B-1 / B-52 Bombers for the United Kingdom?

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Christopher Wang

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In a September 20, 2020 article posted on Wavell Room, defense and international affairs analyst Dr. James Bosbotinis examines the United Kingdom’s options for investing in long-range strike capability. One option briefly explored is for the UK to purchase surplus B-1 or B-52 bombers from the United States, but the idea was deemed impractical due to airframe issues and financial costs.

The UK & Long-Range Strike.PNG
SOURCE: Bosbotinis, James. (2020, September 20). The UK and Long-Range Strike. Wavell Room. https://wavellroom.com/2020/09/10/the-uk-and-long-range-strike/

Were there ever actual proposals for the United Kingdom to acquire B-1 or B-52 bombers? If so, which information sources confirm this?
 
I dont know about B52s as the US has only the H models left.
I am sure the UK has been kept in the loop about the B1 over its service life and it may even have been offered. Cost would be the main problem plus lack of clear role.
 
The US did buy 104 B-1Bs way back in the day, and has put about half in mothballs (12 damaged or destroyed in crashes, 42 in service, 10 on display, leaves 40 in the Boneyard).
 
It would be relatively cheap to drag old BUFF air frames out of storage. But relatively is doing a lot of lifting there. Still a very expensive project, I'd imagine.
 
The idea surfaces every now and again. The reality is, the UK isn't getting heavy bombers (or 'long-range strike aircraft', which amounts to the same thing) without cutting something else. The RAF isn't cutting fast jets to get them. If the Army cuts anything else, it might somehow result in negative combat effectiveness. That leaves the Navy - which means either the carriers, or the strategic missile submarines.

I have a suspicion that this idea tends to come from a place of wanting the UK to get rid of one or the other, possibly both, of those capabilities.
 
Yellow Palace said:
The idea surfaces every now and again. The reality is, the UK isn't getting heavy bombers (or 'long-range strike aircraft', which amounts to the same thing) without cutting something else. The RAF isn't cutting fast jets to get them. If the Army cuts anything else, it might somehow result in negative combat effectiveness. That leaves the Navy - which means either the carriers, or the strategic missile submarines.

I have a suspicion that this idea tends to come from a place of wanting the UK to get rid of one or the other, possibly both, of those capabilities.
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That's a depressing suspicion.

But entirely possible.

I kinda feel compelled to retort that B-21s aren't heavy bombers in terms of bomb load, they seem to only carry ~24klbs and the F-15E can do that. B-21s do have intercontinental range, however.

Basically, I think the UK screwed up by not keeping a long range aircraft in service. Something able to fly from the UK to the Ural Mountains, 2500mi/4000km Combat Radius. Even if whatever that plane is happens to only carry 8-10klbs of bombs that far.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I kinda feel compelled to retort that B-21s aren't heavy bombers in terms of bomb load, they seem to only carry ~24klbs and the F-15E can do that. B-21s do have intercontinental range, however.
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The functional definition of light/medium/heavy bombers since the 1950s (i.e. when a one-tonne bomb load was all you needed any more) has had more to do with range than to do with payload. That's even truer today; with precision-guided munitions, there's very rarely a need to carry huge weapons loads. I can't remember where the line was drawn between 'medium' and 'heavy' - I have a feeling it was a combat radius of either 2,500 nautical miles or 4,000 nautical miles. The light/medium line was 1,000 nautical miles... which you may recall as being the design figure for (amongst others) the TSR.2.
Scott Kenny said:
Basically, I think the UK screwed up by not keeping a long range aircraft in service. Something able to fly from the UK to the Ural Mountains, 2500mi/4000km Combat Radius. Even if whatever that plane is happens to only carry 8-10klbs of bombs that far.
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I don't necessarily disagree, but defence spending isn't a vote winner in the UK. That means that retaining any long-range aircraft has to come at the expense of something else. And the UK has been cutting defence capabilities to preserve others since at least the 1950s.

Oddly enough, the one capability which is almost sacrosanct is the light infantry regiment. It's operationally very limited, but the UK has loads of them - in large part because the Army has done a very good job of arguing it needs to keep lots of regiments on the books as cheaply as possible (i.e. light infantry), rather than a smaller number of fully mechanised units. When you look at proposals for the future of the British Army, there's usually a section that amounts to 'and these units will stand around guarding stuff or something'.
 
