Noztradamus
Illuminator
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Replace Chinese with German, and it's the late 30s again.
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So we are building new stealth bombers
- Thread starter Travis
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Replace Chinese with German, and it's the late 30s again.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
You mean the ethnic Chinese who founded Taiwan explicitly to avoid being taken over by the Communist regime on the mainland? The ethnic Chinese who have resisted every overture from mainland China to take them over, ever since? The ethnic Chinese who have "a large and technologically advanced military, mainly as defense against the constant threat of invasion by the PRC" (source)?
That Taiwan? I think those guys may have found an issue that trumps their Chinese ethnic identification. I think those guys might very much mind a (mainland) Chinese takeover.
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This, and then imagine how many critical subprojects there will be. If there were only ten of them (far too low) and they all had a 90% chance of delivery on time (too high) then you are down to only a 34% chance of it running to the originally-estimated time. Obviously there are ways to militate against these problems, but they all add cost and complexity.
I'd also like to know how much the required security adds to the cost and complexity.
These are the answers to that:
It's a myth that China has historically not been expansionist - there's a reason that there are multiple languages in the single country that was ruled by an emperor - not that past performance is any guide to future actions.
However the Communist regime has claimed a lot of land and sea, whilst having invaded part of India, put forces in Korea and invaded Vietnam in response to that country deposing the Khmer Rouge (!).
Indeed - look at the map in this article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349
The Taiwan that is now also a democracy - unlike China.
ETA: This Pravda (!) :shock: article has a good list of China's claims
http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/17-07-2012/121658-china_territorial_claims-0/
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Delvo
Дэлво Δε&#
Nobody who has paid any attention to this kind of thing in the last several years didn't know it was coming. They've described generally what kind of plane they wanted and discussed how many and for what purposes on plenty of occasions. The only thing that's new is the announcement of which contractor would be the primary, and even for that, the answer we got was already the most common prediction and they announced ahead of time when this announcement would happen. "Black" doesn't necessarily mean nobody knows something exists. It can just mean that nobody knows most of the details.
Starting with B-52, although it could end up replacing B-1 and B-2 as well, in the sense of "there might be no other bombers around but this one when they eventually go".
B-2 would work fine there. It's not up for replacement yet, and, to the extent that anybody has been talking about replacing it with B-3, it's been because of cost efficiency, not combat effectiveness.
There's really no way it could fail to do so. For one thing, even without inventing anything new & improved, the new bomber can use F-35's technology, which is substantially more advanced and lower-maintenance than B-2's. And they will be able to base it at pretty much any air base, instead of just two or three choices in the world, thus shortening flights. Plus, there's the issue that I'd have to phrase either of two different ways depending on how you meant "our current procurement process". If you meant the usual standard process that has been used for several other big military development programs lately, then the answer is that that's not being used.
If you meant the process that's underway for this particular plane, the answer is that black programs run more smoothly & efficiently, precisely because of their freedom from outside interference & meddling. This one is run by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, which was set up for the explicit purpose of getting things done without the usual political processes dragging thing out for ages. F-35, for example, is not from the RCO, and has been subject to an unprecedented swarm of tests over the years and is still being "tested" now with well over a hundred planes to test with, largely mandated by the Department of Testing & Evaluation. The DoTE's goal seems to be not to find the answers to questions about a thing's abilities and readiness to do its job, but to just constantly say it has questions, so more & more tests are required, even on a project that's already been tested several times as much as any other ever has been and has an abnormally clean & successful record in those tests. For example, when the Marines first set out the standards they woulld use for declaring F-35B IOC (Initial Operational Capability), the DoTE didn't comment, but, after those standards were met and IOC was declared for the first Marine squadron, suddenly the DoTE got pissy with them for not doing more tests and more kinds of tests which would only have revealed what was already known and generated more paperwork to make the DoTE look like it was busy doing imporant stuff.
Nothing in general. But if the question really meant "...instead of piloted planes", or was meant to imply "why are they making this instead of drones", then the answer is that the two things just do too-different jobs so neither can replace the other and the plan is to have some of both, not just one or the other.
