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US Military Working On 'Optionally-Manned' Bomber
An anonymous reader writes "Despite massive budget deficits, the U.S. military is working towards a stealthy and 'optionally-manned' bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The craft is intended to replace the 1960s B-52, 1970s B-1 and 1990s B-2 bombers. The new aircraft is meant to be a big part of the U.S. 'pivot' to the Pacific. With China sporting anti-ship weapons that could sink U.S. carriers from a distance, a new bomber is now a top priority."
So, more crew than a cruise missile? Multiple targets like a MIRV, ability to recall, and no (pilot/crew) lives at risk... what's not to like?
Please?
Drones I can understand, they're primarily detailed to doing surveillance or limited to small munitions, but now we're talking about a full bomber that could be remote controlled? Seriously? There's nothing that can't be hacked! If it's controllable by something outside of the craft itself, it is vulnerable to hacking! Oh let's give enemies the opportunity to hack our BOMBERS, with a Nuclear option no less!
FTFA:
Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suspended the bomber development in 2009, citing out-of-control cost and technical ambition.
Soon thereafter, current Secretary Leon Panetta gave the relevant committee members a few good, hard slaps, and they all woke up, shuddered, and went back to shoveling money into the bottomless maw.
Good Lord, now that China has developed 3rd generational warfare capabilities, we might need to redevelop some of the tools we used to defeat the Soviet Union, which was also using 3rd generational warfare capabilities. Oh wait......
Dumb.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
I see another layer of avoiding responsibility for casualties emerging here. Ignoring the technology's effectiveness or benefits, the industrial-military complex has never been good at taking responsibility.
They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They were depriving us of their valuable resources.
Those people were [insert hate group here].
They allowed themselves to be used as human shields.
Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
I envision that in the future, innocent people will be killed and new excuses will be created and they will say it was because their biometrics matched that of the target, or that there was an error in the targeting system, or that they made a hostile gesture at the killing machine that was 'innocently' going about it's business above his house. But never do I expect to see them come straight out and say "We screwed up. Sorry."
No matter how great the technology is, what I want to here isn't about how efficient it is, but how human the people pushing the buttons are. If someone is hurt or killed that wasn't supposed to be, will they admit it? Will they compensate the victim? The families? The rest of the community that was deprived of the loss? Until that happens, all that this new technology will mean is more creative ways for bureuacracy to avoid responsibility, which is, afterall, its primary function.
If war was no more complicated than two societies who couldn't resolve their differences each sending a certain number of soldiers to be incinerated in some machine located on an island, and the country with the biggest number won, then I suspect war would be a lot less common. All these layers of technology and rationalization takes away from the fact that is all war is. Technology just means we have to sacrifice fewer to the machine than the other team does.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
the military didn't actually face real cuts, the rate at which their budget would have increased was slightly nipped, it still increased massively.
It's good to see the US military finally getting over their prejudice against soldiers who are 'Optionally men.'
A remotely controlled armed weapon should only use a one time pad for secure communications as that is provably secure (or rather as provably secure as putting a pilot in a plane since ground crews could be subverted to steal the pad). Then the threat model is reduced from controlling the aircraft to DOS and other jamming techniques, which is much more acceptable (considering the plane could be designed to self destruct if a watchdog signal is not received).
Given that North Korea and Iran both claim to have budding nuclear programs, and given their distances from the United States, it kind of makes sense to add a handful of modern long-range bomber to the arsenal.
Making them support manned flight is a mistake IMHO; these things could be built for SO much less if they didn't have to worry about keeping a crew alive and (somewhat) comfortable. And really, what does a bomber crew do on a long-range flight other than sleep and play Nintendo DS?
When they can just GPS jam an American bomber and have it deliver one for them?
So we just had a remote controlled drone go out of control and crash (which may or may not have been due to intentional signal jamming) ... and the solution is: let make more, only this time we'll arm them with nukes?
I think nuclear bombs are important enough to justify having a pilot riding along to keep an eye on things.
Whenever I see such headlines or summaries "With China sporting anti-ship weapons that could sink U.S. carriers from a distance," I have to cry foul: Stop outsourcing our industrial base to China! Developing a new bomber will require us to buy more crap (parts, desktop stuff for offices of new bomber project) from China. And to do this when we have no money, we will have to borrow more money from China. It is all insane and wonder what top men at DC and at corporations are thinking.
mfwright@batnet.com
See, sending most of our production capacity over to China was part of a brilliant deep game. We're not hamstringing ourselves and guaranteeing systemic unemployment for the next generation, we're making sure we have another Cold War, and the glory days of the US defense industry will be /back/, baby!
