The New York Times tries to play up the issues of the (indeed, terrible) American military procurement system, but I think there's something else going on. The B-52's Soviet equivalent, the Tu-95 (turboprop-powered, even!) is also still flying!
Part of the cause is that big bombers with enormous payload capacity and long range can always be adapted to new missions and tactics - there's always something you can do with an extra few tens of tons of ordnance.
Where the US military-industrial complex has fallen down on the job is that the physical airframes are still from the original production run. While the USAF always thought its new and different (first supersonic, then stealth) bomber designs would allow it to retire the B-52, the Soviets kept building new variants and retiring old airframes. So while American B-52s have been heroically kept operating since the 50s and 60s, Russian Air Force Tu-95s were all built in the 80s and early 90s with assorted design improvements and new avionics.
I've often wondered why, for instance, we don't build brand new A-10 Warthogs. They provide the best close air support in perhaps the entire history of military aviation worldwide (great range, extremely resilient to small arms fire, low altitude / low speed capabilities, etc.). Instead, the Marines Corps scrambles (no pun intended) to find a replacement after realizing that the JSF program wasn't real (it turns out that the F-35 will bankrupt the Milky Way Galaxy before being finished, not to mention it has too much wing loading to provide adequate close air support). Yet, the wonderfully designed A-10 Warthog languishes in military relic status.
Why not make new copies these greats, with any of the little kinks worked out?
JSF costs are on a downward trend, and will continue that trend as production numbers increase[0]. For a financial breakdown of the projected costs of the program, see [1], [2](actual source for data in [0] and [1]).
And the program is very, very real. I am aware of other programs which really existed to funnel money to more secret programs, but the JSF program is not one of those front programs.
We don't build more A-10s because they no longer meet the projected operational needs of the USAF, which, along with the rest of the military, is changing strategic focus to the Asia/Pacific region. [3] Not to mention the production line is long since shutdown (32 years ago!) and the tooling either destroyed or lost. The knowledge to build them is lost. You do not simply build more. You have to teach yourself to build them again. This would take years.
I wrote a similarly hyperbolic F-35 comment on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9446079 earlier this year (the comment at the top). I'm half-way kidding in both comments, regarding my comments about the F-35, but on the other hand, unless my aforementioned comment about secret programs, etc. is at least partly true (meaning you're partly wrong), then the F-35 (or at least the opportunity cost of it) will surely turn out to be the fall of US military dominance.
When we're spending nearly (or more than) $100MM for a jet that cannot even stand up against an F-16, a jet introduced in 1978. That's 5 years before I was born, so it's really weird to think about a jet from that long ago even flying today, let alone a pre-Nintendo jet dog fighting (let alone, beating!) a modern jet in 2015, that surely has orders of magnitude more computational power on board than did the entire world at that time.
In other words, the scenario described is a bit like that movie, The Final Countdown, except the fighter jets on the aircraft carrier lose to Japanese Zeros :/ what a frightening situation to be in.
All that said, I understand that we live in a different world now, and that air superiority isn't defined only by dog fighting capability, and that we also have to factor in that most modern dog fights would be over before either pilot could see the other with their own eyes, and that this is, in fact, part of the promise of the F-35. But, regardless of this, what was the value gained by the F-35 by making the wings so small? A slightly larger wing size could have increased fuel capacity, increased fuel efficiency, increased low-speed and low altitude capabilities, and made it a much better dog fighter, at no real expense to other features.
Ha, no. I don't think that at all. I've watched many videos of them flying / vertical take-off. That's why I refer to my comments on the matter as "hyperbolic". When I say "half-way kidding" I'm referring to the costs primarily; as in, I have doubts that the quantities of money being dumped into the program are going completely to the F-35, and I argue that, perhaps, some (a lot?) of it is being funneled in secret to top secret projects. To state that this definitely isn't happening would be silly, since we wouldn't find out for many years, and to state that it's probably not happening seems a little silly, considering the level of cost overruns we're talking about, and considering the fed closed F-22 but now leaves F-35 open, despite gross cost overruns and lobbying by the rest of the military–industrial complex.
The A-10 is great, but there are a number of reasons why we aren't building more of them. Chief among them is that the teams and facilities that produced them have been gone for decades now. It's not a product you can simply re-order. Of the planes in inventory, it's efficient and useful in low intensity CAS, but if you were ordering new for those missions you'd likely focus on something that's less overkill and lower cost like the super tucano.
Ironically, after the request from JSOC and the Marine Corps for a modified Super Tucano (A-29B) was nixed, the United States' main procurement facility for this plan is still building them... for the Afghan airforce.
Sure, the Super Tucano doesn't have the punch from the main gun or crazy survivability of the A-10. But in a battlespace where air supremacy is guaranteed, it has the advantage of being able to get a close-up visual on the target, and accurately fire ordinance tens rather than hundred of meters away from friendly forces.
My personal understanding is that the Super Tucano was sacrificed on the alter of the myth of technological progress.
Every airframe, every digital HMI, and every weapons system must be more technologically sophisticated than the last, even if that solution is completely unsuited to ongoing and forecasted combat missions.