The Air Force dropped the "optionally manned" part of the plan several months ago... maybe over a year. It was causing too much complication in the design process. (Knocking out points of concentrated inefficiency like that is something you can do with a black program with just one or a few voices in charge; imagine trying to get a "requirement" like that changed by a political bureaucracy.)
If they wanted to make a drone for that, they could. The limiting factor with drones is not size but the flow of information. And this new bomber wouldn't be suitable for carpet-bombing anway, so your implication on that is simply false. (See below about payloads.)
"Way, way" is what I call a "pseudoquantity". Pseudoquantities are used on contentious subjects to try emotionalize the subject even more by telling people how they should feel about it, while not actually conveying any facts.
Whatever amount of cheaperness you would classify as "way, way" cheaper, it is true that F-35A was meant to be cheaper than F-22. It's also true that it is cheaper than F-22. It's also cheaper than the more relevant competition, which is/are cheaper than F-22. Stripped of the cheap emotionalizing, the best version of your assertion that I can come up with is that the F-35 program has somehow failed by being cheaper than F-22 only by a smaller margin than was originally intended. And that might be true, but only if in reference to the goals of an Air Force program of about 25 years ago, which F-35 is not based on. F-35 is the result of the Air Force changing the requirements of that program to call for more ability (which they knew means less cheapness), and the merger with previously separate Naval and Marine programs (which also means less cheapness than a single-service, single-product program). So even at best, your assertion is false in proper context: comparison of the results with the actually applicable goals instead of some other goals for some other plane that was never built.
Not really. Most reporting about the F-35 development process has been false, particularly in sources that the political left is more likely to read. To the extent that it is over budget and late, it went that way years ago, and has kept right in line with all projections & objectives since then. And claims of the machine itself being inadequate to do the machine's job are simply politically-driven lies. Also, to get back on the subject of B-3: being a black program, it's less exposed to the main source of slowdowns and cost increases in military development projects: Congress and other government agencies.
The total program cost is higher because of the combination of 3 types and the higher quantities and the explosion in the amount of "testing" now called for by the DoTE. (For scale: the number of F-35s now involved in "testing" is getting close to the number of F-22s that were ever built at all.) The cost per plane is lower, as it was intended to be. That gap is wider for the Air Force's version, F-35A, than for F-35B and F-35C, which have more complex specialized parts and more total mass. (The one in the movie was F-35B, and was shown hovering, which A & C can't do.)
Does "affordable" equal "way, way" cheaper than something else? And if the cheapest option around isn't affordable, as you imply, does that mean nobody can actually afford to have any fighters at all?
Around 25000 pounds (give or take 2-3 thousand). That's a bit over a third of a B-52, half of a B-2, half of a B-1's external capacity, and a third of a B-1's internal capacity (so a fifth of a B-1's total, technically, although only the internal bays are normally used). It's also "a few to several" thousand pounds more than can be carried by most modern fighters; those generally have limits in the upper teens, and F-15E gets a bit over 20. In that sense, "B-3" is more comparable to strike planes & fighters than bombers (which is why it has "strike" in its name), but it's stealthier and has multiple times the range.
This actually reflects not the constant growth & bloat of our military system as some people would present it, but shrinkage. The technology gets more advanced but the numbers of types and numbers of each type built go down. The first bomber on the list to retire & replace (or just retire unreplaced) is B-52; 744 of those have been built. Even ignoring B-1 and B-2, the other plane that B-3 could be most directly equated with and considered to replace is F-15E, the longest-ranged and heaviest-payloaded tactical plane that isn't a bomber; 420 of those have been built. And B-3's payload is probably about 10% more than one of those but 64% less than the other. But how many are they talking about building? Different numbers between 100 and 200. (And if you remove F-15E from that comparison, not only does the same point stand with B-52 alone anyway, but then you're saying that F-15E replacement either won't happen at all or will be done only by eating into the number of F-35s that could have otherwise been called replacements for other planes, because the total planned number of F-35s doesn't include replacing F-15E.)
