Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider (LRS-B)

Hope Northrop did not have to do anything serious to the initial design of the B-21 as they had to do for the B-2 program back in the 1980's.
 
Doubt it. One thing RCO doesn't like is requirement and funding instability.
 
breakingdefense.com

Up the Buy ASAP: Fixing American Airpower - Breaking Defense

Double the buy rate on F-35A starting in 2020 and plan on a minimum of 200 B-21 bombers built in rapid fashion. That will begin to get to the Air Force that America needs to meets the challenges of the future.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com

Double the buy rate on F-35A starting in 2020 and plan on a minimum of 200 B-21 bombers built in rapid fashion. That will begin to get to the Air Force that America needs to meets the challenges of the future.
Click to expand...
 
kaiserd said:
marauder2048 said:
I'd like to see evidence that a taxpaying member of the public
(not connected to arms control issues and not a journalist or pundit)

a. asked their representative/senator sitting on the HASC/SASC to look into the B-21 cost question

and

b. that member of Congress attempted to do so but was denied access by DoD

Otherwise, the impetus for this discussion feels like astroturf i.e. fake grassroots.
Click to expand...

Apologies but your logic is somewhat spurious.
Why would such secrecy be rendered legitimate or not legitimate depending on if this “normal tax payer” did or did not make such a request?
And why would such a “normal tax payer” have more or less right to these details than another tax payer with a potential (or probable or certain) pro- or con- agenda re: those figures ?
And if it’s known certain figures are secret then why would a congressman/ congresswoman asking for them knowing they won’t get them make any real difference.
As I said in my previous comments I’m not advocating any absolute position on this issue of secrecy, I am merely challenging contributors comments that secrecy is great to prevent media scrutiny and that this is itself a valid basis for such secrecy.
Click to expand...

Hi K,

A few points to make. In a previous post you state...

"None of the comments by contributors here are indicating any actual legitimate reasons for keeping these spending/ budgeted figures secret (no mention of legitimate national security concerns)."

In the above post you state that M's logic is "somewhat spurious". I'd like to address both.

First, I'd submit there is no need for contributors to specify what national security concerns have been raised re: B-21's cost in each post. In general, this is a very sophisticated and informed readership. They know what's been stated by the relevant AHJ. I'm genuinely surprised that you are not aware of those details. A brief review of the last few pages will bring you to posts that have exposed the national security concerns. Regardless, I will address them below.

Second, I read M's point as being clear. There are those, not only in the US but with US allies as well, that do not agree that the levels of spending on defense proposed by their administrations is necessary. As in many political arguments, it doesn't seem to matter what 'tools' are used to win the argument - as long as "their" side wins. M is exposing this false narrative as it pertains to B-21 costs.

Another good example of this is in Germany. Germany spent USD30.5B on defense in 2000 which increased to 36.17B in 2012. Then spending dropped to ~34B in 2013 and 2014. Germany has ~$3.5Trillion economy with 109 Eurofighter Typhoon's and 89 1970's era Tornado fighters on the books in 2015. Of those, 8 of 109 Eurofighter Typhoon's and 30 1970's era Tornado fighters were "fully operational" in 2016.

Of 198 fighters, 8 high end and 30 older fighters were all that Germany had available to protect it's ~85 million citizens let alone contribute to meeting it's commitment to defending other NATO countries. And Germany isn't protected by two oceans. Yet when German Administration officials seeks funds to address these and other critical defense preparedness problems, the elaborate political theater begins.

One can sympathize with those who are concerned that the politics that cripples the ability of Germany, France and certain other NATO countries from devoting adequate resources to credibly defend themselves and, subsequently, adequately contribute to the defense of the organization, may take hold in the United States. It is logical to consider that the concerns raised by those not in favor of an administrations defense investment as non sequitur since argument against any additional defense investment is typically used solely for political advantage and does not take into consideration the 'state of the military' in question.

