"New, $550 Million Bomber Program" Topic

USAF trying to stick firm to the $550 USD Mil pricetag, not including development costs, for their new, long-range bomber:

link

Perhaps, they have learned something, afterall.

Well, the $550 USD mil is just the 'ceiling' they put on the production cost. I'm sure the R&D costs will make it pale by comparison, if the F-35 program is anything to go by.

"Not including development costs" is pretty much a get-out for most of the budget anyway….

$550 USDMillion per plane that's just unreal. the USAF better start running a lot of bake sales because the way things are going the money is not going to be there. The need to find a way to make $10 USD million per plane planes or they are not going to be flying any thing but B52 for the next 100 years.

They could build new super up classed B52s for less then 60 million each. I think they should go that road and save on the R&D.

I think the $550 USD comes as the snicker cost. As they come up with a cost in the meeting someone asks:

"Ok, we gotta give them some kind of number to start this ball a rollin'. Anyone got one?"

<snickering> "How about 550 mil/per?" <snicker>

"Good! Under a billion but sounds like it's got lots of features."

Air Force and Navy procurment methods practically cry out "cut our budget because we can't control ourselves".

And, yet, we want to scrap our perfectly good (actually, superb!) tactical attack aircraft, which can also carry lots of bombs, and has a gatling gun in the nose, too, just for fun.

Does the plane make the pilot or the pilot the plane? If so why don't they buy out its cheaper or is it pride talking here? If its the pilot upgrade or buy out, it'll save the American TAX payers a fortune.

Honestly, I believe the greatest threat to American military readiness is the out-of-control procurement system, to include Congressional meddling in the entire process. There is more waste associated with pork-barrel projects and forgiveness of companies who fail to meet contract requirements than I dare to think of.

Not to mention, we need less of the "Oooh, sexy!" factor. Why did we need the F-35 when the F-22 was brand new and very effective? And we've spent billions on B-2s; why start over fresh? It doesn't make much sense.

Yep, when you can only afford to buy a handful of weapons, it is time to look for much more reasonably priced alternatives.

Should we lose the next war(s), we have no one to blame but our own military procurement system, and contractors.

Makes perfect sense, if you are a military contractor exec, and/or someone with decision-making power now, who may eventually go to work for them one day. As they say, "follow the money".

We stopped building the B2s because they were $500 USD+m each… Interrogative Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over!

I would think with the desire to replace so many piloted aircraft with drones, that we are not going that direction for a long range bomber at any rate.

We killed the already established F22 production. I cannot imagine the cold war-esque long range bomber program is going to go too far with that kind of price tag. But then, who knows. The Marine Corps took the better part of 30 years to get their Osprey as an operational aircraft. It is hard to imagine it not getting cancelled back in the day.

I'm way beyond …….

Nothing makes any sense anymore.

"Ok, we gotta give them some kind of number to start this ball a rollin'. Anyone got one?"

I am involved in a major systems development project with a one year requirements gathering and options evaluation phase. Included in that is three months scoping for the work required for in-house development (vs package acquisition).

However. The bids for next years budget allocation (Aug 14 -Aug 15) need to be in now, and need to include the estimate for in-house development or it won't be funded, even though the scoping work isn't scheduled to start until August.

So, we either delay the implementation by six months until the next budget year, or 'estimate', a.k.a. make up, a figure.

Guess what we did?

I love the corporate life:)

I think it was in Combat Aircraft magazine that I read about the US bomber plans (price tag wasn't listed IIRC) and from that, this new bomber was expected to be the last manned bomber. There were some other details I can't really recall now, but I think they included shared systems with drones.

FWIW, even the B-2 is 1980s stealth tech now, right?

OTOH, there's also a school of thought that stealth is a dead end because anything that turns on a radar dies. That school of thought hasn't quite explained to my satisfaction how they'd plan on killing all the radars – AWACS, ground-based etc. faster than the non-stealth a/c would get dropped.

OTOH, there's also a school of thought that stealth is a dead end because anything that turns on a radar dies. That school of thought hasn't quite explained to my satisfaction how they'd plan on killing all the radars – AWACS, ground-based etc. faster than the non-stealth a/c would get dropped.

As they say there's more ways to skin a stealthy cat – bistatic radar, over-the-horizon radar, infra red/electro optics, electro magentic waves etc etc (all far beyond my knowledge).

Anyway current tactics involve radar jammers and offensive aircraft ala F-16CJ and EA-18G/EA-6B to take out radars and communication systems in what is known as either:

- Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) – presenting enough of a threat for the enemy to shut down their radar systems.

- Destruction of Enemy Air Defence (DEAD) – actively seeking out and destroying enemy air defence systems.

A properly planned air campaign will have these assets in the game quickly alongside cruise missiles and other strikes against static air defence.

There are obviously problems with mobile systems.

And in a war against an advanced opponents with large forces, an organised SEAD/DEAD operation may not be possible.

B-2 has been effective in long range strikes because the opponents seldom had effective and robust air defences – indeed Libya, Iraq 2003 and Afghanistan had either no air defences or they were completely degraded after years of war and sanctions.

Serbia's system was fully functional but obsolete. Still they managed to keep NATO in the high altitude sphere only through clever use of the systems they had, good deceptive measures and terrain.

Obviously higher altitude bombing isn't as accurate as low and medium level even with LGBs. But it's more risky at low and medium level.

Stealth doesn't reduce the need for these SEAD/DEAD asset , especially as other players start pumping money into counter stealth.