Boeing B-1R

Lauge said:
fightingirish said:
Triton said:
Well, if Boeing cannot sell a new bomber, it will try to make money by rebuilding an old one. I wonder if the R really means "Refurb" or "Retrofit". Is the B-1R meant to be a replacement for the F-111 Aardvark?
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The "R" stands for "regional".
Even the concept from bagera3005 has a V-Tail, how did we not noticed that item before?! :-[
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Is that a gun under the nose?? Love it! After all, a warplane without a gun is a lot like Paris Hilton: Nice to look at, but ultimately quite useless ;D

Regards,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark
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I have one questions about this concept: how the heck will the gun even work when it takes up the same spot as the Lancer's nose gear? And don't get me started on how the ammo feed will work for such an arrangement.
 
Alex Hollings recently posted this interesting video about a what-if massive B-1 upgrade proposed in 2004 (And sadly never implemented) that looks something out of a wet-dream of Dale Brown's:


There was once a plan to not only upgrade the B-1B for an extended lifespan, but to make it so much more than it is today. That proposal, dubbed the B-1R, would have equipped the Lancer with powerful new engines ripped straight out of the F-22 Raptor and it’s own bevy of AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, nearly doubling its top speed while giving this massive jet the means to hunt for and destroy any enemy fighter that flew its way.
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I have no doubt if it had been built and Dale Brown had seen one he'd have pitched a tent at the sight of it;):D.
 
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Here's another short video about the B-1R proposal that has popped up:


B-1R: Could it be the World's LARGEST Air Superiority Fighter?!Dive into the fascinating world of the B-1B Lancer, also known as "the Bone," in our latest video, "The B-1B Lancer: America's Supersonic Heavy Hitter." Discover how this powerful bomber, boasting a massive payload capacity of 75,000 pounds, has shaped aerial warfare. We'll explore its impressive history, including its original design for Soviet territory penetration and the ambitious B-1R upgrade proposal that aimed to enhance its capabilities. As the U.S. Air Force transitions to the B-21 Raider, learn about the enduring legacy and challenges faced by the aging fleet of B-1Bs.
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A pity it was put into production by modifying B-1Bs, anyway since the B-1B flight-controls call the Lancer the "Bone" I have no doubt they'd have called the B-1R the "Boner";):D.

Edit: One thing I noticed in this video which is a bit annoying is that it has a lot of footage of aircraft that aren't the B-1B
 
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jsport said:
iiirdmillennium.blogspot.com

Boeing MB-1R Cavalier

iiirdmillennium.blogspot.com iiirdmillennium.blogspot.com
View attachment 760302View attachment 760303View attachment 760304View attachment 760305
alternative Penetrating Counter Air
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Oh, hey, that's the Old Dog era Super Bone that Dale Brown wrote up! V-tail, exotic radar-absorbing skin materials, black anti-searchlight paint, packs a dozen or so AMRAAMs on external pylons (with a new radar to talk to them) and then the usual gigglefest of "if it fits it ships" with Quail decoys, AGM-130s, IIRC HARMs (and targeting system), and anything else you could think of to blast a Russian ASAT laser with nuclear powered radar off the face of the earth.

Jeez, it's been a really long time since I read Flight of the Old Dog!
 
V tails r less drag, but w more complex pitch yaw control. Preferred configuration for the superior but ultimately losing x-32 jsf competitor.
 
Using the dod owned digital twin as the basis for a radically improved Lancer new build would also likely place the engines in their houing much deeper to improve stealth
X-32's engine was deep in the craft to reduce radar reflection as well.
 
Hey folks,

I'm enjoying the debate about one of my favorite aircraft (even the
Dale Brown callbacks), since it seems the Bones aren't going away as soon as everyone
thinks. The more missiles we can get in the air, the better, and *every* platform is going
to play a part.
The "regional" concept was always fun to consider, even given the real-world issues
(not enough F119 engines, the drag & radar profile problems from external ordinance).

I always thought modified cruise missiles (penetrators and FAEs, or the MRASM variant of the AGM-109),
or perhaps the 'assault breaker' concept would be ideal weapons for the Bones, though
my biggest peeve was the failure to replace the AGM-69 SRAMs in the 90s. There was limited use
of the early GBU-class PGMs in the late 90s, even though clearance issues limited the
loadout. I know there was also testing to use Paveway-style bombs against sea targets.

The new PJDAM concept looks like a good weapon as well, since it fits the form factor of the 2K JDAM, thus it can be carried internally on the rotary launchers. agm-130_03.jpg

Including an older pic of an AGM-130 being put on a Bone. Always wondered how that was fitted in the bays.

