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posted by janrinok on Friday October 30 2015, @08:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-not-cheap dept.

The US Department of Defense has announced that Northrup Grumman will be supplying its next generation of Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) to replace the aging B-52 and B-2 fleets.

"Over the past century, no nation has used air power to accomplish its global reach -- to compress time and space -- like the United States," said Defense Secretary Ash Carter

"Building this bomber is a strategic investment in the next 50 years, and represents our aggressive commitment to a strong and balanced force. It demonstrates our commitment to our allies and our determination to potential adversaries, making it crystal clear that the United States will continue to retain the ability to project power throughout the globe long into the future."

The first prototypes of the new bomber won't take to the skies until 2025 at the earliest, and is unlikely to be operational for years after that. But it's going to be packed with the latest technology to shield it from ever-smarter missiles and other weapons systems.
...
Like the B-2, it will be using radar-absorbing materials and high-tech weapons. Directed-energy anti-missile technology has been touted for the aircraft by some analysts, as has the ability to carry electronic payloads that could disrupt enemy computer systems.

Yes, Ye Children of Slashdot, this one will have frickin' laser beams.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @08:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2015, @08:40PM (#256649)

    We have Stealth Bombers. They stopped making them before we had a good complement of them. Start the old production lines back up, and save a ton of money.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Non Sequor on Friday October 30 2015, @08:51PM

    by Non Sequor (1005) on Friday October 30 2015, @08:51PM (#256657) Journal

    Have we hit "peak weapons"?

    Repeatedly it seems like we're hearing that new military systems are failing to adequately justify themselves relative to existing systems. Is there a point where trying to add new features just results in an over-engineered shitbox compared to something that maybe just looks for a decent point in price-performance-reliability trade offs?

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Friday October 30 2015, @11:08PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 30 2015, @11:08PM (#256706) Journal

      Have we hit "peak weapons"?

      Repeatedly it seems like we're hearing that new military systems are failing to adequately justify themselves relative to existing systems. Is there a point where trying to add new features just results in an over-engineered shitbox compared to something that maybe just looks for a decent point in price-performance-reliability trade offs?

      It does seem like the US passed some organizational threshold some time ago with respect to these big projects. I wouldn't call it "peak weapon" because it's not military-related, but seems to hold for a variety of large projects. Other examples (not just at the federal level) are the decades long inability to replace the Space Shuttle with a manned space launch vehicle, the Big Dig road construction project (a notorious and remarkably expensive construction project in Boston). or the common screw ups with the state and federal health insurance exchanges.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by fnj on Saturday October 31 2015, @02:41AM

        by fnj (1654) on Saturday October 31 2015, @02:41AM (#256771)

        Excelent illustrations, but it's even worse than that. The entire civilization has reached an abject failure to cope. It's not just the big, ambitious projects. It's the straightforward stuff, too. Building a school is now an exercise in outdoing/outspending the Taj Mahal. Nothing is maintained any more. If the roof leaks, raze the building and build one that is 10 times as grandiose and 1/10 as durable. Let the roads degenerate into rubble. The plastic of a gallon jug of water has become so microscopically thin that it requires great delicacy to get it out of the store and into the home without it springing a leak. It is filled so close to the top to save material that when you open it, a bunch of water splashes out on the counter and floor from the pressure being released and the flimsy thing flexing. Rail lines are allowed to be abandoned, and transformed into "bike trails" for leisure - despite demands for transportation progressively increasing all the time. Electrical power production demands are not being met. Costs of disposing of day-to-day domestic household waste have skyrocketed out of control, and now exceed the cost of the electric bill.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by gman003 on Friday October 30 2015, @08:59PM

    by gman003 (4155) on Friday October 30 2015, @08:59PM (#256663)

    The B-2 is rather lacking as a replacement for the B-52 - namely, it has a lower payload, costs an order of magnitude more to operate, and costs several orders of magnitude more to purchase.

    The B-52 does need replacement - the airframes are positively ancient, and won't be airworthy forever. The design was good for the time, but we could do considerably better now (particularly the engines). It fills a very useful role, though, and should not be removed from service without a true replacement.