The medium bomber force creatted at great cost in the 1950s was not sustainable in the 1960s against Soviet air defences without a similar large expenditure on air launched missiles or a new bomber (a different TSR2).
Polaris and then Trident have given the UK a minimum nuclear deterrent which is more survivsble than a bomber force.
Tomahawks on fleet submarines have added a long range conventiomal option.
The UK might have been interested in A12s if the USAF had bought then to replace F111s..
B21 is almost xertainly being followed closely by the RAF. At some point depending on the costs and production run
the B21 may feature in options to replace the present Typhoon/F35 force.
A likely casualty (as in 1966) if this happened would be the RN carriers. The UK defence budget is always a trade between the services.
 
uk 75 said:
UK defence budget is always a trade between the services.
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To be fair, so is every country's defence budget.

And, for that matter, the national budget as a whole. Even if one accepts the principle that a country which controls its currency can't run out of money (i.e. MMT), the resources available to allocate are still finite. At some point you have to decide between defence, education, healthcare, and so forth. Having all the whiz-bang ways to kill your enemies and break their stuff isn't much comfort to those whose standards of living suffer as a result.
 
Yellow Palace said:
The functional definition of light/medium/heavy bombers since the 1950s (i.e. when a one-tonne bomb load was all you needed any more) has had more to do with range than to do with payload. That's even truer today; with precision-guided munitions, there's very rarely a need to carry huge weapons loads. I can't remember where the line was drawn between 'medium' and 'heavy' - I have a feeling it was a combat radius of either 2,500 nautical miles or 4,000 nautical miles. The light/medium line was 1,000 nautical miles... which you may recall as being the design figure for (amongst others) the TSR.2.

I don't necessarily disagree, but defence spending isn't a vote winner in the UK. That means that retaining any long-range aircraft has to come at the expense of something else. And the UK has been cutting defence capabilities to preserve others since at least the 1950s.
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Throughout the Cold War Britain was devoting a far greater percentage of its GDP on defence than either during the Edwardian (aside from the 2nd Boer War, where expenditure was equivalent to that of the 1960s) or Interwar period. Those cuts since the 1950s are are from an unusually high, and in the case of the 1950s, where defence spending as a proportion of GDP was greater than 10%, unsustainable, baseline.
 
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Not sure how many B-52 are left in storage now anyway. Pretty sure not enough to have a chance at meaningful reactivation.
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
Those cuts since the 1950s are are from an unusually high, and in the case of the 1950s, where defence spending as a proportion of GDP was greater than 10%, unsustainable, baseline.
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Not saying that the high level was sustainable, or that the cuts were a bad thing... merely that the UK did, in fact, make them, and that they weren't (and couldn't be) just a matter of doing all the same things at a smaller scale.
 
A freelance defence writer posting on a blogging platform does not equate to any military interest.

The last sign of any UK interest in a long range bomber capability was thoughts of hanging StormShadow on Nimrod MRA.4, i.e. what can we get for minimal cost, and that's pushing 20 years ago.

I think the chances of a UK B-21 buy range between zero and none. With the chances for B-1 even worse.
 
DWG said:
I think the chances of a UK B-21 buy range between zero and none. With the chances for B-1 even worse.
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Definitely. There's a reason the USAF is retiring those B-1s that are in storage. They're in the worst condition of the whole fleet, and by this point have probably been cannibalized heavily to support the flying aircraft.
 
B-52H are only 76 plus 10 in reserves, and as old as Metuslah.

B-1B are badly worn out because of Iraq and Afghanistan never ending wars.

B-2 are more expensive than their own weight in gold with diamonds.

That leaves B-21 Raiders.
 
Foo Fighter said:
Not sure how many B-52 are left in storage now anyway. Pretty sure not enough to have a chance at meaningful reactivation.
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Outsides museums, there is nothing left outside B-52Hs. Of which only 102 were build, and (from memory) 11 airframes are at Davis Monthan in long term storage, ready to return to flight to fill any losses in the flying fleet: 76 or even less.

So B-52 are in very short supply: nothing to spare. The 193 B-52G build are mostly razor blades or tin cans.
 
And I do not think that the US will sell the B-21 Raiders anytime soon, it will be a repeat of the F-22 saga.
 
Poseidon would seem to be the most exploitable platform for strategic reach.
 
FighterJock said:
If the UK goes down the road of designing and building a new Strategic Bomber, then the only sensible route would be to join forces with France and design a brand new clean sheet original design.
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No thanks.

Give us money for the development.

Give us money to build.

Give us money for the result.

Keep your mouth shut and do as you are told.

We will tell you what you can have or you get nothing.

Sorry, have I left anything out from cooperation like this, not like we have never been there before.
 
Well, it's that or getting another TSR-2... brutal efficiency.
 
