I thought B-21 would begin replacing them as soon as it entered service,
Replacing the B-2 first.

Also, this has been discussed for a couple years by the USAF. GSC demonstrated external carriage and launching of the JASSM last year, and they noted at the time the pylon(s) were configurable with different harnesses for different connector configs. Boeing was the contractor for those demos.
 
Wait, wait, wait. So you're saying when you actually give people the spares they're supposed to get they can, you know, keep the aircraft flying? No. Way. So it's less that the B-1B is the dog you'd have us believe it is and more they just didn't bother with required upkeep. That's hardly the aircraft's fault.
What you miss is that in 2002-2003 while they had the parts the jets were flying mostly 4 hour prof sorties, even the 2003 deployment was to Guam, so they were still mostly 4 hour prof sorties, life was good. By 2004 we left the Arabian peninsula bases for Diego and things trended down ever since. Those 20+ hour sorties with heavy fuel and bomb loads compounded by lack of spares made things ugly by 2005-2006. We burned through hours so fast that the phase dock had to double up to keep jets out in the sandbox. Since we used them so hard, there was always a lot more to fix. Engine failures also accelerated. I ran both of those shops and saw it up close 2003-2005.

Finally, it was a HD/LD fleet of 67 so every aft ECM compartment fire, nose gear collapse, ruined wing, hydraulic failure that caused the jet to taxi into a ditch catch fire and explode, turkey vulture that took out an ECM radome spilling 10,000 lbs of JP-8 on the ground, or my favorite, engine that fell off of a jet over Afghanistan took limited jets off the ramp forever or in other cases for well over a year.
 
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80 year anniversary of the Doolittle Raid.

 
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View attachment 683872
No no that not what will happen.

Remember this is a B1.

You need to Photoshop about...

10 more of those bombs on that photo.
That's a real picture. No photoshop necessary. (It was a test, not an actual attack on a foreign boat.)

 
View attachment 683872
No no that not what will happen.

Remember this is a B1.

You need to Photoshop about...

10 more of those bombs on that photo.
LGB's were dropped from the Bone, there were pictures of it on the walls in South Base when I worked there years ago. One of the Bone drivers talked a bit about why the plug was pulled. It actually was pretty late in the program, very little was left to certify safe separation. ISTR the main issues were lack of designator (resolved now) and only 4 per rotary. JDAM came along and was a better solution at the time. Then laser JDAM came along and really what targets would require a GBU-10/24 that a GBU-31 or laser JDAM couldn't service?
 
Don't need a GBU-24 to sink a Chinese fishing boat. ;) Does make you wonder if the B-1B will be able to carry the SDB2, and if so, how many.
Exactly, it's not as if a 500 lb. laser JDAM wouldn't annihilate something that size. All 2,000 pounds get are smaller pieces and a bigger fireball.
 
"Col. Sheffield pointed out that B-1Bs are set to be able to carry 36 JASSMs, among other weapon loads, in the future with the planned restoration of the bomber's ability to carry munitions on external pylons. The Air Force has separately talked about integrating new, longer-range weapons onto the B-1B, including future hypersonic missiles."
 
Don't need a GBU-24 to sink a Chinese fishing boat. ;) Does make you wonder if the B-1B will be able to carry the SDB2, and if so, how many.
Exactly, it's not as if a 500 lb. laser JDAM wouldn't annihilate something that size. All 2,000 pounds get are smaller pieces and a bigger fireball.
The pilot or WSO (don't recall which though it was probably the latter) that hit that MD500 with a 2,000lb LGB during Desert Storm said it, "vaporized like in a James Bond movie". :D
 
The pilot or WSO (don't recall which though it was probably the latter) that hit that MD500 with a 2,000lb LGB during Desert Storm said it, "vaporized like in a James Bond movie". :D
Yeah, got to love the Mk84 family, they do tend to make a big boom
 
Yes and bout 96 in bay, which the same for tge SDB1 since they both need the same requirements for size and datalinks.