    If the LRS-B is able to fill both roles (stealthy strike bomber and efficient bomb truck), it is justifiable. It would be even better if it could fill the B-1 role, but "supersonic operation" and "cost-efficient to operate" are considerably more contradictory than "low-observable" and "cost-efficient to operate" are.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Lunix Nutcase on Friday October 30 2015, @09:11PM

      by Lunix Nutcase (3913) on Friday October 30 2015, @09:11PM (#256672)

      The current failure of the F-35 program makes me far less confident that they can do better today.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 30 2015, @09:32PM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday October 30 2015, @09:32PM (#256681) Journal

      I think the B52 has been studied to be re-engined more than once, and there was recently a story suggesting it might happen this time around. [jalopnik.com]

      Why does the B2 cost more to operate? Its just astronomical what that plane costs to sit and do nothing.
      Here is a link to a Time Mag story [time.com] on relative costs for the mythical flight hour.

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    • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday October 30 2015, @10:50PM

      by Snotnose (1623) on Friday October 30 2015, @10:50PM (#256702)

      The B-52 does need replacement - the airframes are positively ancient, and won't be airworthy forever. The design was good for the time, but we could do considerably better now (particularly the engines). It fills a very useful role, though, and should not be removed from service without a true replacement.

      So why not just build a B-52 replacement? No stealth, no cutting edge features. Just a basic bomb truck with upgraded engines and avionics. Face it, we're not going to war with Russia or China. We're gonna be bombing Syria, Iraq, and who knows what other country full of brown skinned people.

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      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fnj on Saturday October 31 2015, @03:12AM

        by fnj (1654) on Saturday October 31 2015, @03:12AM (#256777)

        Absolutely, but take it further. Why the hell not just fire up a production line and build more B-52s. Stick super efficient turbofans on them, 4 large ones instead of 8 tiny ones. Up-to-date avionics of course. Obviously there would be no reason for a crew of any more than 2, as opposed to the 4 or 5 of the original. Other than that, there is absolutely zero reason to change anything. The airframe and wings are just fine with 1950s design and materials. Look how long they have already performed. Maybe the aluminum alloy would be an improved grade, or maybe not; the riveted original has proved itself.

        Engines and avionics aside, the 1950s B-52 is an almost perfect solution to its mission. Heck, the same is true of the DC-3. And the C-130. And the A-10 Warthog. Stop fucking around spending vast treasure trying (and failing) to improve on perfection. Arguably, air superiority fighters are the exception to this rule - although the F-14 and F-15 of the 1970s were both much faster than the F-35. (To be fair, the F-35 is not an air superiority fighter; it is just being forced into that role; we are trying to make due without a follow-on to the F-22)

        Another thought. What the heck is a bomber anyway, but a cargo plane you can dump the cargo out of in mid-air? Since WW2 they have never been used to penetrate the defenses of a capable opponent. There are standoff missiles for that. Given air supremacy and fighter escort, plus countermeasures, a 747 or other big-box cargo plane, modified with opening doors in the bottom and unpressurized in the main section, could drop dumb bombs and JDAMs just as well as a B-2. In fact it could carry a hell of a lot more weight and count of bombs.

        • (Score: 2) by gman003 on Saturday October 31 2015, @07:33PM

          by gman003 (4155) on Saturday October 31 2015, @07:33PM (#256967)

          Because the production lines were shuttered before most of us were even born. The tooling is long gone, and even the factory building itself is now shut down (it had been producing 767s and the related KC-46s). They may not even have production blueprints anymore (only maintenance blueprints).

          So resuming production would require a massive investment in infrastructure. It would literally be just as hard to start making new B-52s as it would be to start producing any other aircraft of that size. The B-52 may as well be a Tu-95, as far as our ability to resume production goes.

          Given that scale of investment, it makes sense to go ahead and redesign the airframe. I do not expect massive gains - the only real advantage of modern technology here is the ability to run a massive amount of simulations on computer, rather than building dozens of models and wind-tunnel testing them. But hey, even a 5% win at the design stage is certainly worth the miniscule investment in the redesign, probably on the order of the cost of one or two aircraft.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 03 2015, @03:57AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday November 03 2015, @03:57AM (#257804)

    I worked in a factory making B-2 parts back in the 1980s, trust me: you really don't want that crap protecting your family from the bogey man.

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