Okay if cooperating does not work then we could always go down the route of at least classifying the bomber so that no one knows about it until it is getting ready to reveal then it will be too late to cancel, Leasons learned from TSR.2.
 
Buying either B-52 or B-1 makes no sense. Neither is penetrating on the modern battlefield so why not develop a Rapid Dragon type system for A400? You'll get the same effect much more cheaply and with no microfleet of expensive-to-maintain airframes.

Another factor to consider is that such large potential payloads are useless for the RAF, since you'd be dropping a significant fraction of the entire national stockpile in one go...

If the UK does want a manned penetrating bomber, not just a cruise missile truck, then it's probably either the B-21 or an FB-22 like GCAP derivative with a larger delta wing and optimised for high-subsonic flight. Buying American will impose constraints as ever, and not be cheap. A GCAP derivative probably wouldn't be any cheaper overall, but there would potentially be export interest to soften the blow.
 
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dude the b2 bomber is very expensive and holds lest bombs but is harder to shoot down so it really depends on what person you ask
 
The B-21 is a much better fit for the UK than any other potential bomber out there, I'd argue it might even be more useful than the current UK carriers.
 
Broken said:
Buying either B-52 or B-1 makes no sense. Neither is penetrating on the modern battlefield so why not develop a Rapid Dragon type system for A400? You'll get the same effect much more cheaply and with no microfleet of expensive-to-maintain airframes.
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That was one of the options considered for FOAS (Future Offensive Air System)

www.airforce-technology.com

FOAS - Airforce Technology

FOAS, or the Future Offensive Air System, is the name given to a number of concept options which were being…
www.airforce-technology.com www.airforce-technology.com

Of course it's only cheaper in peacetime. To be useful in wartime you have to have significant stocks of cruise missiles, which are very expensive to build up.

Basically a case of a trade-off between R&D costs, cost of the platform and cost of munitions. If you are seriously expecting to fight a war with any kind of significant munitions expenditure, it's probably cheaper to develop a stealth bomber and drop cheap JDAMs from it, rather than use cheap transport aircraft delivering very expensive sophisticated cruise missiles.
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
If you are seriously expecting to fight a war with any kind of significant munitions expenditure, it's probably cheaper to develop a stealth bomber and drop cheap JDAMs from it, rather than use cheap transport aircraft delivering very expensive sophisticated cruise missiles.
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Exactly.

Rapid Dragon is good for a single large alpha strike, dumping however many missiles or JDAMs in a single drop. It's how you saturate someone's defensive SAMs.

But it also means you're flying a big, slow, non-maneuverable, non-stealthy target relatively close to the edge of an A2AD zone. Better hope you guessed right on the missile ranges or you just lost some transports!
 
I think B21 is now the only option if the RAF were to return to long range stike.
Although B21 would be costly the RAF may well return to the 1966 arguments in favour of land based aircraft over carriers.
If as seems likely QE and POW prove as unreliable and difficult to operate as previous UK carriers, their disposal to Brasil or India may surface in a future Defence Review. In the absence of adequate defences the carriers could meet the same fate as the Moskva if they go in harms way.
Much will depend on the speed and effectiveness of the introduction of B21 into the USAF.
 
You are underestimating Brits determination. I can foresee a Vulcan going through a refit program with RR engines and a grey paint...
Just wait for the right government (and lobbyists).
 
Scott Kenny said:
Exactly.

Rapid Dragon is good for a single large alpha strike, dumping however many missiles or JDAMs in a single drop. It's how you saturate someone's defensive SAMs.

But it also means you're flying a big, slow, non-maneuverable, non-stealthy target relatively close to the edge of an A2AD zone. Better hope you guessed right on the missile ranges or you just lost some transports!
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I was thinking more in terms of munitions stocks, the US, let alone Britain, does not have sufficient stocks of stand-off weapons for a prolonged campaign against a peer opponent, so I don't think something like Rapid Dragon is all that viable, as it assumes that stand-off weapons are easy to stockpile.

Vulnerability of the transport aircraft can be compensated for by employing even longer-ranged stand-off weapons, but that makes the costs even higher.

Rapid Dragon makes sense if you want to have a theoretical capability to deter someone, don't want to spend money developing new platforms and instead use existing assets, but have no intention of actually using it, so you don't stockpile the munitions required to make it viable, and don't spend money on new platforms.
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
Of course it's only cheaper in peacetime. To be useful in wartime you have to have significant stocks of cruise missiles, which are very expensive to build up.
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I agree, as I said in my second paragraph. My point is the UK would have the same problem with either the B-52 or the B-1, which would only now be suitable as large cruise missile trucks. IF that was wanted, Rapid Dragon would be a more sensible way to go than buying a limited number of ancient American airframes to essentially do the same thing.