*Now* we have need of long-range stealth bombers, ICBMs, aircraft carriers, and the whole shebang.
Probably too much to hope that we'll have another space race to get us motivated to get out to Mars, though.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
... despite massive deficits, the federal government still spends 50% of it's budget on things it has NO constitutional directive for, such as education, health care, welfare, and transportation. Whine about the amount of federal spending on defense (25% of the federal budget) if you want to, at least the US Constitution gives the federal government a clear mandate to do it.Even the 23% it spends on pensions would be far less if it didn't meddle in state's rights to govern their own people by using blackmail without clear guidelines. For instance, no state is compelled to follow federal education or highway guidelines. That is, they don't have to if they are willing to give up federal funding. Which they wouldn't need if the federal government wasn't taking it from each state, and holding it until state's capitulate to their demands.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Already done. Deploys from an aircraft carrier, carries 5000 lbs of bombs. Looks like a B2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B
I know it's late (Armageddon was a few years ago) and the wrong country (Russia not China) but at least we're making progress.
As for the "brains" well I think it's probably going to be Watson speaking to us through his assistant Siri.
It doesn't really sound like a B52 replacement.
The B52 (and its counterpart, the Tu 95) stopped being a going concern in the face of anything but complete air superiority years ago. Nevertheless they have seen out many bomber designs that were meant to replace them for exactly the same reason.
Air superiority is difficult and requires things such as stealth, speed and very high speed (i.e. missiles). Those things all have serious tradeoffs. To maintain stealthiness, you have to make all sorts of compromises.
Once you have air superiority, there is no need to make those compromises any more. The B52 is a large, robust, relatively fule efficient and extremely flexible design, which cas been modified and hacked around with in all sorts of ways. It is still useful because if air superiority is guaranteed it does a better job of hauling a bunch of bombs and stuff around the sky than any other bomber in the fleet. No messing with super high power density jet engines or fickle stealth coating, etc...
I expect a true B52 replacement would be something more like an adapted airliner or cargo plane.
There seems to be an obsession in certain areas with stealth. Meanwhile, planes like the B52 and A10 do an exceptionally good job and neither have credible replacements.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Why not just add another mission to regular passenger planes, and make them bombers, as well? Just make the seats able to hold bombs as well as humans, and add bomb bay doors on the floor. Then instead of just sitting around waiting for a war to start, bombers can haul passengers around the world.
And, hey, those bomb bay door would speed up de-boarding at the airport as well.
It would be just important for the pilots to remember if they were hauling bombs to drop in a war zone, or passengers to drop at an airport.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Didn't the G8 and other big countries said or signed a pack that there should not be any nuclear type of weapons or am I completely wrong here ?
is no match for military natural stupidity
I just don't get it. China is a major trading partner and holder of american debt. It would be so much easier to sign a peace treaty. The biggest issue I think is taiwan so let's work out a deal to integrate taiwan like they did with hong kong. In exchange for taiwan, we should ask them to strongly motivate north korea to integrate with the south. There are other issues but I don't think they are big enough to go to war over. The richer they become the less problems we will have.
Ballistic missiles are already on numerous SSBNs.
There is no need for this bomber.
The US is run by madmen and idiots who waste money on crap
like this, while people starve and live in cardboard boxes. It cannot
go on, one way or another it will end.
The great thing is that after the airframes whatever they are going to call this thing are sitting in a desert, stripped of parts, the B52s will probably still be flying.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
"The craft is intended to replace the 1960s B-52, 1970s B-1 and 1990s B-2 bombers"
The B-70 was supposed to replace the B-52.
The B-1 was really supposed to replace the B-52.
The B-2 was *finally* supposed to replace the B-52.
My money's on the B-52. :-)
Reminds me of this 50 year old novel
I initially dropped the 'er' in 'bomber' and immediately had visions of Slim Pickins.
>massive budget Deficits >most heavily funded military in the world Apparently America thinks it can do both.
China doesn't need to sink our ships, they just need to unload their US investments and treasuries to make our currency worthless and hyper inflation. While we still build weapons to fight a physical war from the last century, China is in position to cripple the US with a modern day economic war.
