Northrop Grumman B-21A Raider (LRS-B)

FighterJock said:
I find that rather shocking Josh_TN, the last B-21 not being built until the mid 2030s at least. By then the Chinese H-20 and the Russian PAK-DA will be in service.
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Standard procedure, once production ends, production lines tend to end too. Better to keep them open longer, that way your options remain open longer.
 
FighterJock said:
I find that rather shocking Josh_TN, the last B-21 not being built until the mid 2030s at least. By then the Chinese H-20 and the Russian PAK-DA will be in service.
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H-20 yes, PAK DA…maybe. But in any case, the B-21 seems in front of both those programs and has clear deterrence value; I’d want to produce them as fast as possible.
 
FighterJock said:
It is rather surprising that the USAF do not want the B-21 a lot quicker especially with what is going on in the world right now Josh_TN.
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Perhaps it makes sense to continue slowly without trying to speed production ahead, as this will balance budgets (at least the ones that are publicly available). B-2 planned to stay in service until ~2030, so they have quite a bit of time to at least fully replace the spirit's capabilities.
 
Forgot about the B-2 out of service date being 2030, I was worried about the B-2 going earlier than that. So there will be no capability gap between the B-21 and B-2.
 
That is the plan unfortunately. First the B-1 then the B-2, And that will only leave the B-21s and B-52Js in service ultimately.
 
Forest Green said:
Standard procedure, once production ends, production lines tend to end too. Better to keep them open longer, that way your options remain open longer.
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Though things might be about to change back in favour of the older model of mothballing production lines during fallow periods.
 
They just need the B-21 to simply exist as a deterrent and to hold certain targets at risk, even 10 is enough to send a message. If China started mass producing strategic bombers, I'm sure those plans would change.
 
In_A_Dream said:
They just need the B-21 to simply exist as a deterrent and to hold certain targets at risk, even 10 is enough to send a message. If China started mass producing strategic bombers, I'm sure those plans would change.
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No, clearly the U.S. needs to replace the B-1s at least 1:1 since they are already flight limited due to fatigue. And while the b-2 is in better shape, it still requires a huge amount of man hours per flight hour. It also is hard to integrate new weapons onto, from what I understand, a legacy of its 1980s vintage design.
 
Josh_TN said:
I think people are reading way too much into one statement.
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Josh, while I agree, most stuff here is speculation on limited information, so nothing too out of the ordinary here.

Additionally - curious about the statement alluding to the B-21 being more than just a "playbook" bomber (carrying A2A packages, EW, sensor stuff, etc). Wonder how many AMRAAM-D's we could fit in this thing
 
FighterJock said:
I find that rather shocking Josh_TN, the last B-21 not being built until the mid 2030s at least. By then the Chinese H-20 and the Russian PAK-DA will be in service.
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I'll be shocked if there is ever more than a few prototypes of the PAK-DA. I don't mean like 21/132 B2s, I mean like half a dozen tops.

How many Su57s are there?


4decaa said:
Josh, while I agree, most stuff here is speculation on limited information, so nothing too out of the ordinary here.

Additionally - curious about the statement alluding to the B-21 being more than just a "playbook" bomber (carrying A2A packages, EW, sensor stuff, etc). Wonder how many AMRAAM-D's we could fit in this thing
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If the bay is long enough, 16. 2 sets of 8. Maybe 32, if the rotary launcher can handle double launchers per face.
 
4decaa said:
Josh, while I agree, most stuff here is speculation on limited information, so nothing too out of the ordinary here.

Additionally - curious about the statement alluding to the B-21 being more than just a "playbook" bomber (carrying A2A packages, EW, sensor stuff, etc). Wonder how many AMRAAM-D's we could fit in this thing
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Fair enough.

If the B-21 has any A2A capability, I'm confident it will not involve slinging medium range AAMs. I would suspect either air launched surogates, like DARPA's Long Shot, or else something truly long ranged saved for special occasions.
 
Josh_TN said:
Fair enough.

If the B-21 has any A2A capability, I'm confident it will not involve slinging medium range AAMs. I would suspect either air launched surogates, like DARPA's Long Shot, or else something truly long ranged saved for special occasions.
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great comment. Agreed, however I'd be skeptical of surrogates when simply devloping a LRAAM (like the phoenix) that could both be used by the '21 and in small quantities on fighters might be more cost effective. Obviously, missiles would need enough range to allow the raider to fire and escape from long ranges, especially as once it fires a missile, it'll light up on most radars.

On that note, I'm curious about how the bomb bays on the raider have been optimized, considering that no matter how stealthy it is on the approach, it's going to be visible as munitions are released.
 
Josh_TN said:
Fair enough.

If the B-21 has any A2A capability, I'm confident it will not involve slinging medium range AAMs. I would suspect either air launched surogates, like DARPA's Long Shot, or else something truly long ranged saved for special occasions.
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SM-6 would be run. You could fit eight pretty easy.
 

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