SDB has been on the B-1B "to-do" list for a while . The Bone was an objective platform for SDB II back in the early 2000s, but I'm not sure the integration has ever actually happened. It was still on the "Potential Future Efforts" list as of 2018.

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I'd be pleasantly surprised if anything new is integrated or if it gets external hard points. The training looks tailored to being exclusively a cruise missile platform and I can't imagine the short range of SDBs to be worth the price of entry for this platform. Externals clearly would have a use, though I'd assume large external stores would really dig into fuel consumption.
 
I'd be pleasantly surprised if anything new is integrated or if it gets external hard points. The training looks tailored to being exclusively a cruise missile platform and I can't imagine the short range of SDBs to be worth the price of entry for this platform. Externals clearly would have a use, though I'd assume large external stores would really dig into fuel consumption.
They need an air-launched version of these:

 
Question for MKellytx, or anyone else who happens to know:

Does the USAF still possess the equipment and training to install internal fuel tanks in the B-1 bomb bays or was this capability discarded? It occurred to me that were someone to actual pay for the external pylons, it might be advantageous to place weapons there in lieu of the bomb bays where more fuel could be stored (though obviously there is a drag penalty to pay).
 
Question for MKellytx, or anyone else who happens to know:

Does the USAF still possess the equipment and training to install internal fuel tanks in the B-1 bomb bays or was this capability discarded? It occurred to me that were someone to actual pay for the external pylons, it might be advantageous to place weapons there in lieu of the bomb bays where more fuel could be stored (though obviously there is a drag penalty to pay).
@Josh_TN Yes, when I was at Dyess 2002-5 we regularly used the long 20,000 lb. tanks in the forward bay. The short 10,000 lb. tanks weren’t used since START wouldn’t allow the bulkhead to be moved forward. Not that it really mattered since the boxes to control ALCM/CALCM were never purchased for the Bone. When we operated out of Diego it was pretty common to put a 20,000 lb. tank forward and 16 GBU-31’s in the aft two bays. I left bombers in 2008, so have no clue if they maintained the capability.

Since flights from Diego were pretty long, pretty quickly we started operating closer to the theater and had less need to put the extra tank in the A/C. FWIW the big tanks worked just fine, and we used them to deploy the jets from CONUS while I was still in uniform.
 
@Josh_TN Yes, when I was at Dyess 2002-5 we regularly used the long 20,000 lb. tanks in the forward bay. The short 10,000 lb. tanks weren’t used since START wouldn’t allow the bulkhead to be moved forward. Not that it really mattered since the boxes to control ALCM/CALCM were never purchased for the Bone. When we operated out of Diego it was pretty common to put a 20,000 lb. tank forward and 16 GBU-31’s in the aft two bays. I left bombers in 2008, so have no clue if they maintained the capability.

Since flights from Diego were pretty long, pretty quickly we started operating closer to the theater and had less need to put the extra tank in the A/C. FWIW the big tanks worked just fine, and we used them to deploy the jets from CONUS while I was still in uniform.

I didn’t realize there were two different tank sizes. I had thought a 10,000lb tank could be substituted for two of the three bomb bays? I didn’t realize the bulkhead ha to move…currently isn’t that located between bay 2 and 3?
 
I didn’t realize there were two different tank sizes. I had thought a 10,000lb tank could be substituted for two of the three bomb bays? I didn’t realize the bulkhead ha to move…currently isn’t that located between bay 2 and 3?
The 10,000 lb tank, the short tank, was made for carriage of ALCM’s. Since the ALCM’s are too long for the bomb bays the forward two bomb bays feature a movable bulkhead that allowed internal carriage of 8 ALCM, the forward section of the bay is too short to carry any weapons so a short tank was made that would go there and add 10,000 lbs of additional fuel.

The short tanks won’t fit in the regular sized bay, on the the 20,000 lb tanks. Normally we’d only put one in the forward although I think we may have on a handful of occasions put two in the front and middle to rotate a jet into the theater, but memory fades. One thing that doesn’t fade is how long it took to get airborne and how slowly they climbed when they were that heavy.
 

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