vinay60000

By idrw team
Published: June 1, 2006
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By Stephen Trimble JDW Americas Bureau Chief Long Beach, California Bombing a swarm of small attack boats with a fusillade of nearly 100 precision-guided munitions is a new mission being considered for the US Air Force's B-1B Lancer fleet. The air force has taken on the challenge of striking targets in the maritime domain using air-dropped munitions, but the task is complicated by the effect of ocean waves on the precision targeting systems of most smart weapons. However, an exercise staged off the Hawaiian coast in November 2004 demonstrated that a fighter could strike a large vessel using a modified Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) receiving target co-ordinate updates from multiple airborne radar systems. With a current load of 24 JDAMs or a future maximum load of 96 Boeing Small Diameter Bombs, the B-1B is considered a potential solution for the swarming boat scenario, in which dozens of small vessels are used to overwhelm a naval target.

link :http://www.idrw.org/index.php?categ...p2_articleid=22

Anon

Oh JESUS CHRIST with the small boats already!

It would take HUNDREDS of small 50kt suicide boats to overcome a CVBG's outer ring of EXISTING defenses, and probably 50 just to overcome a single Burke DDG or Tico.(assuming an alert crew at battlestations in a 'weapons free' zone, ie totally permissive ROE, which i dare say dropping 100 JDAMs from a Bone ALSO requires, lolol)

This is a neat capability they're developing, but ENOUGH with the stinkin' small boats already. They obviously intend it to be used against you know.......WARSHIPS.

Like Chinese landing ships or phibs, for instance.

WTF already...

-{SpoonmaN}-

I've been wondering why the USAF doesn't have more Lancers, seems to me they're a pretty useful bird given that they cost a lot less than the Spirit. I know they're supposed to have had maintainance problems but I'd imagine they don't compare to the garage queen B-2, so what's the beef, why didnt the USAF push them as the backbone of their bomber fleet?

Anon

Because they have maintenance problems. As in they're hangar queens.

They simply break too much to be the backbone of anything, lol.

canoe

They can't be as bad as the B-2's though I saw the maintence man hours per hour of flight awhile back and it was something pretty rediculus. I'll try and see if I can find the link again.

*Update: got one source stating 25 hours of maintence per flight hour.

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/arti...0065920396.asp
http://www.clw.org/archive/oldclw/pages/8_75.html

Trying to find sources for B-1B maintenance, so far only info I've found says less then half the time of the B-2.

JCSVT

I love the B-1. I wish the USAF would put a little more money into them as they are capable of more than what they are using them for. Then again, it takes a lot of money to keep the big bombers flying.

Can't see the B-52 or B-2 flying 200 feet off the ground at almost Mach speed though.

canoe

An interesting quote for the second site I listed above.

"Even if the new B-2C's per-unit cost remains $735 million, the American taxpayer is still being taken to the cleaners. For the cost of a one new B-2, ninety-five B-1 bombers can be equipped with almost 37,000 of the satellite-guided bombs--or "JDAMs"--carried by the stealth bomber. While the B-2 flew only 50 missions over Kosovo, 37,000 satellite bombs would enable the B-1 to fly more than 1,500 of the same sort of missions now flown by the B-2, hit more targets during each mission, and do so at a fraction of the B-2's operating cost."

So if I'm reading this right, 1 B-2C or 95 B-1B's???
Ok nm I think I did read that wrong, I think its 1 B-2 costs the same as 37,000 bombs.

1 B-2A is about the same price as 11 B-1B's.
1 B-2C is about the same price as 3.5 B-1B's.

Anon

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a

Excerpts from GAO report:

"The B-1B has never reached it's goal of a 75% readiness rate"

"During the two years proceeding the test the US B-1B mission readiness rate averaged about 57%"

"With full spare parts support....a rate of 75% was achieved in the test"

57-75% mission readiness for B-1B, there you have it.

canoe

But the B-2's are no better at 46.1% readiness rate. And thats with over 1,000 people maintaining 21 planes.

JCSVT

I heard that the B-1 readiness rate was pretty high during the Afghanistan and Iraqi conflicts. They really put some power down in those operations.

Anon

So the B-2 is also a hangar queen, what do you want me to tell you?

LOL.

The B-52 has much better readiness than either of them.

canoe

Well there were definately used more then the B-2's I'd have to poke around to see what type of ratio were talking about though.

*Ok got some stats finally:

In Afganistian long range bombers delivered 70% of the ordinance.
The B-2's only did 6 of the roughly 600 long range bomber strike missions.
The exact amount of ordinance dropped by the B-1's is classified.

*Taken from Globalsecurity.org*
"While military analysts say the B-1 appears to be the "star player in Afghanistan" the Pentagon has been reluctant to talk about it. Eight B-1s based on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia are flying about four sorties a day dropping majority of the tonnage in Afghanistan, military sources say. But the Pentagon has steadfastly refused to provide details of the B-1's role. "

"Recent Pentagon data from Afghanistan indicate that the B-1 is the least expensive way of dropping munitions, compared with the B-2, B-52 and even the F-15 fighter. "

Cost per hour of operation:
B-1B: $35,000
B-2A: $55,000
B-52: $25,000

canoe

I just can't understand why some Americans don't like the B-1B's. They were designed and produced under budget and ahead of schedule. They are the fastest long range bomber in inventory and carry the largest payload. They relatively cheap to acquire and operate.

While they do have their maintence problems they still perform better in that area then the B-2's do.

With modern standoff weapons and enchanced sensors and ECM packages I could see them being an excellent conventional bomber. And at 200 million each are a much easier loss to take then a 2.2 billion dollar stealth bomber. And they can get to the time critical targets alot faster.

IMO I think the B-2's should be reserved strictly for the nuclear role. The day to day conventional bombing can be done cheaper and more effectively by B-1B's and B-52's.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/ne...2-attack02.htm

JCSVT

It's because the USAF has to show that it's actually using the B-2. If they don't use it, the government will view all similar high-tech, high-price projects as useless.

I would really like to see an overhaul or at least a structrual update of the B-1 fleet. It's has a lot of desirable features that the B-52 and B-2 just don't have. The only downside to the plane is that it requires a lot of maintence and it's range isn't as long as the other bombers.

Like I said before, with some money put into it, it can be a very dangerous weapon. Besides, I've got a thing for planes no one else seems to support like the B-1, Super Hornet, and Eurofighter. All of them are my favorite planes besides the F-22.

canoe

Well my view has nothing to do with cheering for the underdogs. This is another case like the F-14's where if this bomber goes theres nothing to replace it. B-2's are very role specific and B-52's are too slow and vulnerable.