Is it really a stealth bomber if it’s going to be revealed?

For the presentation, they should open the gates of an empty hangar.

Their landing page contains literally a picture of an empty room.

https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/air/b-21-raider/

But that would spoil the dad joke where everybody pretends they can't see it.

The US military's strategy seems to be to give potential adversaries just enough info to make them think twice about attacking, but not enough to mitigate the threat. Russia, China, and the US know the others have nukes, but they don't know where all the nuke platforms (mostly subs) are or what their capabilities are, so there's an unknown upper bound of potential retaliation.

And so it is with stealth. We know there are subs armed with powerful nukes, but we don't know where they are, or what cities they've been instructed to flatten in the event of an order to strike. Stealth planes are just nuclear missiles that fly up to the target.

As long as it's not revealed by radar...

...and even if it is revealed by radar, if it's revealed at a smaller radius or if the weapons radar has difficulty locking on or if the highly sensitive radar that is capable of seeing it is more vulnerable to jamming, those are all benefits.

At some point the US (or anyone) probably needs to build a stealth tanker.

A lot of long-distance operations need refueling, and the commercial conversions that are currently done are not stealth at all and could compromise sensitive operations.

* https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/7012/the-air-force-des...

* https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/concept-stealth-tan...

The Air Force is going in a different direction and designing their next generation tactical aircraft with longer range to reduce the need for tankers.

https://youtu.be/_5bdmbOQZ_g

Do we still need bomber aircraft when we can launch extremely accurate missiles from practically anywhere? Even if they are not "stealth" a hyper-sonic missile is almost impossible to stop.

Because even USA doesn't have unlimited money. A B-21 can carry a lot of cheap precision weapons. Eg. JDAM costs like $25k each, compared to many millions each target would require with missiles.

They sure print like they do and the pentagon has a $35 trillion accounting inaccuracy. [1] We don't even know what this stuff costs us in the end.

[1] https://www.thestreet.com/phildavis/stocks-options/the-penta...

But you'd also have to include the cost of the B-21, crew, maintenance, etc. - it's not only the $25k vs millions for a missile.

'Cheap' / dumb ammunitions may be easier to produce in volume, so if you need to increase production it could be easier.

The B-21 is a fixed cost that is ready to go: just 'add water' (munitions) and you can have a higher pace of operations as long as you can feed the machine (B-21).

Eh, bombers aren't a fixed cost. There's certainly a fixed CapEx, but the B2 OpEx is ~$130,000 per hour (https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/air-forces-10-expens...).

Still, strategic bombers add capability that drones/missiles don't. In particular, eyes on the target still haven't been deprecated by remote optics in drones and missiles can't loiter.

Yep. True. But amortized over the expected lifetime of the aircraft, it will still be orders of magnitude cheaper.

Yeah, exactly. Even the Serbians were able to shoot down an F-117 with ancient Soviet S-125. The latest is S-550.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/stealth-down-how-se...

Only because the AF got really careless and literally overflew the radar site repeatedly on the same path at a predictable time.

Stealth is a not a cloaking device. It's a <1 multiplier on enemy radar range. If you get close enough, you will still be targeted. But combined with sufficient standoff range on your weapons, stealth enables hitting your target before they can hit you.

The serbians were only able to shoot the F-117 down because it had its bomb bay doors open. These days the bomb bay is automated. Meaning it will only be open for the 1-2 seconds gravity needs to get the weapon out of the bay.

They were able to shoot down _one_. This was after analysing many sorties and a bit of luck under ideal conditions. Radar has improved but so has stealth and operating procedures.

S-500 only went into production this year and with sanctions in place not sure how many they will be able to build (if any) with their supply chain in tatters.

And given that Israel has been running around Syria with their F-35s being undetected by the S-400 not sure how much confidence anyone should have in Russian claims.

Have you considered that maybe just maybe Russia is not keen on starting a kinetic war with Israel? Not shooting down doesn't mean not detected.

Also, Russia has already delivered some S-500s into service. Their supply chains might be strained, but they are still functioning & mostly domestic sourced.

That doesn't make any sense.

You don't deploy billions of dollars worth of infrastructure in Syria just to leave it switched off.