The fact that our most common enemies can't field a proper SAM site, much less a fifth-generation fighter, be damned.
Of course there is also the cultural issue. That the great United States might have to admit that the South Americans know more than us about air warfare in counter-insurgency campaigns is anathema to both the military and the civilian government.
However, I think light attack roles that the Super Tucano can fill can be filled by the new Sikorsky S-97 Raider, and because the Raider is a helicopter, it can also server a number of other roles, and it can land anywhere, and when you consider the cost and strategy differences between a helicopter carrier and a carrier battle fleet, or between a helicopter carrier and taking over / maintaining / defending an airfield behind enemy lines, the Raider, IMHO, will be a godsend for roles where the Apache Longbow is overkill and where the goal is to continually push for new FOBs behind the lines (range for Thunderbolt II and Super Tucano is ~800nm - got a new air field every 325 miles? Only plan to attack targets near the ocean?).
The Sikorsky S-97 is the perfect emblem of what I mean by the myth of technological progress.
The Super Tucano A-29B:
•Has a greater range, at 800nm vs. 320nm, much more for the Tucano with one pilot and the extra fuel tank, with an even greater difference if the Raider flies at top speed. (Yes, I know, it's easier to refuel a helicopter.)
•Is currently in proven service in CAS roles in COIN operations with 23,000 combat hours vs. the S-97's zero combat hours, which only flew its first demonstration flight in 2015.
•Costs far less at $9 million per unit with almost no development cost vs. a government projected program cost of $200 million and a unit cost of $15 million at full production. Defense analysts expect this to rise to $30 million a unit and $500 million in development costs.
•A low-flying CAS helicopter is a great idea, unless of course you're flying in thin air in the Hindu Kush, or your opponent has the ability to down such aircraft. Ask the Soviets how that worked out...
But the totally unproven S-97 incorporates new technology, which requires R&D thus inviting the procurement bonanza, so it beats out the combat-tested Super Tucano in the GAO procurement arena every time.
You're right, except for the first point. The value of not having to return to a base or ship to refuel cannot be passed up as a small point. It's a game changer. Being able to establish FOB and project from there changes everything in irregular warfare.
I hadn't heard about the Raider costing $30 million eventually, but that's ridiculous, if it turns out to be correct. However, $30 million is still less than half that of the AH-64D.
The one thing I'll add to your criticisms is that the Raider (badly) needs more armament (perhaps another 7-shot Hydra 70 pod).
The super tucano is a great plane. Saddened me that the Navy and Air Force couldn’t get them operational in a much quicker fashion and on a much larger scale. They provide better ground support and targeting, longer on station time, and all at a substantially cheaper cost than fixed-wing. Plugging square, fixed-wing jets into round, low-threat-CAS holes cost the American tax payers billions. This is one of my greatest disappointments in military leadership.
The A-10 is not a plane that will be useful for long. It is great against rebels with kalashnikows, but it is far too vulnerable to rockets. In 10-20 years, manpads will be commonplace, and the A-10 will be an easy target.
Its a great plane, and the JSF is shit, but we need a different solution going forward.
The A-10 was meant to go head to head with Soviet armored divisions. It's built to be hard to take out with a rocket which is what makes it so great for CAS.
MANPADS have been common for a very long time. The Mujaheddin used them with great success.
1. Manpads are already pretty common
2. A-10 has both jamming and flare countermeasures against infrared.
3. Anything terrorist groups can acquire are probably going to be infrared MANPADs. My guess is ISIL would probably have acquired MANPADs from the large cache of SA-7 MANPADs Gaddafi stocked, meaning they're all likely infrared MANPADs.
A-10s are not invulnerable against MANPADs, but they're not helpless against them either. In fact, one of the biggest reasons the air force hated the A-10 was because it was "too slow" and could be "easily" hit by a SA-7
The A-10 is too slow. It is just used in a similar way to other planes these days, to drop smart bombs, a supersonic jet can cover a lot bigger area to respond to requests from ground troops.
The main armament of the A-10, the GAU-8 Avenger Vulcan cannon, no longer does its job against modern armor. It still has all sorts of rockets and missiles it can be equipped with that do, but so do many other planes. It's fine in asymmetric conflicts like the current wars, where targets are slightly armored if that, but it will no longer serve its purpose in a war of first world nations.
Yeah, but first world nations don't fight wars with each other, they mostly finance small nations and fight proxy wars. I'd say mostly out of a (justified) fear of WW3.
The GAU-8 won't penetrate the front armor of a modern tank, but I doubt it could penetrate the front armor of 1980s era tanks, either. However, there isn't a tank in the world that will remain operational after a properly executed A-10 gun attack from the top or sides.
Don't get me wrong - I love the A-10, but it's pretty much obsolete at this point. Not because you can't use it to destroy tanks, but because there are much cheaper, safer, and more efficient ways to destroy tanks than low-and-slow strafing. A properly equipped strike aircraft can hit a tank with a laser guided bomb without ever exposing itself to AAA or MANPADS fire.