Cheers //
 
Kraut_Bone69 said:
View attachment 762741

Including an older pic of an AGM-130 being put on a Bone. Always wondered how that was fitted in the bays.
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Carefully, I'm guessing. But on a more serious answer, possibly only 4 per rotary, but the rocket booster does fit within the "box" of the wings so it may not be as tough as we're assuming.
 
flateric said:
in no way
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So where would it go? What is going on in this pic?

This appears to have happened in the early 90s, since the Bone is
still in the original "Strategic Scheme" paint.
Not sure the AGM-130 is a regular inventory load, since the colors
don't appear standard (in addition, the Mk84 component has blue stripes).
Anyone know what the "LGT" designation along the top indicates?

Just fitting anything that wasn't gravity bomb/cruise-missile/attack-missile
shaped to the rotary launchers seems difficult. Getting them to clear the
bomb bay into the slipstream was another issue.

I know that certain planned weapons for the Bones, such as the AGM-129 ACM
and the AGM-154 JSOW would have been limited to 4 per launcher due to clearance
issues in the bay or fit with adjacent loaded weapons.
 
Kraut_Bone69 said:
So where would it go? What is going on in this pic?

This appears to have happened in the early 90s, since the Bone is
still in the original "Strategic Scheme" paint.
Not sure the AGM-130 is a regular inventory load, since the colors
don't appear standard (in addition, the Mk84 component has blue stripes).
Anyone know what the "LGT" designation along the top indicates?

Just fitting anything that wasn't gravity bomb/cruise-missile/attack-missile
shaped to the rotary launchers seems difficult. Getting them to clear the
bomb bay into the slipstream was another issue.

I know that certain planned weapons for the Bones, such as the AGM-129 ACM
and the AGM-154 JSOW would have been limited to 4 per launcher due to clearance
issues in the bay or fit with adjacent loaded weapons.
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I mean, the ALCM and SRAM are about 20" deep on the launch lugs.

So as long as the AGM130 is not more than that, it'll physically fit inside the bay.
 
NMaude said:
Here's another short video about the B-1R proposal that has popped up:




A pity it was put into production by modifying B-1Bs, anyway since the B-1B flight-controls call the Lancer the "Bone" I have no doubt they'd have called the B-1R the "Boner";):D.

Edit: One thing I noticed in this video which is a bit annoying is that it has a lot of footage of aircraft that aren't the B-1B
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Also, the whole video is AI generated...
 
Scott Kenny said:
I mean, the ALCM and SRAM are about 20" deep on the launch lugs.

So as long as the AGM130 is not more than that, it'll physically fit inside the bay.
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Oh yes, 17.5" for the SRAM, and 24.5" for the ALCM (the AGM-86 also tapers towards the top). The AGM-130 (based on the GBU-15, itself a re-finned Mk84) is 18". It's the tailfins that conflict, I believe. A quick check of Wiki shows a 59" span. I don't believe they were foldable against the body.

I also recall a report from a 'BONE-driver' that the AGM-84 Harpoon was considered, but there is a cover that comes off the missile when launched, and they didn't want to risk a FOD issue with the engine intakes.

The acoustics between the nacelles are awful and would have beat the hell out of anything mounted externally on the aft points. It will be interesting to see how they address this if they try mounting externals.

Cheers//
 
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Kraut_Bone69 said:
Oh yes, 17.5" for the SRAM, and 24.5" for the ALCM (the AGM-86 also tapers towards the top). The AGM-130 (based on the GBU-15, itself a re-finned Mk84) is 18". It's the tailfins that conflict, I believe. A quick check of Wiki shows a 59" span. I don't believe they were foldable against the body.
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59" span means a square box a little less than 43" on a side, but the mounting lugs are well inside that box. Probably far enough inside that the bottom of the rocket booster is only about 30" from the lugs.

And yes, those tail fins are in the way for trying to fit the full 8x per rotary launcher. I suspect that you could fit 4x on there if you can program the rotary controls to drop 1, 5, 3, 7 in order. Might be able to stick something else inside that bay if it's short enough to completely clear the AGM-130 tail fins. Maybe a Quail, if the lugs are well aft on those?
 
Scott Kenny said:
And yes, those tail fins are in the way for trying to fit the full 8x per rotary launcher. I suspect that you could fit 4x on there if you can program the rotary controls to drop 1, 5, 3, 7 in order. Might be able to stick something else inside that bay if it's short enough to completely clear the AGM-130 tail fins. Maybe a Quail, if the lugs are well aft on those?
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A Quail? Not the ADM-20 decoy, right? Those went out with the old "Chrome Dome" BUFFs!
I don't think you're fitting anything else on that CRL if you are 4-loading it.

Steering back towards the Bone-R concept, it seems we're always on the lookout for something
other than Mk80-class weapons on the Bones. When the first 500lb LJDAMs were loaded, they could only
put 5 on the 10-round version of the Conventional Weapons Module (for a max of 15), and I was thinking
"that seems a light loadout for such a large aircraft". What weapons could have been used in a
scenario like that envisioned for the 'Regional'? Most speculation centers around lots of AIM-120 AMRAAMs,
but why only air-to-air? Something *fast*, but could also be carried internally? That would have made
the folks that wanted to sink ships happy, too.