But this is radically differentiated from the reasoned response from the B-21 program office, officials in the USAF and DoD. They have clearly stated that making the specifics of funding public would be detrimental to national security. Recognizing their expertise of the subject matter, their duty as warriors for the United States, and demonstrated professionalism, they contend that specific details, including cost, allows adversaries to develop a reasonable understanding of a particular systems capabilities. Making this information available provides an unwarranted advantage in development time, planning and reduced expense for the adversary to mitigate their risk to the proposed new system.

Without cost and certain other detailed information, the adversaries will be "forced to develop, fund, and field more advanced radars, SAMs, and aircraft to keep the B-21 at bay. That in turn keeps them spending large amounts on defensive systems and eventually hurts their ability to fund offensive systems that hold the continental United States at risk." (CNAS Bomber Report 2017 also linked on previous pages)

So we see that it follows that one must also consider this uncertainty by an adversary a legitimate aspect of military programs. It has been shown to be helpful in encouraging adversaries to negotiate a change in their threat posture rather than contend with a perceived mitigation expense.

Contemplate the calculus with which leaders of the Soviet Union were faced after President Reagan was elected in 1980. They could read the change in the public confidence in the US economy. They could see the end of the recession. They could see the change in US spending on basic military items like spare parts for jet engines. By 1983 they were confronted with the Presidents "Star Wars" initiative and proposed defense spending increases. Soviet leadership knew that the United States put men on the moon in a decade. They had to determine whether by 1983, just shy of a decade and a half later, the United States had the capability to accomplish SDI. These realities had a profound effect on the Soviet Union.

Lastly, it is necessary to elucidate a construct which at least your last few posts exhibit. They include an argumentative statement, followed by an agreeable and reasonable statement, followed by a statement that denigrates and disparages. For instance...

Argumentative...
"Limits on lobbying are very much not the same as differentiated rights for different tax payers being differentiated on the basis of if they agree with you or not.

And I was not necessarily arguing for reform of the current system; I was arguing against the contributors on this site advocating for the exploitation of the current system to deny access to budget details to interest groups they don't like or agree with on the basis that they don't like or agree with them."
Agreeable and Reasonable...
"If there was any evidence that the current system was being exploited in this way or was potentially vulnerable to being exploited in this manner then it would badly need reform."
Denigrate and Disparage...
"And I would contend that such advocates logic is very troubling but unfortunately not now uncommon, with its authoritarian basis making a shameful come-back."

Argumentative...
"And they could equally validly argue that keeping such costs secret misleads US tax payers by hiding the true costs of this system from US tax payers."
Agreeable and Reasonable...
"As ever the truth is somewhere in between; some initial secrecy re: some budgetary aspects is defensible and appropriate but blanket secrecy with an agenda is equally destructive as blanket disclosure with a different agenda.
As mentioned in my previous posts I seriously doubt the US military etc. actually intend such an approach"
Denigrate and Disparage...
"but it unfortunately speaks to the reflexive authoritarianism of some contributors that they are so keen on it."

Eliminating this third construct from future posts may elevate your arguments.

Thanks,
N
 
You appear to have a very high opinion of your own ability to form and critique arguments and positions, and of others interest in your feedback.

Good luck with that.
 
Is there any inkling when there will be an official rollout? Is it likely to happen this year?

cheers
 
Some tables for a future reference/comparison
 

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flateric said:
Some tables for a future reference/comparison
Click to expand...

The only problem with this schedule is it doesn't show the delay that took place as a result of changing the requirements from an all high mission, to the ability fly NOE. This necessitated a massive design change, which I am sure you are well aware of, and added a lot of time and cost as a result. Having said that, I agree with your CDR to roll-out timeline. I initially thought they were further along, but knowing when CDR is taking place, I would expect rollout in between one to two years after CDR. I think it can happen in a year, because I don't expect the first aircraft to have all of the production systems and if all of the reported flight testing that has already been done over the past ten to twenty years as technology demonstrations was as effective as claimed, there shouldn't be too many show stoppers.
 