And if we're just going to mow down groups of jihadis with rusty AK-47s we should be using something cheaper like the Super Tucano II.
Armor design has advanced a lot since the 80s. I'm thinking the A-10 was actually significantly more effective against a contemporary tank than it is against a modern new production one. Sure, it could definitely still get a kill, but not as easily, and as you point out, other aircraft could do so more safely, without exposing themselves to danger.
I love the A-10 but in keeping with the rest of the US military it got lucky which hlped it's reputation enormously.
The US military spent the 80's allegedly training to fight a defensive war in Western Europe - but when you look at the wargames they engaged in what they actually trained for was an aggressive war in a desert (this isn't some wacky conspiracy theory, it's just basic incompetence by the people setting the military exercises, they looked at the crowded cluttered maps that represented Germany and despaired that they wouldn't get to use the 2 mile cannon range on their tanks in the wargames so the maps got altered until they were far to open to be Western Europe).
The A-10 is perfect for CAS in a desert - in Afghanistan they didn't do as well as their lower agility compared to other jets made it harder for them to dodge mountains which affects their legendary ability to loiter.
The A-10 is the P-51 of today. It was a defining weapon of it's time, but it became unsurvivable on a more modern battlefield. Ask the guys who flew the P-51 in Korea how awesome it was. The A-10 is extremely vulnerable to any number of modern tactical AA weapons, and it won't get any more survivable.
The B-52 airframes have long been planned to be in use for 95 years when they're finally retired. I wish I could find an image but I distinctly remember a publication from the 80's that showed a chart of the all aircraft in use from their first year of entering service to the projected EOL. The B-52 was a notable outlier in how long it was going to be kept in service. I always assumed it was an extended life test for the USAF. They are also insurance against a cataclysmic event that makes modern technology hard to maintain.
The B-52 was intended to carry out the airborne nuclear deterrent role, and therefore accrue a colossal number of flying hours. But of course after about 1992 they stopped flying quite so much.
If I remember correctly, nuclear deterrence with planes flying 24/7 in the skies was still a thing until the early 2000s. It took a long time for the Air Force to scale down that role.
"Following Operation Desert Storm, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the de facto end of the Cold War, President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney directed SAC to take all bomber and refueling aircraft and Minuteman II ICBM's off of continuous nuclear alert on 27 September 1991[85] and placing said aircraft on quick reaction ground alert"
So, still ready for Armageddon, but with a bit higher latency.
And ICBMs, too.
I prefer the idea of submarines, though. There were several cases of very serious incidents involving planes losing control and crashing while carrying nukes, at least with submarines the collateral risk on population is much less.
Water is a very good neutron regulator for fission reactions and general radiation absorbant. Not sure how it deals with fusion though (given that it contains hydrogen and a nuclear blast can probably rip apart water molecules pretty handily).
Yup: the Russian Tu-95 fleet (over 60 flying airframes) is currently undergoing modernization (upgraded navigation and weapons systems, including newer nuclear-warheaded cruise missiles) and is expected to stay in service until 2025 or later:
(They're trying to restart production of the Tu-160 -- the world's biggest, fastest bomber ever to enter service: a bit larger than a B52 but with supersonic dash capability -- but having real trouble with the engines; my money is on the Tu-95 sticking around at least as long as the B52, for exactly the same reason.)
There have never been very many operational Tu-160 bombers in service. The Tu-160 is focused on the standoff weapon role, and is ideally meant to delivering tactical ordinance while enemy air defense is still in effect. Standoff weapons are expensive, even compared to "smart" conventional weapons.
Tu-95 is a big dumb bomber much in the way the B-52 is; since it also has/is getting the standoff capability, it's hard to argue the purpose of the Tu-160.
A lot of the newer bombers were built with the nuclear role in mind; in reality the world went in the direction of smart conventional weapons instead. For that role, aircraft like the Tu-95 and BUFF are more ideal, as they can just act as a large "bomb truck" and drop a large quantity of guided conventional munitions very efficiently once air defenses are suppressed.
Eh, the Tu-160 looks like a faster clone of the B-1 Bomber. The B-1 was supposed to replace the B-52, but proved to be much more expensive and nowhere as versatile. Guessing Russia is going to find out it's also not a practical replacement for the the Tu-95 as the US did with the B-1.
The B-1 was designed for a role (low altitude nape of the earth bombing) that was obsolete before they worked out the bugs in the jet (Russian interceptor and fighter aircraft got look-down shoot-down capability). The B-1 was kept alive because of its electronic warfare capabilities, but efficiency of the bomb trucks matter more than high-speed delivery in a hostile radar environment these days.
> So while American B-52s have been heroically kept operating since the 50s and 60s, Russian Air Force Tu-95s were all built in the 80s and early 90s with assorted design improvements and new avionics.
I'd expect modern B-52s are mostly Ships of Theseus and that little of the original avionics, wiring, metal, etc. still exist.
Wiring and avionics and such, yes, but the structure is still original. This matters because of metal fatigue, which means that the structure is getting worse by the year.
