TomS said:
LRS-B is meant to replace the B-52 and B-1.
Sooooommmmewhat. It's not a direct replacement. Those types may disappear, but the LRS-B will not necessarily be used for missions they performed or the capabilities they brought to the table.
It's important to keep in mind that much of LRS-B grew out of the Sensorcraft work, and much of the NGB/LRS-B work performed to this point focused on automation of various kinds. LRS is intended to be a family of systems, with LRS-B being the bomber component - though it may not *just* be a bomber.
It could, for example, be a bomber with a very high degree of automation, with a variant that is an unmanned ISR platform. So the "B-190" and "RQ-190" are 95% the same aircraft, but one is manned, the other not. Both can perform automated inflight refueling, but the unmanned platform has much longer endurance and can carry sensors that the manned bomber cannot. Perhaps the "RQ-190" could be converted to a "B-190" easily at a forward base.
And you would have a very long loiter time VLO platform for finding and observing targets in denied airspace, and another VLO platform for attacking them.
Wait, this sounds familiar....