Sundog said:
The only problem with this schedule is it doesn't show the delay that took place as a result of changing the requirements from an all high mission, to the ability fly NOE.
Click to expand...
It does. See right column at Table 3-3.
AWST article takes redesign date a little bit wrong as it was decided that ATB should have been adopted for low-level penetration even prior contract award (see Sweetman's Inside The Stealth Bomber and Grant's Spirit of Innovation) - but only later it became clear how big changes would be.
AFAIR 'months' roughly was a whole year of delay.
 

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Sundog said:
The only problem with this schedule is it doesn't show the delay that took place as a result of changing the requirements from an all high mission, to the ability fly NOE.
Click to expand...

But that change was pre-contract award anyway; the agreed upon schedule was padded an extra 24 months relative to Northrop's proposal.

edit: Doh! Got snooped by flateric's edit.
 
I think a good indication of the delay caused by the low-level requirement is the fact that they had to have a second PDR about 18 months after the first.
 
That's interesting that B-21 had a second PDR as well, but if in the case of B-2 Sweetman calls a second PDR 'unusual', in the case with B-21 we can call unusual both PDRs
www.airforcemag.com

Daily Report | Air & Space Forces Magazine

CMSgt. Terrence Greene, then-command chief for US Forces Japan and Fifth Air Force, prepares for an interview at Misawa AB, Japan, on Feb. 23, 2018. Greene now serves as command chief for Air Mobility Command. Air Force photo by A1C Collette Brooks.
www.airforcemag.com www.airforcemag.com
 
Thanks, I hadn't realized that that was what the second PDR was for and I didn't realize the design change was made before they started cutting metal.
 
flateric said:
That's interesting that B-21 had a second PDR as well, but if in the case of B-2 Sweetman calls a second PDR 'unusual', in the case with B-21 we can call unusual both PDRs
www.airforcemag.com

Daily Report | Air & Space Forces Magazine

CMSgt. Terrence Greene, then-command chief for US Forces Japan and Fifth Air Force, prepares for an interview at Misawa AB, Japan, on Feb. 23, 2018. Greene now serves as command chief for Air Mobility Command. Air Force photo by A1C Collette Brooks.
www.airforcemag.com www.airforcemag.com
Click to expand...


The AWST article reports that Boeing tried to take over as Prime around B-2 second PDR. If one were cynical they might suggest the early production "hiccup" around B21 engine and wings as a driver for a second PDR with the same objective.

With all the lessons learned resulting in RCO, tech maturation and locking down requirements early, perhaps 2 PDR's will no longer be abnormal. PDR prior to contract award and moving directly to EMD with another PDR once the "team" is in place may in fact be the new normal.

I find these timelines hopeful. IoC for B-2 was 7 1/2 years after first flight. If B-21 first flight is two years from a December CDR (and B-2 was ~2 1/2) that would be IoC in mid 2027 using B-2's timeline. For myriad reasons wouldn't it be reasonable to expect B-21 IoC to be a much more efficient timeline?

The redesign of B-2, as previously noted, resulted in death spiral like series of events. Subs were already working on systems that now needed new designs for the redesign. The new sub system designs were different and created new risk, resulting in changes in other sub systems that supported them. These changes resulted in structural changes and even changes to wiring harness. All these changes resulted in wings, which were originally to be delivered "full" of "devices" to be delivered empty and "stuffed" during assembly. So now the delivery of test articles are way behind, resulting in IOT&E schedules all out of whack. And in spite of all these issues, IOC was in 7 1/2 years after first flight.

Since we've lived through it, it's hard to imagine how different it is today compared to the 1980's. Solid geometry based CAD solutions weren't even available until 1987. Today, several evolution's in 3D modeling and visualization software have occurred with computing power to render complex designs in minutes. Additive manufacturing and rapid prototyping has transformed development time frames. And that doesn't even touch on 9-axis robots.

Integration is hard. B-21 is a different airplane. But it's hard to imagine it taking 7 1/2 years after first flight for B-21 to achieve IoC.
 
