They haven't figured out what the mission is, or what the thing will look like, or what they are gonna call it, but they have decided on the price. They have decided that it will be sub sonic (good call). Well at least it's less than the $2 billion for the B-2. This price declaration means that it will cost at least $550 million. Once you say how much you are willing to pay, count on the bids coming in right at that number.
The Aviation Week article is full of skeptical observations about USAF's terrible track record on contract costs, starting with the F-35 which was estimated at $35million back when the program started 20 years ago, and is $80 million now. And the tanker disaster, and the lightweight fighter fiasco. Certainly my old service has done more major bungles than successes over the last 20 years.
And there was a lot of wailing from subcontractors about how the cost target would be achieved by leaving off all their gold plated "systems". Unfair they say, leaving all this stuff off the bomber will mean other aircraft have to carry out those missions. Me, I don't have a problem with that. If the "low cost" bomber can destroy its targets, and live to tell the tale, it's done good. It doesn't need to do reconnaissance mapping, or serve as an airborne Internet relay station, or as VIP transport, or do electronic eavesdropping. It just needs to penetrate enemy defenses and hit the target. For extra credit it can get its crew back to base alive.
It's sort of too bad that the greatest penetration aid of all is unusable in the post cold war environment. The nuclear tipped Short Range Attack Missile (SRAM) could reach out 100 miles and vaporize those pesky fighter bases, radars and SAM sites. The B-52's carried lots of them in rotary launchers. Unfortunately we don't use nukes in the 21st century, and plain old TNT doesn't pack enough punch to do much of a job.
2 comments:
It is a pretty big price tag for a bomber.
I would stick along the lines of make it big, large payload, good sub-sonic cruise speed and decent countermeasures against MANPADs (aka flying higher than 30,000 feet.
Actually I just looked up the specs on the B-52 again and er, well it does all of that and they're scheduled to be in service until 2050...
The B-52 was a very successful design, which is why it is still in service. The real question is what can a $550 million bomber do that cannot be done with a few $80 million F-35's and some tanker support.
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