I suppose when the B-1s became part of the 366th Composite Wing flying out of Mountain Home,
is when the "Dale Brown ideas" started to emerge. The B-52s flying from there were adapted to carry
the AGM-142 'Have Nap' missile, we've all seen the BUFF with a pylon full of Harpoons, and we
wondered "well, why not the Bones, too?"
 
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Kraut_Bone69 said:
Something *fast*, but could also be carried internally? That would have made
the folks that wanted to sink ships happy, too.
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SM-6. You can sink ships with those if you want fast rather than a loadout of LRASMs.

The "I can dream" version of the B-1 for me would have AESA radars in the nose and tail radomes with side lobes for 360 degree coverage, plus 24 SM-6s. It wouldn't have the manpower to act as an AWACS, but a flight could dominate an airspace. Swap out some (or all) of the SM-6s for SM-3s and you could do ABM as well. That would really help out with defending a Carrier Task Force in the Western Pacific or North Atlantic.

Too bad ASALM never went into production. That would have been a great match for the B-1, for air to air, air to ground, or anti-ship.
 
apparition13 said:
SM-6. You can sink ships with those if you want fast rather than a loadout of LRASMs.

The "I can dream" version of the B-1 for me would have AESA radars in the nose and tail radomes with side lobes for 360 degree coverage, plus 24 SM-6s. It wouldn't have the manpower to act as an AWACS, but a flight could dominate an airspace. Swap out some (or all) of the SM-6s for SM-3s and you could do ABM as well. That would really help out with defending a Carrier Task Force in the Western Pacific or North Atlantic.

Too bad ASALM never went into production. That would have been a great match for the B-1, for air to air, air to ground, or anti-ship.
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That SM-style missile would be hard to fit in the internal bays.
You can sink *small* ships with an SM-6 type. Not much room for a warhead on those. (unless *special*)
They might work for neutralizing the air defense ships (Aegis-types) like the AGM-78 Standards could have.
I always looked at the AGM-123 Skipper that the Navy came up with. A 1K Paveway with a small booster on it.
Beef up that concept, like the 2K bomb, or a better booster, a dedicated ship-seeker, and you've got some serious ship-sinking ability.
The Mk80-class weapons are already compatible with the B-1s, such as the Quickstrike mine series.

The ASALM was really a missed opportunity. Nearly twice as fast as the old SRAMs, with nearly 3 times the range?
And had an anti-AWACS capability? Hell yeah.
 
Kraut_Bone69 said:
A Quail? Not the ADM-20 decoy, right? Those went out with the old "Chrome Dome" BUFFs!
I don't think you're fitting anything else on that CRL if you are 4-loading it.
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Yes, the ADM-20 decoy. Still remembering Flight of the Old Dog using several of them.

The trick is that you need something that is at least ~2ft shorter than the AGM-130 and has the hanging lugs closer to the rear of the weapon than the front. Otherwise you'd need a weapon that is only about 10ft long overall, which does give us 1000lb bombs.



Kraut_Bone69 said:
Steering back towards the Bone-R concept, it seems we're always on the lookout for something
other than Mk80-class weapons on the Bones. When the first 500lb LJDAMs were loaded, they could only
put 5 on the 10-round version of the Conventional Weapons Module (for a max of 15), and I was thinking
"that seems a light loadout for such a large aircraft". What weapons could have been used in a
scenario like that envisioned for the 'Regional'? Most speculation centers around lots of AIM-120 AMRAAMs,
but why only air-to-air? Something *fast*, but could also be carried internally? That would have made
the folks that wanted to sink ships happy, too.
Click to expand...
ASALM is what comes to mind. Even without a warhead, those would hit a ship at twice the speed of a 16"/50 HC shell and probably 1.5x the weight; that's ~6x the kinetic energy. Or twice the speed of an AP shell and the same weight for 4x the KE. I don't think any modern ship would survive one of those.

And, they normally come with a 200kt firecracker.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Yes, the ADM-20 decoy. Still remembering Flight of the Old Dog using several of them.

The trick is that you need something that is at least ~2ft shorter than the AGM-130 and has the hanging lugs closer to the rear of the weapon than the front. Otherwise you'd need a weapon that is only about 10ft long overall, which does give us 1000lb bombs.
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Yeah, they loaded up that Old Dog pretty good! My Grandfather flew D- and F-model BUFFs in 'the good old days',
and I laughed when my Dad bought him that book.