Semi-modern inspection techniques (eddy current inspection) and X-ray inspection can detect hidden defects and cracks and aluminum airframes are fairly readily repairable.
I wouldn't expect that metal fatigue will prove to be an impediment to the B-52's ability to continue to deliver ordinance.
It would seem to me that if they didn't have fancy CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) and CAD packages to precisely calculate tollerances they would over-estimate and overbuild to be on the safe side. Perhaps as a positive side-effect is that those frame would last longer because of that.
This is a worthless article. Yes, the B-52 is old - but it works. Yes, replacements with different missions for different times have failed, or come and gone. We're about to build the LSB which will try to replace the old plane more directly than those previous programs. Defense procurement is messed up. none of this is news.
the article is wrong in so many of the pithy little notes that the whole thing comes off as snarky propaganda at best.
* the nuclear-powered bomber was never seen as a practical program - just a way-out-there experiment
* the B-58 was retired because ICBMs did it's job much better as soviet defenses improved
* The (x)b-70 did not have highly toxic exhaust - it used regular jet fuel. author was confused about 'zip fuel' which could have been used in many planes - but didn't go into use.
* weighed down by infamy?
* like taking a biplane to iraq? huh?
geeze - having gone over this in more depth I think that the author actually has no message at all. it's just a bit of filler, with some 1960's antiwar jabs, and an arch tone.
... but in a prelude of future problems, the first B-1 unveiled in 1985,
in front of a crowd of 30,000, failed to start.
That is not what happened, not even close. The plane was damaged during delivery two days prior to the unveiling. It didn't "fail to start", they didn't try to start it after it was damaged. All of this didn't occur "in front of a crowd of 30,000"; again, it occurred two days before.
Much like the points you made, this line is another ham-fisted attempt to paint what happened in the most embarrassing way possible, by drawing an image in the reader's mind of a bumbling pilot turning the key and the starter cranking over without starting. The author knows this (I got it from his link[1]).
What I don't get is, if it is such a simple aircraft - pretty much an airliner with the passenger section being a bomb bay - and we're pretty good at making airliners these days - why don't they as a short term stop gap just turn an airliner airframe into a bomber?
With modern materials, avionics and engines you could have a aircraft that flies faster and more efficiently, thus able to fly further and for less ongoing maintenance cost. I also imagine training would be simpler, if it meant they didn't have to train pilots with slide rules...
For a parallel, let's look at the state of the USAF tanker fleet ("Nobody kicks ass without tanker gas!") The workhorse of the fleet is the pride of 1957, the KC-135. They're old, and so the Air Force wants to replace them, with the KC-46, which is pretty much a Boeing 767 but with seats replaced with big gas tank, and boom off the back. The 767 isn't a new airframe, it's a 30 year old design. And aerial refueling isn't a new technology either. Afterall, the plane that's being replaced has been in service for almost 60 years. Proven airframe. Proven technology. This is a slam dunk right?
Well, no. The KC-46 keeps getting delayed.[1] It's essentially too complicated and too flashy. For exampe, Boeing is ditching the tried and true, and dirt simple system of guiding refueling booms by having a guy look at a window and put the boom into the receptacle, and instead go with some unproven system using an occulus rift and stereo cameras. Why? I don't know. I guess because it's "high tech".
And do you want to know the most damning part of all? Boeing currently sells the KC-767, a refueling tanker based on the 767 airframe, that not only works, but is cheaper than the KC-46, and available today!
It's almost as bad as the F-35 debacle, but not quite.
Honestly, I don't think the military knows how to buy anything, and the contractors take advantage of that. It's Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex writ large.
The hilarious thing is that the KC-46 is basically a means of keeping the Boeing 767 production line open and operating and producing airplanes even though Boeing has replaced it with the 777 and 787 for commercial customers. They may be new production aircraft, but they are not modern in any sense of the word. See also: The POTUS being about the only customer actually interested in purchasing the 747-8i these days.
A lot of what I see large defense contractors get attacked for is just them simply giving the government what the government asks for. Now, that doesn't mean the big guys are or should be immune from criticism. But they're not going to ignore a big pile of money to do something, even if that something is dumb. The days of Kelly Johnson sending money back to the government because "we're building you a real dog" are (sadly) over.
Don't forget Eisenhower's original wording described it as the military-industrial-congressional complex. The KC-X would be flying if the original contract to EADS had not been scuttled by Congress:
The original contract to EADS was scuttled because of the Government Accountability Office, which found that the selection process had been handled improperly -- specifically, that the Air Force "did not assess the relative merits of the proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria identified in the solicitation", and that the Air Force "conducted misleading and unequal discussions with Boeing" [0].
I lived in Seattle at the time, and it was widely remarked by Boeing IDS employees that the protest Boeing filed was a remarkably unusual step. They lose out on contracts all the time and just move on to the next thing; it's generally considered bad form for a defense contractor to throw a fit about losing out on a contract. But there were a lot of shenanigans, as detailed in the GAO report, which is why the decision was ultimately reversed.
FWIW, the Boeing E3 Sentry (the "AWACS plane") was based on the Boeing 707.