1. I feel secure knowing all unmanned bombers' code is totally bug-free.
2. And no unmanned drone bomber carrying nukes will EVER get hijacked. I mean, look how secure our other drones are.
3. On an unmanned bomber, who sets up the nuke unlock code? If it gets done over an encrypted radio link how can they guarantee the link won't be jammed?
4. Which tastes better: Zero Coke, Pepsi Lo-Cesium, or Slurm Cola?
Shall we play a game?
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
It is the massive budget deficits that are driving this. Why pay people to fly planes, when they can simply be replaced. The entire movement to fully autonomous drones is because 1) It keeps lives out of danger and 2) Saves a lot of money because it keeps lives out of the payroll and health care for any injuries, PTSD, etc that they may get while in the line of duty.
When you can have a single person controlling an entire battalion at his fingertips, you have saved the tax payers literally billions. This is the future of warfare.
With the unemployment rate in states like Michigan over 9%, with all this talk about how the US has to cut spending, how it can't afford it's social security commitments - why is the US spending a ton of money to pay Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Martin Marietta etc. billions of dollars to develop a whole new line of bombers (and aircraft carriers, and so on)? If China is such a threat, why is the US opening factories there left and right, it's hard to buy a smartphone (or anything else) not made in China?
Big weapons systems are always suspicious. There was talk in the 1980s about how the US needed to spend billions and trillions on Star Wars SDI military satellite stuff - just before Russia imploded. Going after Al Qaeda takes a lot of man power and is hard to make a buck off of. Building a new class of aircraft carriers, which is happening, building a new type of bomber - the blood money flows freely for this. What's the threat anyhow? China is going to invade the US? There's a laugh. Right before 9/11, the US Air Force was playing chicken with Chinese pilots on the Chinese border, killed one of them, landed in Chinese territory, and then the US media began howling that Chinese engineers were investigating the "top secret" plane. With such incredible hubris, it's no surprise a 9/11 happened.
Of course, the US "pivoting to the Pacific", as if it hadn't done that already trying to push heroin on China during the opium wars over a century and a half ago, is going to obviously have China build up their military more, starting an arms race, just what the military-industrial complex in this country that Eisenhower warned about wants.
the process of getting nukes fired off is VERY extensive. Positive control, two person control, as well as how launch codes get verified and such would make this a a very tough thing to do with unmanned aircraft. How do you maintain posession of an unmanned aircraft with nukes when comm links go down? At least pilots can attempt a navigation back, or use judgment and stop a mission when something has failed.
Not saying impossible, just that there would have to be a rewrite in the nuke procedures. I'd imagine thats something our military wouldn't like to do either, since 100% positive control of such destructive weapons would be mutually beneficial.
In summary. This sounds like pure sabre rattling. No major organization would risk a failure on this level.
I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.
I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.
And I want to help you.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
It's actually pretty slick. They've spent all the money on bombs and ships and tanks and shit. Who's going to come collecting when:
a) they're way bigger than you
b) there's no higher authority to ask for help.
c) they just don't feel like paying
Notwithstanding that 70% of the US debt is internal.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
A nifty graphic on the federal budget While defense is high, healthcare and social security both outstrip it and interest on the national debt is gaining ground rapidly. Not to say we can't reduce defense as well, but it's not the only bogeyman in the budget, and it's not the one with a rapidly increasing share of the budget either.
As for the grandparent's assertion about Iraq, total spending in the total war on terror is estimated (on the high side) at about $4T. The deficit has increased by the same amount since Obama was elected. So is it the sense of /. that Obama is as big a disaster as the Iraq war? If you want to blame Bush, just remember the Democratic majority in congress for two years prior to Obama's election that passed those spending authorizations up to and including all Obama spending. Many of those same people voted to go to war in Iraq.
Now go worship your Obama god having completely ignored any of the accepted facts above.
ICBMs and cruise missiles already are unmanned. The US hasn't had a strategic aircraft nuclear bombing force since SAC was disbanded in 1992. There are still many US aircraft which could carry nuclear weapons if necessary, but that's a secondary capability now. It's been over 20 years since there were US nuclear-armed bombers in the air at all times, and others parked near the end of runways ready to go.
It's more of a cause and effect. We have massive budget deficits for funding a massive military, plus massive farm and corporate subsidies, plus not taxing people enough.I didn't lump in the cost of our social programs because on a national level they are tiny, even if on a state and city level they can make up 50% of their budget.
