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View Full Version : tPF Will the Bomber Always Get Through?



Peter1469
01-01-2016, 04:51 PM
In 1932 a British Member of Parliament famously said (http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/12/31/will_the_bomber_always_get_through_108847.html)the bomber always gets through. That of course proved to be false. In the summer of 1940 the Luftwaffe lost 45% of its bombers and more than 50% of its crews. In the of 1943 the US 8th Air Force lost 20% of its bombers and 30% of its crews every month.

Since WWII survivability has been foremost in the minds of the developers of the new generations of bombers. The focus in the beginning was the development of long range fighters to protect the bombers. Then of course came stealth. How many of our Long Range Strike bombers (LSR-Bs) will get through? We don't know. Yet.


Will the US Air Force’s new stealth bomber be sufficiently survivable? Naive calculations sometimes presume, to quote Stanley Baldwin’s 1932 speech in the House of Commons, that “the bomber will always get through.” History has proven otherwise, and at the start of a ten-year development effort, the LRS-B’s survivability is clearly a known unknowable. It’s just possible that technological developments in sensors and directed energy may indicate that American airpower will relatively fall from its position of dominance. But before the USAF lets that happen, the service has a few technological and operational options of its own to pursue.





The question of stealth capabilities has been a huge component of the debate. The approach begun with the F-117 and then the B-2 was novel, but it only works at night, and is not guaranteed even then. In 1999, the Yugoslav 250th Missile Brigade brought down a stealth bomber—an F-117 of an admittedly old design—with an even older S-125 Pechora missile and some very good tactics (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-10-26-serb-stealth_x.htm). After all, stealth characteristics are built into an aircraft’s initial design, and retrofitted later only on the margins. Computing advances are moving fast, and if Moore’s Law (http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/defense-industrialist/has-moore-s-law-run-its-course-implications-for-military-technology) , sensors will keep improving for years with greater processing power. Even if not, software technique will continue improving for years afterwards (to understand why, see James Fallows, “Why Is Software So Slow? (http://www.apple.com/)” The Atlantic, September 2013.) Thus, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert believes that stealthiness could be “overrated” (http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/02/09/greenert-questions-stealth-future/22949703/) in future combat aircraft—"something moves fast through the air, disrupts molecules and puts out heat—I don't care how cool the engine can be, it's going to be detectable.” Indeed, we’ve heard recently that some Indian and Russians research organizations have been devoting considerable attention to developing infrared detection systems. Couple that with future developments in lasers, and crews of the big aircraft may find no sanctuary in the high night skies.

Read the entire article, these are just snips.