What’s the big deal about hypersonic missiles? They fly fast, okay, and?

1. Radar has to scan more frequently to track a hypersonic.

2. Because they can change course at high speed, a slower intercept weapon will miss if it counts on predicting the flight path to intercept. At present this is how most surface to air and point defense weapons systems work.

3. Point defense systems may not be able to react fast enough to stop a hypersonic.

4. More kinetic damage. This is significant for ships.

You can't intercept them (yet) and they're difficult to detect. You don't see that as an advantage for standoff weapons?

The SM-6 has some limited ability to intercept hypersonic weapons. This hasn't been tested in a realistic way yet.

https://seapowermagazine.org/vice-adm-hill-mda-pushes-space-...

> Do we still need bomber aircraft when we can launch extremely accurate missiles from practically anywhere?

Are there bunker busting missiles, or is a bomb needed to go down vertically to penetrate?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_buster

There have been actually, like the W86 thrown with a Pershing II. Part of the US's nuclear deterrence strategy was developing technology that would allow enemy leadership to be killed no matter where they tried to hide.

Same reason we fly in subsonic aircraft rather than ballistic rockets: ICBMs are much more expensive.

> Do we still need bomber aircraft when we can launch extremely accurate missiles from practically anywhere? Even if they are not "stealth" a hyper-sonic missile is almost impossible to stop.

Yes. Missiles are expensive and can't be reused.

You can intercept missiles. The closer you can get to your target, the less chance of an interception (can’t calculate trajectory).

In all likelihood this craft will be a command and control center. Can target missiles and control drones.

Artillery is the game changer in warfare. Cheap and effective. I don't think this reveal will be solely a bomber but a bomber/attack aircraft.

I think we need to see evidence that hyper-sonic missiles are (a) accurate and (b) able to hit moving targets.

Lots of claims of both but no actual evidence.

> I think we need to see evidence that hyper-sonic missiles are (a) accurate and (b) able to hit moving targets.

(b) may not be necessary: hitting military bases, and munition and fuel stores, neither of which are moving targets, is a useful capability.

Why (b)? All the important stuff is on the ground and either stationary or moving at a speed that's a crawl relative to hypersonic.

They're real and there's plenty evidence of them hitting their targets in Ukraine. You're just not going to see it on from the armchair generals on Reddit or Twitter. Now a moving target, that's a whole different story.

A Kinzhal missile is not what people are referring to when they talk about "hypersonic missiles". They're usually referring to either maneuverable glide vehicles (lifting bodies for warheads that allow them to change course during the terminal phase), or air-breathing SCAMJETs cruise missiles that are both maneuverable and can fly at low altitude to avoid detection (well, other than the noise).

Also consider that russia's Kinzhal can go about mach 4-5. That sounds pretty bad, until you realize that good old ICBMs re-enter from space and travel in atmosphere somewhere between mach 15 and 20.

Fast missiles like Kinzhal are not new at all. As far back as the 60s the USA had the Sprint and Nike which could accelerate from the ground to mach 10 in seconds and would glow white hot from heating. Even maneuverable glide vehicles aren't new, the Pershing II could perform limited course changes during descent back in the early 80s. Yes, fast missiles are scary, but they're not in the same class as true air-breathing hypersonic weapons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Zeus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(missile)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pershing_II

A cruise missile strapped to a plane is not what people mean when they talk about hypersonics, even if it is (barely) technically correct. The new class of hypersonic missiles are aiming to be Mach 20 or faster, and highly maneuverable in comparison, quite a different capability. This is the type of missile that has not been proven to work beyond testing yet.

Ukraine is a poor example since Russia's approach is to induce fear by firing indiscriminately at civilian areas.

So it's impossible to gauge the accuracy of anything let alone the rarely seen Kinzhal missiles.

The term "hypersonic missile" these days is short-hand for terminally-guided endoatmospheric missiles that can operate at hypersonic velocities. This is an extremely difficult engineering problem and there is no evidence that anyone has an operational weapon in this class.

Nothing in the Ukraine fits this description. Those are ordinary ballistic missiles, which naturally have hypersonic ballistic re-entry. There is nothing interesting about that, we've had it for 70+ years now.

