Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit

[Scott Kenny]

B-2 Test Launches New Low-Cost Anti-Ship Weapon at Warship in the Pacific

A U.S. Air Force B-2 bomber helped sink a decommissioned U.S. warship in the Pacific using a new, relatively inexpensive, anti-ship weapon.

www.airandspaceforces.com

Ouch. 2000lb bombs have more explosive filler than a Mk48 heavyweight torpedo! (I'm not sure about relative filler effectiveness).

And a B2 can ripple drop 16 of them.

 

[TomS]

Yes, there is not a line in START I that says "The B-2 cannot carry ALCMs".

START I limited the total number of weapons and how they were counted. The implementation of START I had severe effects on the US heavy bomber force to preserve the other components of the strategic triad and its modernization.

- All but 71 B-52s were to be destroyed
- The efforts to certify the B-1B to carry ACM and ALCM were stopped.
- Plans for the B-2 to be certified to carry the ACM and ALCM were also stopped.
- Reduced production of the ACM



The 1 or 2 B-1Bs that could carry cruise missiles for flight testing carried external... things that could be verified by national technical means. There is no reason the same could not be done with the B-2.

My point stands -- not banned by treaty, but by a set of constraints the US adopted. There were other ways we could have sliced things that would have allowed B-2;to be a CM carrier, but they would have been strange choices

And I'd definitely say that a suitable visual mod for the B-2 would be much harder than for earlier aircraft, because it would inherently alter the RCS reducing geometry.

 

[Forest Green]

According to the AFM Stealth publication 2014, on page 57 (end of first column) it states that the B-2 was qualified to AGM-129s up to 2012 when they were withdrawn.