But for a B-52 replacement, I think civilian planes have quite a few problems. For one, the wings are attached in the wrong place; on the B-52 they're more to the front, since the bomb bay has to be at the centre of balance. (Otherwise the plane becomes difficult to control after dropping the payload.) Another issue is that a commercial jet has a unneccesarily wide body, increasing drag. (Bombs are much denser than people.) A third is that commercial jets probably can't take the same level of structural loads in case of evasive action, particularly at lower altitudes. Compare the AWACS example: that airplane should never come close to enemy fire. A bomber most certainly would have to.
All those are engineering challenges, and could be solved. I guess the biggest reason is that it would cost more than you would gain.
The B-52 is already something of a case study as far as the changes required to allow a high-altitude aircraft to endure prolonged low altitude missions. SAC's switch to low-altitude attack profiles during the Cold War resulted in a huge number of modifications and overhauls to SAC B-52s specifically to allow for prolonged low-altitude flight.
That would be workable only if missions entailed takeoff, climb to 30,000 feet, dropping bombs and returning.
Much of the design difference between an airliner and a strategic bomber is due to extreme stresses from flying balls-out speed at treetop altitude. Older B-52 variants (pre-G) were retired when they couldn't take the load, because they were designed for max altitude cruise and weapons delivery. A big part of the B-1A to B-1B redesign involved removing the fancy high-altitude air intakes and restressing for extended treetop flight (and reducing RCS).
You would of course have to replace the electronics with simpler "hardened" versions. Can't have your B-252 brought down by a cell phone :-) (let alone an EMP)
I like the idea, but likely a large number of components would be replaced by less efficient, but more durable, variants.
Everything in the B-52H is nuclear-hardened. Navigators don't actually use the slide rule or start sextant on a regular basis though they do train on it.
This article sounds like a PR effort by the USAF to help cost justify replacement of the B-52H.
The B52 and earlier bombers programs at Boeing directly contributed to the development of their airliners - so it's kind of the other way around, historically.
the B52's benefits center around it being such a simple aircraft.
modern passenger aircraft have complications and have made design decisions that increase complexity, require more maintenance, and add cost. airliners are willing to put up with these costs because they add to passenger comfort.
> Even as the bombers were being assembled, defense officials were planning their replacement, but each plan was undone by its own complexity. First was a nuclear-powered bomber able to stay aloft for weeks (too radioactive), then the supersonic B-58 with dartlike wings (kept crashing), and then the even faster B-70 (spewed highly toxic exhaust).
Second system syndrome at its finest.
Sounds like what they really want is a new implementation of roughly the same design as the B-52.
From what I've read, it seems like a problem of being overly obsessed with the highest tech and most dramatic missions. Every new bomber is designed for the goal of nuking Moscow, including figuring out the best way to get past defenses. Never mind that if we actually wanted to nuke Moscow, we would use ICBMs instead.
What we really seem to have demand for is something that can carry a whole bunch of bombs cheaply and reliably in airspace that we already have air supremacy over. But apparently the Air Force can't get it's head around that design goal. Nobody seems to want to champion a cheap, dumb bomb truck plane that does simple stuff right every time. Instead, they keep going for the technological marvel designed for a goal that we'll probably never need to do and already have better weapons for anyways.
You can't have a cheap, simple plane! Lockheed-Martin have to eat!
(unless you can get some foreign chumps to sell you their cheap, reliable planes and order Lockheed-Martin's latest contraption, which will arrive Any Day Now - everyone wins!)
Yes, I'm aware of the value of having multiple weapons systems to do a critical job. But that doesn't mean that every new bomber must be designed to nuke Moscow. Let's make the bomber version of a 747 for when we need to attack Afghanistan or ISIS, something that we can crank out cheaply and is already proven and reliable. Then we can have another project to try and make a bomber that can hit high-value well-defended targets. Or at least decide how many billions of dollars we want to spend for a redundant weapon system meant for a deterrence mission.
You are pretending that "nuke Moscow" is some kind of specialized mission requiring specialized planes that can't be used for anything else, even though the B-52 itself is a glaring counterexample.
"Carry a heavy load of weapons anywhere in the world while having a decent chance of penetrating air defenses" is a better description of what a bomber does, but that doesn't lend itself to the kind of facile sneering that was in your original post, does it?
Good luck getting the Air Force to redesign a WW2-era plane. If there's one thing I learned reading the Boyd biography, it's that the Pentagon is constitutionally incapable of thinking pragmatically about technology.
If The Pentagon Wars got only half of the problems right, this system needs to completely changed.
People who decide how to spend the money should not be going to defense contractors when they retire. And a problem that Ike pointed out 62 years ago shouldn't take this long to be changed.
How we elect our representatives is the root of the problem.
I think the real problem is the generals. They're not politically accountable, they're actually not really accountable to anybody. When they stand firm, not even the President can really tell them no.
But, ultimately, someone has to decide how our weapons are designed and built, I'm not sure how to come up with a better system.