Missiles have limited ranges. Bombers are used to get the missiles closer to the target.

Bombers can be recalled during flight.

I assume every missile has some sort of fail-safe to have it self-destruct or do some course correction.

Other than keeping the gravy train going to the MIC, how useful is a system like this in the age of hypersonic ballistics? Stealth or not, I can't imagine this thing making it into the territory of a near-peer.

We've had hypersonic ballistics for the better part of a century. We've been in this "age" longer than most people have been alive. This is not an unfamiliar problem to militaries.

Ballistic missiles have many limitations.

Russia is a near-peer and Ukraine was able to fly helicopters into Russia and attack a refinery.

And? Helicopters are easy to hide and fly in low. And most of those missions have been suicide. The idea that Russia (or any military) can detect and intercept everything is unrealistic.

I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of how these things work because they're comparing this to the invasion of Iraq (a 3rd rate military at best with basically zero air defense).

My point is to outline that the topic is complicated. There is a lot more to it than "x radar resolves y aircraft"

20 billion dollars oof

If it’s really on time and on budget it might be the most successful arms contract in the last 30 years…

The more secretive stuff tends to more frequently come in on budget for a laundry list of reasons that boil down to more annoyance from higher up if over budget and fewer people knowing the pot of money is there to stick their hand in.

But why? I thought hiding from modern THz radar is impossible.

> THz radar

I've got your THz right here (shines laser pointer at sensor)

You'll see puff pieces from radar manufacturers saying "we spotted your best stealth plane, game's up," but they tend to leave out critical details like how more sensitive radars tend to be more vulnerable to jamming. Detecting a stealth aircraft in peacetime is a very different prospect from detecting a stealth aircraft in a hostile EW environment, which is itself different from an outright hostile environment where every radar pulse is a targeting opportunity for an anti-radiation missile.

Also, it's not black and white: range of detection matters. Shrink it enough and either your opponent has to put up more radars or you get the opportunity to slip through. Retro-reflective stealth is defeated by networked radar, but then the opposing forces have to maintain a network and you can try to disrupt that network. Even if you can't disrupt the network, it doesn't fit on a missile, so now the missile either can't target you or needs network communication to target you, and now you can try to go after the missile's network, which is wireless and even easier to mess with.

Stealth isn't necessarily an overriding factor these days, but it definitely gives you options and puts pressure on the opposition.

AFAIK it's the opposite. Low frequency early warning radars are able to detect the vague position of stealth fighter jets (like the F-35) because these jets need a vertical stabilizer to be able to do combat maneuvers. Knowing the vague position is good enough to route intercepting aircraft towards the threat but in theory you will be unable to target these jets with AA missiles because targeting radars can't see these jets until they're very very close.

Flying wing designs like the B-2 and B-21 don't have this issue and are mostly invisible to early warning and targeting radars.

Cynical take: jobs program for the senators district.

Non-cynical take: Most modern aircraft are equipped with networking/avionics that allow information to be shared across multiple battle domains (army on land, air force, maybe space who knows). A stealth-ish (not completely invisible but still tough to track) aircraft that can perform this role as well as carry nukes might be useful in coming conflicts.

> Jobs program for the senators district.

Also an incentive for the US Military-Industrial complex to place a high value on the territorial integrity of the US and assign high cost to supporting a divisive coup.

It just needs to be invisible enough to have the planes be able to destroy targets before the enemy (a) detects and determines what you are and (b) launches a set of missiles to destroy you.

If stealth fails at (a) but buys you enough time to get out before (b) then it's still a successful technology.

Hiding in the THz is the easiest; paint it black and fly at night.

Lower THz, e.g. IR, is attenuated by the atmosphere. Useful but limited, and stealth planes are designed to make it harder (e.g. by mixing hot exhaust with cooler air above the wing, where the hot engine cannot easily be seen from the ground.)

"Stealth" means "as stealth as we can be", not "100% invisible".

> hiding from modern THz radar is impossible

Seeing a plane and targeting it as separate beasts.

The radars of WWII could see these aircraft but with extremely low resolution. What THz phased array radars are in service right now?