The selling point for the B-21 is supposed to be that it is designed for continuous, rather than bloc, upgrades, sort of like firmware updates and module replacement rather than having to send the airframe back to the shed for reworking, etc. Whether that will do the trick or not is yet to be seen. The B-2 dates back to like 1988 and still seems to be viable, though they only made less than two dozen I think. The USAF says it wants like 100 of these new planes, but we’ll see.
They are designed primarily (as I understand it) to be a strategic deterrent, a nuclear strike force that is survivable enough to guarantee that any nuclear attack on the USA would meet with total smack down no matter what. I gather the secondary mission might well be precision conventional strikes.
MikeJ
2897
Development costs seem surprisingly low - less than $25 billion.
In an update provided by the assistant secretary for acquisitions, Andrew Hunter revealed, “We had money in the program budget that went beyond the contractually required payments.” They were able to target the money for early spending on riskier aspects of the program. And while the amount Northrop Grumman was able to save is classified, current estimates for the B-21 are that it will likely cost $203 billion to develop, purchase, and then operate 100 aircraft for 30 years.
ShivaX
2898
This actually dovetailed into a video I just finished watching.
TLDW: We’re so far ahead technologically that our defense budget could be a ton lower and it wouldn’t matter.
abrandt
2899
And a (hopefully) faster development cycle than we’ve been seeing! It does seem like they learned some procurement lessons from past mistakes and are serious about getting a platform that’s affordable enough to actually hit their fleet size goal.
Alstein
2900
What I was taught was that the Russians did a lot of the work against the Germans, the US did a lot of work against both, and Britain pulled their weight.
Without any of the three, the war would have been a close-run thing.
JMR
2901
According to this source it won’t be a rollout from the hangar like it was for the B-2 back in '88.
A last noticeable difference is in the debut itself. While both will have debuted in the Air Force’s Palmdale Plant 42, in 1989 the B-2 was rolled outdoors amid much public fanfare.
Given advances in surveillance satellites and cameras, the Raider will debut very much under wraps and will be viewed inside a hangar. Invited guests including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will witness the hangar doors open to reveal the bomber for its public introduction, then the doors will close again.
I remember getting home from school, dialing into Prodigy and waiting minutes for a crude graphic of the B-2 to load on the screen. Fun times those were.
When they rolled out the B-2, they tried to keep the rear of it hidden from view of the crowd. Except somehow they didn’t account for the photographer in the Cessna overhead.
Pepperidge Farms, and the Air Force, remembers.
From this article.
“Six B-21 Raiders are in production; The Air Force plans to build 100 that can deploy either nuclear weapons or conventional bombs and can be used with or without a human crew.”
Is that real? If so, this is the most horrific drone imaginable. Truly nightmare fuel.
Thrag
2904
Don’t worry, the military is developing a highly distributed AI to control them.
Houngan
2905
As long as they use a Blockchain for control, I have no worries.
KevinC
2906
Rumor has it the DoD has licensed Tesla’s autopilot for their knife missiles.
Get with the times, loserz. It’ll be powered with NFT’s.
Menzo
2908
I’m pretty sure all new airframes will have uncrewed capabilities from here on out.
Cyberdyne Systems is working on the AI.
ShivaX
2914
It’s so weird to see this talk after a day in which I read this:
Unrelated, but one of those weird moments when randomly everything comes up Skynet.
I thought “without a crew” would mean flown by someone in an office park in Nevada, no? Though I’m sure full AI control is something they’re working on.
