On Tuesday, the Pentagon announced that Northrop Grumman will be getting the contract for the Long Range Strike Bomber, the planned replacement for the B-52 Stratofortress. The contract will cover the R&D Funding (expected to be $21.4 billion, per an Air Force release) as well as the first 21 planes of a planned production run of 100 planes.
The Air Force is long overdue for a new bomber. The youngest B-52s are 53 years old – and others are probably less than a decade from being eligible for Medicare and Social Security. The B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit were produced in numbers far smaller than their planned production runs (240 B-1s were originally envisioned, 100 were produced – a figure reached only after serious fights; the B-2 saw its numbers cut from a planned buy of 132 to 21 – and GOP fiscal hawks combined with left-wing Democrats to prematurely halt production in the 1990s). The youngest B-1s will be 30 in 2018, the youngest B-2s turned 15 this year.
Today, the Air Force has 78 B-52s in service, alongside 62 B-1Bs and 20 B-2s, a total of 158 bombers. Yet to replace 138 B-52s and B-1Bs, the Air Force only is asking for 100 LRS-Bs. This is thinking way too small. These B-52s are the last active units from 193 B-52G and 102 B-52H bombers that were built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The G models were retired in the early 1990s and never replaced due to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
The fact is, the United States has arguably let the crucial bomber force atrophy – especially when they have proven to be very powerful and versatile assets. During the Cold War, a number of B-52s were modified to use the Harpoon anti-ship missile in the maritime strike mission. Those modified B-52s could carry a dozen Harpoons each – 50% more than the standard Harpoon load on a Navy surface vessel. At various times, B-52s have also carried conventional cruise missiles, dropped precision-guided weapons to support ground troops, and carpet-bombed enemy forces. This was all in addition to being part of America’s nuclear deterrent.
The B-1 has also proven to be a fast and deadly bomb truck. Even when its ability to carry externally-mounted cruise missiles and bombs was negotiated away in START, it could carry a lot more dumb bombs than a B-52, and it proved very adaptable for precision-guided weapons as well. During Operation Allied Force in 1999, B-1Bs carried 20 percent of the ordnance dropped flying only 2 percent of the sorties. In the War on Terror, B-1s have delivered Joint Direct Attack Munitions in support of ground troops, with a few airframes carrying a lot of the load.
In other words, the long-range bombers of the Air Force are in high demand. But will we get enough of them? The B-52G could have been used to fill some of the demand, but they were retired and destroyed under START and New START. Replacing 138 B-52s and B-1s with 100 LRS-Bs will only stretch the Air Force’s resources even more. This does not make sense, as not only is Russia re-emerging as a threat, but China is also getting more aggressive.
Congress needs to step in, and tell the Air Force that 100 LRS-Bs are not enough. Instead, the Air Force probably should instead look into ordering enough of these bombers to replace not just the B-52H force, but also the B-52G force retired in the 1990s without replacement, for a total of 295 airframes. Then, the Air Force needs to also get cracking on a replacement for the B-1 and B-2 force that combines the strengths of both planes.
Will it cost a lot of money? Perhaps, but a modern bomber force with a sufficient number of airframes could end up ensuring the United States does not have to pay a price in blood. In the end, money is a lot cheaper than lives.