I agree that if the UK wants to actually drop less expensive bombs it needs a new-build stealth bomber.
 
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The UK despretely needs a new bomber specificaly a stealth bomber, I did not like it when the RAF got rid of the Vulcan after the Falklands war.
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
I was thinking more in terms of munitions stocks, the US, let alone Britain, does not have sufficient stocks of stand-off weapons for a prolonged campaign against a peer opponent, so I don't think something like Rapid Dragon is all that viable, as it assumes that stand-off weapons are easy to stockpile.

Vulnerability of the transport aircraft can be compensated for by employing even longer-ranged stand-off weapons, but that makes the costs even higher.

Rapid Dragon makes sense if you want to have a theoretical capability to deter someone, don't want to spend money developing new platforms and instead use existing assets, but have no intention of actually using it, so you don't stockpile the munitions required to make it viable, and don't spend money on new platforms.
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Rapid Dragon versus a regular bomber is like the difference between MLRS and gun artillery.

Rapid Dragon is the MLRS, it throws a lot of rounds all at once (up to 14 per pallet, IIRC). Good for a single, overwhelming strike.

Regular bombers (especially smaller ones, 24klb capacity and under) are more like gun artillery, where they can drop a few rounds around the clock.
 
We're entering the territory of Vimes Boots. In one of the Discworld books, Captain Vimes muses on his boots - he can't afford a good pair of boots that will 'last a lifetime', so must buy cheap boots that wear out quickly. Over the lifetime of a pair of good boots he will spend more buying multiple pairs of cheap boots than a single pair of good boots will cost, but at no point in that lifetime is he able to afford a pair of good boots - being poor is expensive.

If you can't afford a penetrating long range bomber, then you make do with what you can afford, which may mean buying more expensive long range munitions that you can afford, than the cheap glide ordnance you could get away with if you were able to buy a penetrating long range platform to drop them from. That's the nature of economics.

I'm struggling to come up with a scenario where the UK would need a penetrating long range bonber, wouldn't have access to the USAF as an ally to cover that need, and wouldn't be better served overall by having the carriers (ie the Falklands scenario). So it's difficult to see an operational requirement for a penetrating long range bomber whether we could afford one of not.
 
DWG said:
I'm struggling to come up with a scenario where the UK would need a penetrating long range bonber, wouldn't have access to the USAF as an ally to cover that need, and wouldn't be better served overall by having the carriers (ie the Falklands scenario). So it's difficult to see an operational requirement for a penetrating long range bomber whether we could afford one of not.
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The scenario would have to be something like "The US has withdrawn from NATO"
 
Did the United Kingdom ever expressed interest in the B-1A during the Nixon / Ford / Carter Administrations or the B-1B during the Reagan Administration?
 
Archibald said:
B-52H are only 76 plus 10 in reserves, and as old as Metuslah.

B-1B are badly worn out because of Iraq and Afghanistan never ending wars.

B-2 are more expensive than their own weight in gold with diamonds.

That leaves B-21 Raiders.
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What exactly about operations in Afghanistan and Iraq caused so much wear and tear to the B-1 fleet? Under my impression most of the time the B-1s would be cruising at leisurely speeds at altitude. No low-level penetration missions at Mach 0.9 like it was built for. Were they just being flown so frequently?

I'm not sure if I agree with the decision to make the B-21 a rather smaller aircraft than the B-2, but if the RAF or RAAF were to buy any that factor would probably be a very good thing for them. At this time though I feel like the odds of either buying B-21s are very slim.
 
The UK can barely sustain its limited armed forces when we have the highest tax rates and the worst public services in living memory so I am afraid B21 is the stuff of dreams.
 
Colonial-Marine said:
What exactly about operations in Afghanistan and Iraq caused so much wear and tear to the B-1 fleet? Under my impression most of the time the B-1s would be cruising at leisurely speeds at altitude. No low-level penetration missions at Mach 0.9 like it was built for. Were they just being flown so frequently?
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Yes. They flew many sorties and quite long ones, from DG to Afghanistan, with long loiters on site.


Colonial-Marine said:
I'm not sure if I agree with the decision to make the B-21 a rather smaller aircraft than the B-2, but if the RAF or RAAF were to buy any that factor would probably be a very good thing for them. At this time though I feel like the odds of either buying B-21s are very slim.
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What do you object to about the B-21? Did you want it bigger or not a flying wing?
 

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