It appears that both the Northrop and the Boeing/Lockmart designs were taken as far as a PDR level of development prior to contract award. It would make sense to incorporate lessons learned into the winning design, hence some changes and another PDR.
 
BillRo said:
It appears that both the Northrop and the Boeing/Lockmart designs were taken as far as a PDR level of development prior to contract award. It would make sense to incorporate lessons learned into the winning design, hence some changes and another PDR.
Click to expand...

Now that's interesting. Hadn't even thought of that. Considering you've just put in a bid for your design which includes avionics, engines, subs; detail down to the access panel locations; and RCO methodology seems to include "no changes in customer specification"; at what level is the change "just too good to pass up?"

Oh... Maybe this is relevant. "Northrop Grumman was awarded a $35 million engineering and manufacturing development contract at the end of August (2015) to build 21 sets of the system to replace BAE's legacy Advanced Threat Infrared Countermeasure system."

Followed by...

www.defensenews.com

BAE Withdraws Protest of Infrared Countermeasure Contract

BAE Systems withdrew its protest of the Army's decision to award Northrop Grumman a contract to build the Common Infrared Countermeasure system to protect aircraft from infrared-guided missiles, according to a Government Accountability Office filing and the company.
www.defensenews.com www.defensenews.com
"BAE in September (2015) filed a formal protest with the Pentagon after it awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to build Common Infrared Countermeasure systems to protect aircraft from infrared-guided missiles."

October 2015 announcement of NG as prime. Then...

"That protest was quietly withdrawn in December with little explanation from BAE, other than a statement that the company and the Pentagon reached an agreement on the issue. The countermeasures program BAE lost had an estimated value of $3 billion."

Followed by...

March 2016 announcement including BAE as EW sub for B-21.

Thanks Bill
 
Given that NG built the F-35's radar and CNI, it's a no brainier.
 
But that's not the core avionics, is it?

I don't think we'll see systems like the F-22 and F-35 again, with an integrated core processor. That was the way it had to be done in the 1980s and 1990s, because the related demands of sensor fusion and LPI/LPD, not to mention real-time blue-line flightpath control, required lots of hardware. You could only fit one supercomputer on the airplane.

Today I can do much more processing "close to the aperture".

Think about it. In 1995, my PC had special cards in it that connected to the printer and the scanner. That's not the way it's done now.
 
Tightly integrated software based systems are the way forward, plain and simple.

The F-35's ICP is based on VMs and middle-ware which allows for easy hardware & software updates. They also allow for ease of full data fusion. Separating the systems, even if you keep them software based, increases cost and decreases interaction due to the transfer of data between the systems. Imagine if you took a modern PC and separated each app out to their own micro PC. The cost would be horrendous in money, electricity, heat, space, etc. Btw, I don't think the F-35's ICO is as tightly wound as the F-22s Much of it is separated into individual VMs so that it's more fault tolerant the the F-22's. IIRC there are even redundancies built into the back-plane and power subsystems of the ICP to guard against any one single point of failure. Even the display is actually two independent displays, side by side. There is also not a single CPU, but multiple CPU cards that run the VMs as needed. A failure in one will be picked up by the others.

Another example is NG's CNI. It can emulate virtually any radio signal you want as long as the antenna can support the waveform. Imagine the space, heat, electricity, etc that all those radios would have cost if done separately.

It's funny that you mention the PCs of old because that is exactly what you are suggesting they do.

Another couple reason for reusing the F-35's avionics:
  • They are already developed
  • Future upgrades will already be paid for
  • They can share the same Mission Data Files
 
Removed two posts which had descended the debate to mudslinging.

The software developers where I work had a massive ideological fight between monolithic and microservice software architectures a few years ago which resulted in a service actually called "xxxxx-monolithic-services".

There is no right or wrong answer; each development methodology has advantages and disadvantages, so you choose depending on application purpose, company development and release methodologies...

The same is true of distributed versus centralised hardware architectures.
 

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Looks like a B-2 to me. There isn't a clear enough image to say otherwise.
 
How to write several pages of sighting a plane that even not passed CDR...
 
