"The Pentagon Is Building the "Arsenal Plane," a Giant..." Topic

…Flying Battlewagon.

"U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has revealed the existence of a program to develop a so-called "Arsenal Plane." Designed to back up fifth generation fighters such as the F-35 with a large number of conventional weapons, backing up the high-tech fighters with tried-and-true ordinance.

The Arsenal Plane actually has its roots at sea. During the 1990s, there was an effort to create so-called "Arsenal Ships"— large boats packed with hundreds of missile silos that would rely on the targeting data of the rest of the fleet. The Arsenal Ship was never built, but four Ohio-class submarines were converted to carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each, platforms now recognized as extremely important in providing stand-off, precision firepower.

The Arsenal Plane takes this same concept and puts it in the air. An ideal Arsenal Plane would be a large platform with long range and mid-air refueling capability. The plane would need to be equipped with Link 16, a digital datalink system used by the U.S. military and allied ships, planes and ground forces to communicate with one another and share information…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

I seem to recall this idea was floated some years ago using converted 747's as the missile carrier. The F22's would target and the 747 would launch. The converted 747 would have carried hundreds of AAMs.

Using civil airliners as cruise missile carriers is mentioned in John Taylor's "Modern Combat Aircraft".

That was published in 1974.

And we're still waiting….

Bah, this first appeared in 1965!

This article only talked about air to ground. Stupid. B-1s and B-52s already carry more bombs then they can drop on most flights.

The Air Force fighter pilot click just wont allow a flying anti-air plane, since it would take away from the fighter jocks. All they would do is light up targets for the missile carrier.

My vote's for the EB-52 Megafortress from author and former FB-111 bombardier-navigator Dale Brown.

The Harpoon rules had a conjectural heavy bomber equipped with loads of AAMs.

Can't recall if it was just a US option, and/or if there was one for the Russians too, but that dates back to about the mid-1980s, IIRC.

There was once a plan to use the B-1 as a flying anti-air interceptor. That was quashed as well. There is a currently proposed variant of the B-1 called the B-1R that would put an AESA radar on it and re-engine with the same engines as the F22. This version would fly at Mach 2.2 and be able to carry air to air missiles (but is still primarily designed to be a bomber).

If we could get new-build B1Rs for the LRSB program, I think we'd have a winner. Especially if the B1R looked more like the Dale Brown variant, with V-tails and extra stealth skin.

something like 50,000lbs of AAMs externally, plus 75,000lbs of bombs internally. Problem is that there are only 6 external hardpoints on a B1, so we'd probably only get ~36 AMRAAMs max, well below the 50klbs capacity.

[Edit] according to the Inflation Calculator, a new-build B1B would cost ~$419mil per unit, which is under the USAF's budget ceiling for the LRSB.

So… because the F-35 can't fulfill its ground support missions, we are proposing to tether it to a lumbering bomber that would do its heavy work for it? Maybe it would be better to return to the older doctrine of having interceptors and Wild Weasel anti-SAM fighters screening the way for heavy bomber missions.