I originally was going to quote and respond to Doubt's falsehoods, but holy wow, it's essentially every single sentence in Doubt's posts. Taking them all down one by one would easily multiply the length of my already long post (and get redundant to yours unless I carefully plan around things you already said, which would then be even more work!).
Delvo
Дэлво Δε&#
A bit on the general idea of this bomber, for those who've commented about not having heard much about it before:
Its top speed, like B-2 and B-52 (but not B-1), is subsonic. There has been talk of a supersonic/hypersonic future bomber, but it would be decades after this one. Subsonic is more efficient and maximizes range/payload.
Its intended job includes not just dropping bombs but also surveillance & recon, plus networking to share data with a variety of other planes, ships, and ground units any time they're working in the same area. To that end, it will have more, and more advanced, sensors & electronics than previous bombers.
A cost-cutting measure is to use the most advanced systems that already exist as much as possible instead of creating new ones. For sensors & electronics, and stealthy skin, that pretty much means using F-35 stuff. Most also expect it to use F-35's engines, minus afterburners, just two of them apiece instead of one. Because of this, it's been described as a bigger, reshaped F-35. (That's why the total program cost is hardly any different from the straight production cost; less new development to do.)
The fact that it's bigger than a fighter means it would be able to carry equipment a fighter might not be able to carry, such as defensive systems to shoot down missiles heading toward it. It will also have room to spare for a few air-to-air missiles.
Those who envision a future in which a single manned plane directs a swarm of drones have noted that this would be easier with a two-seat plane, which this presumably is and recent fighters are not.
Its top speed, like B-2 and B-52 (but not B-1), is subsonic. There has been talk of a supersonic/hypersonic future bomber, but it would be decades after this one. Subsonic is more efficient and maximizes range/payload.
Its intended job includes not just dropping bombs but also surveillance & recon, plus networking to share data with a variety of other planes, ships, and ground units any time they're working in the same area. To that end, it will have more, and more advanced, sensors & electronics than previous bombers.
A cost-cutting measure is to use the most advanced systems that already exist as much as possible instead of creating new ones. For sensors & electronics, and stealthy skin, that pretty much means using F-35 stuff. Most also expect it to use F-35's engines, minus afterburners, just two of them apiece instead of one. Because of this, it's been described as a bigger, reshaped F-35. (That's why the total program cost is hardly any different from the straight production cost; less new development to do.)
The fact that it's bigger than a fighter means it would be able to carry equipment a fighter might not be able to carry, such as defensive systems to shoot down missiles heading toward it. It will also have room to spare for a few air-to-air missiles.
Those who envision a future in which a single manned plane directs a swarm of drones have noted that this would be easier with a two-seat plane, which this presumably is and recent fighters are not.
ponderingturtle
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So does anyone think it likely that this won't have so many cost overruns that we can't afford to send it into harm's way? That seems to be the standard air force way for the last few decades.
Jules Galen
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It will be yet another over-priced technical disaster which will nevertheless accomplish its primary purpose: transfer money to the rich people who own the armament industry. When it is fielded - years behind schedule - it will be relegated to bombing camel-riding peasants who live in mud huts from high altitudes - just like the B-2 and F-22 do now. It certainly will not be put in any significant danger. For example, it will never be deployed against an advesary with a modern surface-air missile system or who can field fighter aircraft in reasonable numbers - the US had their fill of that in North Vietnam!
As a consequence of being able to stomp defensless peasants with impunity, the new bomber will be hailed as a world-beating uber-weapon that only the US has enough goodness to produce. It will be quite a farce.
On the good side, the expense of this program coupled with the mounting expenses of the F-35 and F-22 Programs (yeah...the F-22 still requires a decade of work) will slowly and seriously degrade America's ability to project power abroad. And this will ultimately benefit us all.
Delvo
Дэлво Δε&#
Where are people getting this zany concept from? What new type of plane or other military equipment has ever been held back because despite being the most advanced thing out there it was somehow too ineffective/vulnerable?
