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from the can't-seem-to-make-a-better-mousetrap dept.
Dave Phillipps has an interesting article in The New York Times about B-52's and why the Air Force's largest bomber, now in its 60th year of active service and scheduled to fly until 2040, are not retiring anytime soon. "Many of our B-52 bombers are now older than the pilots who fly them," said Ronald Reagan in 1980. Today, there is a B-52 pilot whose father and grandfather flew the plane.
Originally slated for retirement generations ago, the B.U.F.F. — a colorful acronym that the Air Force euphemistically paraphrases as Big Ugly Fat Fellow - continues to be deployed in conflict after conflict. It dropped the first hydrogen bomb in the Bikini Islands in 1956, and laser-guided bombs in Afghanistan in 2006. It has outlived its replacement. And its replacement's replacement. And its replacement's replacement's replacement. 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. The $283 million B-1B Lancer first rolled off the assembly line in 1988 with a state-of-the-art radar-jamming system that jammed its own radar. The $2 billion B-2 Spirit, introduced a decade later, had stealth technology so delicate that it could not go into the rain. "There have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed," says Owen Coté. "Turns out whenever we try to improve on the B-52, we run into problems, so we still have the B-52."
The usefulness of the large bomber — and bombers in general — has come under question in the modern era of insurgent wars and stateless armies. 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. In recent years, it has flown what the Air Force calls "assurance and deterrence" missions near North Korea and Russia. Two B-52 strategic bombers recently flew defiantly near artificial Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea and were contacted by Chinese ground controllers but continued their mission undeterred. "The B.U.F.F. is like the rook in a chess game," says Maj. Mark Burleys. "Just by how you position it on the board, it changes the posture of your adversary."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 10 2015, @01:59AM
Not where I'm from. Might like to see what parts you used and what it's chambered in, but unlikely to laugh. If it's a varmint hunt and you don't have a large magazine (such as when hunting feral pig) you're likely to get some questions, or even disapproval. Pigs don't stick around while you reload.
Not for pigs. I'd want more than that for bear as well, just in case. In fact, extend that to anything really fast which might hunt me back.
I'll take a pistol, if it's all I have. For home defence I'll also take a carbine, or a shotgun. Across the room, a shotgun will spray a blast of 00 buck about as wide as the palm of my hand, and be highly effective.
Then I guess women can have all the sabres, lances, daggers and maces? Works for me. I think that's kind of hot. For myself, I wouldn't be unhappy to have a 1911 (or recent take on the same idea). That's a weapon of war. Designed for the military, and highly effective.