My ideal for a Bone-launched decoy was something that spawned from the old Quail... the AGM-86 ALCM.
Give it extra tankage, and some emitters, it could have filled that role. But how many weapons do you want to
trade out for something that *doesn't* go BOOM? And cruise missiles on the Bone means using the extended forward/mid bay.
Too bad the AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow didn't pan out. That sounds like it would fit your scenario.. sort of.
Scott Kenny said:
ASALM is what comes to mind. Even without a warhead, those would hit a ship at twice the speed of a 16"/50 HC shell and probably 1.5x the weight; that's ~6x the kinetic energy. Or twice the speed of an AP shell and the same weight for 4x the KE. I don't think any modern ship would survive one of those.

And, they normally come with a 200kt firecracker.
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One of the great things about the ASALM concept was that it would fit the same 'footprint' as the SRAM it was replacing.
The INS of the AGM-69 gave it a CEP of about a quarter-mile, hence the need for the 200kt warhead. An improved system
in the ASALM, perhaps some GPS, and maybe you don't need as big a warhead. 20-50Kt, maybe. Less if you are
taking down an airborne early-warning aircraft.

You could put a conventional (or kinetic) warhead on it, but we are talking about a *strategic* weapon in a
tactical scenario. Who knows how many of those we would have gotten built in the post-Cold War environment?

Of course, IRL... the answer was *none*. Look at the AGM-129 ACM. Meant to replace the AGM-86, we built about
a third as many of those as we had ALCMs.

I try to keep my notational loadouts for the fictional "B-1R" to variants or adaptations of existing weapons.

Cheers//
 
apparition13 said:
The "I can dream" version of the B-1 for me would have AESA radars in the nose and tail radomes with side lobes for 360 degree coverage, plus 24 SM-6s. It wouldn't have the manpower to act as an AWACS, but a flight could dominate an airspace.
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Meant to address this on my earlier response. We talk so much about weapons, we don't cover sensors much.
The initial flying AESAs were exclusive to the F-22, so I always thought we could replace the AN/APQ-164 in the Bone with the APG-65, -70, or -73 (found in the F-15E and several F/A-18 variants) if you are going to make them real "hunters", using the types of weapons we consider for the 'Regional' Bone concept. Sure, they are more common now. Not sure how this would affect the way you "fight" the plane in a combat environment. Can you still TFR as well?

An aft radar might be good for threat detection, but I don't want to be an AWACS. They draw too much attention. I'd rather just emit when I need to and stay low to attack.

apparition13 said:
Swap out some (or all) of the SM-6s for SM-3s and you could do ABM as well. That would really help out with defending a Carrier Task Force in the Western Pacific or North Atlantic.

Too bad ASALM never went into production. That would have been a great match for the B-1, for air to air, air to ground, or anti-ship.
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The window of opportunity to hit ballistics is pretty narrow.
 
Kraut_Bone69 said:
That SM-style missile would be hard to fit in the internal bays.
You can sink *small* ships with an SM-6 type. Not much room for a warhead on those. (unless *special*)
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How hard would it be? The air launched version is smaller and lighter than SRAM. If you're worried about wingspan, I'm pretty sure I've seen illustration of B-1s carrying 24 Phoenix missiles in a potential GIUK gap missileer role.
Kraut_Bone69 said:
The ASALM was really a missed opportunity. Nearly twice as fast as the old SRAMs, with nearly 3 times the range?
And had an anti-AWACS capability? Hell yeah.
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The actual dream scenario would be the B-1 remains cancelled and in it's place you would get more B-2s sooner (by two years if you skip the "can you make it a low level bomber that we'll never use low level" two year delay), along with significant buys of ACM, multi-role ASALMs, and SRAM II and ALCM-A for tactical use. At which point this conversation about a B-1R would be moot.
Kraut_Bone69 said:
And cruise missiles on the Bone means using the extended forward/mid bay.
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The ALCM-A design would have fit 24. Range would be 40% of the B model, but for tactical roles that would be fine, and modern engines could perhaps increase that to 1000nm rather than 600.
Kraut_Bone69 said:
You could put a conventional (or kinetic) warhead on it, but we are talking about a *strategic* weapon in a
tactical scenario. Who knows how many of those we would have gotten built in the post-Cold War environment?
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ASALM flew in the 70s. You'd have the entire Reagan presidency to build up an inventory, with the potential for even more for navy VLS cells (they fit), and if you have air-force and navy versions why not an army one? Once it's in production like that it would probably still be in production.

The same goes for SRAM II, that's your B-61 replacement.
Kraut_Bone69 said:
The window of opportunity to hit ballistics is pretty narrow.
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Yeah, you'd really need one of something like Northrop's 40 hour patrol designs from the 60s to do that. Maybe it's something you'd say to talk Congress into putting the radars on the B-1, but never actually do.

And I'm really not thinking AWACS. Think of it as a really big Missileer that can launch from outside retaliation range, and then run away supersonic. Or the ultimate NORAD interceptor. :D
 

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