The Pentagon would rather burn billions and billions of taxpayer dollars on probable duds than iterate slowly on proven designs. Even after Boyd showed them conclusively how stupid that was.
The Pentagon is, for practical purposes, forbidden from iteration because that's not how their process is structured. This hellacious chart [0], (which I love pointing out), is the official diagram for the Pentagon's weapons purchasing process. This process matches requirements in federal law. In other words, this process is mandated by Congress.
How do you shoehorn iterative development into this? Where does it fit? It doesn't, so it doesn't happen.
I hardly think Boyd was the first guy to show them how dumb they can be.
Which is what the Soviets did - Russia still operates Tu-95s whose basic design comes from the exact same period as the B-52, but they built new versions and retired the old ones right up to the fall of the Soviet Union.
In particular it has been just used to fire stealth cruise missiles Kh-101 - by contrast, the most modern weapon, almost 60 years younger than the bomber itself - in Syria.
Two things strike me:
1. If it ain't broke, don't fix it
2. The military/red-tape bureaucracy/contracting/bid system behemoth that has been created in the meantime disallows any innovation that could ever take its place
I'd argue your first point directly contradicts your second point.
I don't want the military failing hard and failing fast. Make it work, make it work well, and then don't mess with it.
The B-52s are a shining example of this.
Behold:
"The unexpectedly long career is due in part to a rugged design that has allowed the B-52 to go nearly anywhere and drop nearly anything the Pentagon desires, including both atomic bombs and leaflets. But it is also due to the decidedly underwhelming jets put forth to take its place."
"“There have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed,” said Owen Coté, a professor of security studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Turns out whenever we try to improve on the B-52, we run into problems, so we still have the B-52.”"
"I don't want the military failing hard and failing fast. Make it work, make it work well, and then don't mess with it."
This presumes the mission, terrain, and enemy remains static, which has really never been the case. What worked in WW2 isn't often going to be effective for today's problems.
Sure there are jobs that are nearly eternal, from which we should pick proven designs, doctrines. But especially in wartime, a "fail fast, fail cheap, and learn quickly" is exactly what I would want in a military to complement the decades of bureaucratic planning that preceded in peacetime.
This article is silly. The replacement of the B-52 isn't a better bomber, it's a different tech; ICBMs, drones, etc. - which the article doesn't even mention.
The article also mentions the amount of B 52s there are, and were. Today's fleet could be described as, "small" in comparison.
I think the US considered using ICBMs to deliver conventional strikes (and in fact they didn't even contain a warhead - just the kinetic energy of the missile was enough), but decided against it as they couldn't be differentiated from a nuclear strike by early warning systems.
As for drones - the B-52s are very long range aren't they? As in they take off from the US to strike in the middle east or anywhere else? Can any drone do that? So if you don't have a drone in theatre, it can't replace what the B-52 does.
Conventional ICBMs are being considered under the Prompt Global Strike project [1]. From the summary:
> Conventional prompt global strike (CPGS) weapons would allow the United States to strike targets anywhere on Earth in as little as an hour. This capability may bolster U.S. efforts to deter and defeat adversaries by allowing the United States to attack high-value targets or “fleeting targets” at the start of or during a conflict.
> Some analysts, however, have raised concerns about the possibility that U.S. adversaries might misinterpret the launch of a missile with conventional warheads and conclude that the missiles carry nuclear weapons.
> As for drones - the B-52s are very long range aren't they?
Wikipedia says the B-52 has a 8,764 nmi range. The RQ-4 Global Hawk has a range of 12,299 nmi. The X47-B recently demonstrated mid-air refueling (which B-52s need to go from the US to the ME and back), too.
Is this the first time in history where an army wants to make crystal clear that the weapons it is using are not as powerful as they could be? From a historical perspective, it sounds bizarre: "you want to kill us and we want to kill you, but not so much that you might decide to bring the world to an end".
You're neglecting the psychological aspect of the B-52. That antiquated technology means that you have a loud, lumbering plane flying overhead that you damn well know is full of angry death. ICBMs, Drones, etc designed for stealth, while advantageous in other aspects, really can't deliver that payload.
The C-130 is still in service too, for the same reason. The mission hasn't changed. The B-52 simply doesn't do anything really technological - it's not stealthed, it's not intended to go head-to-head with fighters. It carries a big load of bombs and drops them somewhere, and the technology for that was fundamentally done by the '60s. There will come a time when we don't need to redesign our aircraft every few decades any more than we do our infantry's rifles.
The mission that the C-130 performs changed significantly in its first 20 years.
It was shoe-horned into tactical airlift in Vietnam when the C-123 was withdrawn. Despite how it its viewed today that was never its intended mission and several aspects of the design ( in-line undercarriage wheels, narrowing centre cabin ) make it less than suitable. It was designed for medium-haul MAC trash-hauling, not tactical landings on forward strips. But it was available when a need arose and the role stuck because there was nothing else appropriate.
The Transall was a proper tactical airlifter with low ground pressure,high sink-rate and kneeling undercarriage. But the USAF would never buy it. The French, Turks and South Africans used both types simultaneously to complement each other.
