DrRansom said:I'm tending to think that it'll be something in the same weight class as the TU-22, but with stealth and supercruise, but that's just a WAG.
TomS said:Yeah, the usual figure for the FB-22 was 54 tons MTOW, so right there with the F-111.
I've been thinking that the ideal weapon stowage for LRS-B would be a bay around 8-9 meters long and about 2 meters in diameter. That's sized for two small rotary launchers one in front of the other, each with four stations for 2000-lb weapons; or a single Massive Ordnance Penetrator (though that might stay a B-2 weapon, since it's so scarce). Total internal warload would be a max of 14 tons (for the MOP) but more usually 8 tons plus the rotary launchers. That's eight 2000-lb JDAM, JSOW, or JASSM or at least 32 SDBs. Maybe also have four external hardpoints for longer-range standoff missiles, if and when...
sferrin said:Way too small if they're looking to replace the B-52 and B-1B with it.
None. Not one has ever dropped a nuke in anger. I guess we don't need bombers. How many SLBMs have we ever launched in anger? ICBMs? Guess we don't need those either. Not trying to be a smartass but we never needed the capability to drop a MOP either - until we did. Unless you have some kind of time machine, and can see everything that's going to happen in the next 50 years, I'd prefer we didn't intentionally short-change ourselves.TomS said:sferrin said:Way too small if they're looking to replace the B-52 and B-1B with it.
Well, the question is whether we actually need bombers that big. How many weapons have these aircraft actually delivered in a typical sortie?
TomS said:You kind of jumped way past what I was saying. I never said we don't need LRS-B, but I think we need to think carefully about how much load capacity we really need and what we can afford.
There are two ways to lose future capability. One is to underdesign and leave too small growth margins. The other is to overdesign and escalate the unit cost beyond affordability. Given that we have a "silver bullet" B-2 force to handle the highest end missions requiring the biggest weapons or extremely large number of weapons, I think I'd aim for a mid-range LRS-B design that is less likely to bust the budget.
I can't imagine anyone seriously proposing a weapon larger than MOP (there's already a major push to go smaller), so using that as the upper bound for weapon weight seems logical. The other driving requirement is probably numbers of aimpoints to be struck per sortie. We did have cases in Bosnia of B-2s delivering all 16 large JDAMs in a single mission, but that was back when JDAM was a low-density asset and the B-2 was the only delivery option. Now that there are lots of delivery aircraft, we don't seem to be seeing as many such missions.
The one issue that makes me second-guess the numbers is the desire to have an assortment of weapons on hand when doing loitering on-call suport. Maybe we need a little more capacity so you can have a mix of SDB for small targets, large JDAMs for larger structures, and WCMD for anti-armor work. Fortunately, WCMD is fairly short, so it could be doubled-up on a rotary launcher for a 2000-lb JDAM without too much extra length (total length for the rotary would need to be around 5 meters each).
TomS said:Nuclear warfighting is clearly secondary -- LRS-B may not even be nuclear-capable in its first tranche.
TomS said:And frankly I don't see a plausible nuclear warfighting strategy that requires huge numbers of nuclear warheads delivered by bombers. Just because Cold War warplans called for 24+ nuclear weapons on a single bomber does not necessarily mean that current strategies will. I could just barely imagine using manned aircraft to deliver a small number of nuclear weapons, but in an unrestrained exchange with large numbers of aimpoints, ICBMs and SLBMs are going to have done so much damage that bombers are just going to be bouncing the rubble.
TomS said:I've seen too many programs explode financially (F-22, DDG-1000, etc.) because the procurement authorities kept asking for everything and didn't stop to think about what they actually needed most. At some point we actually have to start buying affordable, good-enough systems that we can buy in sufficient numbers to sustain force structure.
[/quote]sferrin said:TomS said:Nuclear warfighting is clearly secondary -- LRS-B may not even be nuclear-capable in its first tranche.
Per an article in this week's AvWeek it will be.
TomS said:And frankly I don't see a plausible nuclear warfighting strategy that requires huge numbers of nuclear warheads delivered by bombers. Just because Cold War warplans called for 24+ nuclear weapons on a single bomber does not necessarily mean that current strategies will. I could just barely imagine using manned aircraft to deliver a small number of nuclear weapons, but in an unrestrained exchange with large numbers of aimpoints, ICBMs and SLBMs are going to have done so much damage that bombers are just going to be bouncing the rubble.
I have a hard time getting on the, "let's sacrifice capability because I can't imagine a need for it" bandwagon. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
marauder2048 said:Probably difficult to really debate the desired nuclear capabilities of LRS-B without a wider consideration of the rest of the Triad...
One thing to consider is that, going forward, we may have significantly less confidence in our legacy, uber-volume and weight optimized physics packages This may bias future designs (in the absence of testing) to heavier, more voluminous but more reliable configurations.
Then there's New START which imposes no limit on the number of nuclear weapons a heavy bomber can carry. It strikes me that bombers are more readily amenable to payload fractionation than the other members of the Triad.
Considering an AGM-86C weighs over 4,000lbs you do the math. 20,000lbs is less than one pylon full of cruise missiles on a B-52. 20,000lbs, Mach 2 cruise etc. might be acceptable if it were replacing a B-58. Not for replacing a B-1B and B-52. You just lose way to much flexibility.DrRansom said:We still have that Air Force research program from the mid noughts, there the conceptual bomber was:
20,000lb payload
2,000nm range at Mach 2 cruise
If the LRS-B was sized with a 20,000lb payload, would that be sufficiently large for you, Sferrin? That's about a fourth of the B-1B's internal payload.
AeroFranz said:The next in sequence is B-4...B-3 being already taken! ;D
bobbymike said:http://aviationweek.com/defense/opinion-how-secrecy-will-kill-next-bomber
From our good friend here at SP.
If LRS-B is a technological breakthrough (and it may turn out to be a remarkable story, one of decades of quiet persistence leading to the big win), that story can be told as it was 20 years ago, without compromising operations.
DrRansom said:If LRS-B is a technological breakthrough (and it may turn out to be a remarkable story, one of decades of quiet persistence leading to the big win), that story can be told as it was 20 years ago, without compromising operations.
I have to hand on heart agree with this if the competition goes the way I am thinking it will go (Smaller, F-111 sized airframes).sferrin#
Yeah, it was good for a chuckle. As far as I'm concerned they should keep it under wraps at least as much as they did with the F-117.
LowObservable said:an ingenious assembly of OTS parts.
LowObservable said:There aren't many MOP targets, or MOPs, and the last time I looked we had a stealth bomber that can carry MOP, and that's in line for an expensive upgrade.
Talk of F-117-like secrecy is moonshine. This isn't a stealthy dustcover over an ingenious assembly of OTS parts.