SpudmanWP said:
Tightly integrated software based systems are the way forward, plain and simple.
Click to expand...

Hypervisors on Intel hardware, that Russian hackers are REALLY good at. How long till somebody dumps the flash, doesn't protect it, Russian hackers grab it, and have it running on their own hypervisor in the Kremlin? It wont be long after that it ends up in Beijing.
 
flateric said:
How to write several pages of sighting a plane that even not passed CDR...
Click to expand...

Because of course they would never fudge the timescales on a grey project.

That said I doubt they’d park anything other than a B-2 out to be caught on a commercial reconnaissance satellite.
 
Flyaway said:
flateric said:
How to write several pages of sighting a plane that even not passed CDR...
Click to expand...

Because of course they would never fudge the timescales on a grey project.

That said I doubt they’d park anything other than a B-2 out to be caught on a commercial reconnaissance satellite.
Click to expand...

flateric said:
How to write several pages of sighting a plane that even not passed CDR...
Click to expand...

In this speech, BG Schaefer ( CO of 412th TEst Wing) hints that the Raider be coming to Edwards soonish.

Cheers

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18997/b-21-raider-officially-heading-to-edwards-air-force-base-for-testing
 
RavenOne said:
Flyaway said:
flateric said:
How to write several pages of sighting a plane that even not passed CDR...
Click to expand...

Because of course they would never fudge the timescales on a grey project.

That said I doubt they’d park anything other than a B-2 out to be caught on a commercial reconnaissance satellite.
Click to expand...

flateric said:
How to write several pages of sighting a plane that even not passed CDR...
Click to expand...

In this speech, BG Schaefer ( CO of 412th TEst Wing) hints that the Raider be coming to Edwards soonish.

Cheers

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18997/b-21-raider-officially-heading-to-edwards-air-force-base-for-testing
Click to expand...

How soon would that be? End of the year soon? And another thing would they also reveal what the B-21 looks like at the time of the first flight.
 
RavenOne said:
In this speech, BG Schaefer ( CO of 412th TEst Wing) hints that the Raider be coming to Edwards soonish.

Cheers

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18997/b-21-raider-officially-heading-to-edwards-air-force-base-for-testing
Click to expand...

Where in his speech do you see any hints to conclusions that were made about 'sooner than it was expected'? And sooner than what exactly?

"For the first time ever, I would like to publicly announce that the B-21 will be tested at Edwards Air Force Base... Edwards has been the home of bomber test and now we also can publicly release that the B-21 is coming to Edwards and we will be testing it here in the near future."
Click to expand...
 
With respect to the photo analysis if the ground power unit is parked normal to the line of sight and a B-2 at some angle won't that give the same result?
 
"It's a Snark!" was the sound that first came to their ears,
And seemed almost too good to be true.
Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:
Then the ominous words "It's a Boo—"
 
Jeb said:
Sundog said:
Looks like a B-2 to me. There isn't a clear enough image to say otherwise.
Click to expand...

The engine intake dimensions look off, though. Narrower.
Click to expand...

One thing I've learned seeing the B-2 over the years is that the dimensions always look wrong. Even a slight change in look angle can dramatically change how the vehicle appears. Which is probably related to LO shaping and flying wings in general.
 
Jeb said:
Sundog said:
Looks like a B-2 to me. There isn't a clear enough image to say otherwise.
Click to expand...

The engine intake dimensions look off, though. Narrower.
Click to expand...
Yes. Because this is B-2s arse
 
TomS said:
Jeb said:
Sundog said:
Looks like a B-2 to me. There isn't a clear enough image to say otherwise.
Click to expand...

The engine intake dimensions look off, though. Narrower.
Click to expand...

One thing I've learned seeing the B-2 over the years is that the dimensions always look wrong. Even a slight change in look angle can dramatically change how the vehicle appears. Which is probably related to LO shaping and flying wings in general.
Click to expand...

Thank you for at least putting forward some reasoning unlike other posters who think it’s sufficient just to make some allegedly snappy response.
 

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