Today we see the C-17 being pushed the other way, as a pseudo-strategic airlifter with horrendous inefficiencies.
Huh? The M4 was directly based on the M16, which was based on the AR-15, which was all ultimately based on the AR-10, which was first made in the mid 1950s, thus making it almost exactly as old as the B-52 bomber.
There's a lot more differences between a B-52 bomber when it first rolled off the production line and what they're like now than there are between an AR-10 and a modern M4, though of course the rifles are a lot less complicated.
It's not really analogous because the rifles that are called M4s today aren't retrofitted versions of the same actual rifles that were previously AR-10s. This all has to do with rifles and airplanes being very different from each other in size, complexity, and cost, so there aren't many accurate analogies to be made.
The lower receiver - the part of the gun that's a controlled "firearm" - is identical between the AR-15, M-16, and M-4. The only things that really change are the barrel length and the parts that go in the lower to differentiate between automatic fire and burst fire.
the "real" AR-15, by Armalite - not the semi-automatic version commonly available to civilians.
The B-52s are the same planes as were built in the 50s (not just the same designs. It's true that there aren't many parts in those planes that exist from the '50s, but and M-4 isn't a AR-15 that was taken the factory and rebuilt - it is a brand new rifle.
There are still some old lowers kicking around in the military, but most aren't that old. When the Army buys M4s from manufacturers, they're getting complete new rifles, with new lowers. We need some actual military people to chime in here, but I believe that most rifles in current use don't have parts on them dating back anything close to the 60s, unlike B-52s, every single one of which has a majority of parts (including the entire airframe) dating back to the original manufacture date between 1952 and 1962.
Unfortunately it wouldn't make a good bomber because of the basic layout of the plane. Compare the overall top-view layouts of the 737 vs the B-52, paying special attention to wing attachment points and where the bombing bay is, and you'll see what I mean.
I'd say that they are still using unreliable 60 year old bombers is something to celebrate in that carpet bombing is passe so who cares if the tools are a little clunky. Along the same lines I hope the UK fails to spend £100bn to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent. I mean if come WW3 we push the button to nuke Moscow and the thing doesn't go off who really cares? The money would be much better spent on humanitarian projects.
Nobody really cares whether or not the button actually works, but when you say "it works" that is supposed to be a credible threat. If you think it works, then Kremlin probably thinks it works, and will think twice about nuking you in the first place.
The B.U.F.F. (Big Ugly Fat Fucker) is a bomb truck: it carries heavy ordinance over long distances in uncontested airspace. Yes it drinks fuel, yes it's a maintenance hog, but it's paid for.
Once we master the art of political warfare, we can send B-52s to drop destructive parking regulations, zoning requirements, noise restrictions, and other heavy ordinances to cripple the enemy.
One thing I've been wondering recently in regards to the NYT Online is why some articles allow for comments and some don't (as generally the debate is reasonably well balanced).
This article is obviously more of a magazine-style, so perhaps from an aesthetic perspective it doesn't fit. However, even in more "standard" articles they are sometimes available and sometimes not. I appreciate that some articles / topics are more sensitive, but surely they are the ones that need debate more than ever. Also if it's appropriately moderated anything deemed inappropriate can of course be removed.
OK, kidding about the cartoon alien tech, but somehow, I would not be shocked to see somebody strapping high tech engines under the BUFF to give it [sub]orbital capability some day :-)
Read "Flight of the Old Dog" by Dale Brown. It's a bit dated by modern standards (it was written in the 80s, when the Soviet Union was still a thing), but still good. I won't spoil it for you, but the book features a heavily modified B-52 saving the day.
"Fatal Terrain" is good as well. Released in 1997 so slightly more up to date. I read it hoping for fantastical descriptions of flying battleships hanging from a paper thin plot and was not remotely disappointed.
Dale Brown books are one of my guilty pleasures. Actually, Silver Tower was the first sci-fi book I remember reading when I was a kid. He went to military thrillers after that one and I've read all of them too. But Silver Tower and Old Dog are still two of my favorites.
They are actually talking about replacing the troublesome old engines with ones from modern passenger planes - it hinges on the expected lifetime to recoup the costs through maintenance and efficiency (a bet that would have been wonderful at any time in the past). :)
The B-52 (and Tu-95) can stay in the air so long as their is no challenge to air superiority. The last real challenge might have been the Vietnam war for B-52's and their SA-2 missiles. Once real challengers show up, they have to be herded away. Just look at the decimation of B-29's over Korea when Mig-15's showed up.
1) its replacements, even if they had worked perfectly, would not have improved upon the original to a degree not already covered by ICBMs, cruise missiles, and drones. It fills its niche perfectly, as does its Russian counterpart.
2) its three toughest opponents have been Vietnam, Iraq, and Serbia. Scrappy countries to be sure, but not first-class air defenses with targets deep in enemy territory. So very few have been shot down.
I suppose once the parts run out to keep a decent fleet operational, we should consider building exact duplicates - with some modern upgrades of course, and just keep trucking.