I know of some examples of assets not being sent where it was too dangerous for them, but never with anything that was supposed to be the latest & greatest. In the Gulf War(s), battleships stayed too far offshore to use their guns on targets on land because they couldn't avoid hitting mines, but that was just about the end of the battleship era anyway and was given as a reason for retiring them. (They used missiles instead, but a smaller ship can use missiles.) In the same wars and Yugoslavia, there were targets that we wouldn't send an F-14/15/16/18 or A-10 against because the air defenses around them were too dense, so they were hit with F-117s instead, but that's another case of the newer fancier thing being sent where the old standbys weren't, not the other way around. "Gunships" like AC-130 have sometimes been held back in threatening environments, but their technology is nothing special or new, and the limits on where they can be used were a part of the whole plan for them all along, so it's not a matter of being unable to go where they were supposed to go.
Jules Galen
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I disagree.
Syria, November 26, 2015 - the S-400 Trumpf Missile System is deployed in Syria. As a result, you will not see any more F-22 Bombing Runs over Syria - or even flying over Syria.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
That's probably going to be less a matter of holding the B-2 back "because it's the latest and greatest", and more a matter of holding everything back because there's nothing there worth risking even the latest and greatest. For sure anything that can hold off a B-2 can hold off a lesser platform.
ponderingturtle suggested the new bomber might be kept out of harm's way because it was too expensive to put at risk. This suggestion is at odds with US military practice so far. There have often been reasons to keep a weapon out of combat, but "because it's too expensive" hasn't really been one of them.
I mean, I guess maybe it could end up being so expensive that there's nothing worth fighting for that justifies the replacement cost? Is that what you mean? It's possible, I suppose. On the other hand, once they're paid for, someone will want to get their money's worth. Sooner or later they'll be given a mission, even if it means using them up and replacing them with something cheaper once they're gone.
Anyway, I think there's a case to be made that the B-2 is no longer the "latest and greatest" anyway. An F-35 using JSOWs to strike S-400s might soon have that honor.
On a related note, given all the noise being made recently about how unbeatable modern
Jango
Graduate Poster
How in the hell is that a surprise to anyone who knows a damn thing about the way the MIC works?
ponderingturtle
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Part of it will also be that they will likely only build 10-20% of the numbers they are citing now, so they won't have many of them at all. These things are predictable after all.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Part of what? I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The more I think about this, the less sense it makes.
First, I didn't notice you said F-22, not B-2. The F-22 isn't used for bombing in the first place. It's capable of dropping bombs, but that's not its role, nor its mission. The capability has been demonstrated, but it is academic. The F-22 isn't making bombing runs in Syria anyway.
Second, what exactly is your logic, here? Syria has air defenses. The US is flying bombing runs with other planes that can be threatened Syrian air defenses. In what sense do you think that US bombing runs are currently at risk from Syrian air defenses? Since obviously the defenses are there and the bombing runs are happening anyway.
ponderingturtle
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It means they will not have the numbers to operate they way they are saying they want to.
Jules Galen
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Wrong!!!
http://aviationweek.com/defense/f-22-s-takes-first-shot-against-ground-not-air-target
Wrong!!!
https://www.rt.com/news/323815-syria-s-400-us-airstrikes/
Why are you so WRONG! Do you actually read before you post?
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Russia Today as a source ?
The story may well be true but unless it comes from a more reliable source I'm disinclined to believe it.
Jules Galen
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This is not an argument: it's a deliberate attempt to misunderstand the point. It does not flatter you to post such things.
Now...read the exchange - ACTUALLY READ IT - and you will see how my post makes sense, and how that drivel of Syrian Air Defense is just that - Drivel. It's the Russian Defenses that are the real issue.
Your information (regarding lack of U.S. coalition airstrikes in Syria) is out of date, if it was ever correct at all:
Coalition Airstrikes Hit ISIL in Syria, Iraq
Just skimming through the links on the right side of the page, it looks like the U.S. hit Syria on Nov. 24, 25, 26, (edit, no hits on 27), 28, 29, and 30 (I didn't look any further back than Nov 24).
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