense I don't know...haven't seen that yet :))
The B-52 has never dropped a nuclear weapon in anger, but has dropped a few million tons of conventional bombs. As long as it continues to be that kind of a bomb truck, it'll still have a mission, nuclear bombs or not.
Why put a nuclear bomber where a nuclear missile can go? The big problem is it's conventional capacity. The stealth bombers don't have that capacity and the B1 has less capacity and isn't anymore stealthy than the B52.
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