"infamy lingering from the carpet bombing of Vietnam"
Carpet bombing is defined as bombing within a large boxed area with the goal of obliterating everything in the area regardless of the military value of the targets in the area.
Yes, B52s carpet bombed some jungle areas of Vietnam. No, there was no carpet bombing of Hanoi, which is what this is probably referring to. Can't believe after all of these years the NYT is still misreporting this. If Hanoi had been carpet bombed, it would have been leveled. It's obvious that bombing was limited to specific targets of military value.
"The zenith of B-52 attacks in Vietnam was Operation Linebacker II (sometimes referred to as the Christmas Bombing) which consisted of waves of B-52s (mostly D models, but some Gs without jamming equipment and with a smaller bomb load). Over 12 days, B-52s flew 729 sorties[148] and dropped 15,237 tons of bombs on Hanoi, Haiphong, and other targets.[90][149] "
>If Hanoi had been carpet bombed, it would have been leveled.
Bombing. Not carpet bombing. The bombing was directed at military targets.
With carpet bombing, there would have been considerably more civilian casualties. If you look at actual history books, you'll find that the Vietnamese authorities were surprised at the accuracy of the bombing.
This is a fascinating conversational tactic. You take a statement, say that they "probably" meant something else, then mercilessly attack them for "saying" that something else.
The only other option would be that they were referring to the carpet bombing of military formations in the field as being infamous. The carpet bombing by B52s of North Vietnamese troops in the field did occur, but was hardly infamous.
Carpet bombing is carpet bombing. Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is aerial bombing done in order to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land.
Are you saying President Clinton did NOT use B-52s to carpet bomb?
Please check your history.
"Further details were added by the Reuters that on Wednesday, June 9, reported that a NATO B-52 bomber caught two Yugoslav Army battalions in the open after Serbia stalled on pulling its troops out of Kosovo . The B-52 dropped sticks of gravity bombs on the troop concentrations near the Kosovo – Albania border Monday, carpeting a hillside area where some 400 to 800 soldiers were estimated to have been in the field. Moreover the Reuters added that NATO military spokesman Gen. Walter Jerts confirmed that “heavy bombers had been diverted at short notice to attack troops in Kosovo.”
In 1944, the US bombed German troops in Operation Cobra.
The tactic of bombing troops in field in a massive attack without precision weapons is called "carpet bombing".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cobra
"Approximately 3,000 U.S. aircraft had carpet-bombed a narrow section of the front, with the Panzer-Lehr-Division taking the brunt of the attack"
140,000 people died in the war.
4,000,000 "displaced".
The NYTimes article mentions B-52's bombing Yugoslavia ...
In the Persian Gulf war, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Iraq war, the lumbering jets, well-established as a symbol of death and destruction, demoralized enemy ground troops by first dropping tons of leaflets with messages like “flee and live, or stay and die,” then returning the next day with tons of explosives.
OK, now you've gone off the deep end. Those 140,000 were killed by the various forces inside former Yugoslavia, in a number of campaigns of civil war and ethnic cleansing.
Per Wikipedia, somewhere about 500 civilians were killed in the NATO bombings, and about 1,000 belligerents. Those bombings effectively stopped the ethnic cleansing that'd been ongoing for almost a decade, and you're citing one case of saturation bombing of military forces as if it were at all comparable to Vietnam or WWII.
Pretty much every ethnic group in the region tried to cleanse every other group. Your source's casualty counts are wildly inflated - even the Serbians only claim ~1,000 killed in Operation Storm - so I'd imagine it's filled with other, more subtle bullshit as well.
If you believe NATO's the reason for ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, I've got a good condition used bridge in NYC to sell you.
I'm not trying to BS. Just reviewing the facts.
I"m just citing something. I'm not sure what "Serbian" means in your context? The Yugoslav government? The minorities living in Croatia? The Christian majority living in under a radical minority Islamic Bosnian government?
I would encourage you to review exactly what Clinton did in the ethnic cleansing of Krajina.
Did he hire contractors and mercanaries to help?
Did he okay the invasion?
Did he have USAF assist the Croat attack?
Sadly, all the answers appear to be "yes he did".
BS?
Please decide for yourself. A candid review of the available data is all I ask.
Well, if the B-1 had been designed for conventional payloads or hadn't become such a political promise in the 1980 election, the B-52 would probably have been retired. Even the B-3 specs don't look like something that will retire the B-52.
Honestly, I'm really not sure that the whole justification on "strategic" vs "tactical" bombing that spawned a separate Air Force was such a good idea given the types of wars fought in the nuclear age.
Part of the cause is that big bombers with enormous payload capacity and long range can always be adapted to new missions and tactics - there's always something you can do with an extra few tens of tons of ordnance.
Where the US military-industrial complex has fallen down on the job is that the physical airframes are still from the original production run. While the USAF always thought its new and different (first supersonic, then stealth) bomber designs would allow it to retire the B-52, the Soviets kept building new variants and retiring old airframes. So while American B-52s have been heroically kept operating since the 50s and 60s, Russian Air Force Tu-95s were all built in the 80s and early 90s with assorted design improvements and new avionics.