You say "both" as if there were only two issues here. But really we think we can do all (and be all).
The "optionally manned" bomber sounds like one of those transition craft that appears as a new technology is replacing an old one. A classic example were steamships of the 19th century. Various combinations of paddle wheels, screws, and sails were tried. None of the hybrids were very successful.
In bombers, the classic example is the B-36, with four jet engines and six propeller engines. The B-36 was a stopgap measure until the all-jet bombers were ready, and was quickly replaced by the B-47 and B-52.
Many have tried. All have failed. Nothing will replace the B-52. Reopen the production line and use modern engines.
I bet that will finally be enough of a reason for certain countries to get off their asses and develop anti-drone defense systems.
Wasn't a lot of war time spending actually kept off the books? Wouldn't it make sense that you'd collect less taxes during a recession?
If you want to blame Obama, remember that Bush had 4 years with a Republican Majority in both houses with which to balance the budget.
Or, as the child said to his mother as she came up the stairs to read him a story: What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?
it was optional.
Does that mean SKYNET is optional as well?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
As soon as the Chinese approves the redevelopment loan.
Federally funded social programs (particularly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) comprise over half of the federal budget.
They don't need to come collecting. Just dump bonds onto the open market. The US did that to Britain during the Suez crisis. It crushes the economy without a single shot being fired. China could seriously punish America financially right now if it wanted to.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Yep, a lot of the war time spending was kept off the books if by that you mean the actual budgets passed by Congress, but that does not mean we do not know what it was. The $4T seems to include all the spending, I think is on the high side but that might include ancillary costs like health care for wounded vets going forward.
What does Bush's failure to balance the budget have to do with Obama's failure to balance the budget? Are you saying that since Bush got away with it, we should give Obama a pass? A lot of conservatives were upset with Bush's failure to balance the budget. Obama created a commission, Simpson-Bowles, which made their recommendations...and Obama ignored it. In fact, he's still ignoring the biggest drains on the budget, i.e., the entitlements. You could take all of Defense's appropriations and still only halve the deficit.
Republicans are doing with they always do, trying to buy the next election with tax cuts (even keeping Bush's is attempting to buy the next election). The Democrats are doing what they always do, trying to buy the next election with social spending. Both will fail and drive up the deficit. There are no adults left in the room...well, not enough of them anyhow.
I'll make a nuclear drone that, in the case of abatement, release at least a lot of radiation (not necessarily a nuclear bomb). :)
So the enemy won't be motivated to shoot it: it would be worst. A win-win for me
"52" stands for 1952, "B" stands for bomber, It was introduced early in the cold war, it is a 1950's plane NOT 1960's.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
With China getting more and more mature, it would be getting more and more important to have a consistent, friendly and strong politics towards China. Helping China to solve its problems is important for everybody. To me it seems that Chinese strength normally did not arise from Military power but from Diplomacy and Administration. Wars and civil wars seem to be traumatic events in the Chinese self-perception .
I find it very normal that China would develop weapons capable of sinking American ships; the Americans should understand that they are not the only ones allowed to possess weapons. What this has to do with Bombers is beyond my grasp. I think its not unlikely that China and US may be partners in some wars in a not very distant future.
War is dehumanizing enough keep people in the game. Our men and woman are placed in harms way for a purpose. Taking a human operator out of the fighting vehicle makes violence easier. We won't harm our men and woman so let one off the chain. The element of danger and the possible human factor might delay one skirmish. We as a race need more reasons to seek peace not to make war safer or easier. Besides many of our current enemies see our tactics as cowardly, Little ideas like sending missiles into confirmed enemy strong holds before Marines or Army Troopers step into look around.
Trout's leading robot looked like a human being, and could talk and dance and so on, and go out with girls. And nobody held it against him that he dropped jellied gasoline on people. But they found his halitosis unforgivable. But then he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race.
The fact the parent gets modded a 5 insightful indicates your facts have no bearing on the discussion.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Your failing to make the key distinction between mandatory and discretionary spending. Check the other tabs in you link. Obama has net cut discretionary spending. The mandatory spending programs were set up long before either Obama or Bush for that matter were in office.
When US currency is hyper-inflated then Europe will buy from the US instead of China because it's cheaper. And the US will quit importing from other nations because it's not affordable. But the US has pretty much every resource necessary to be self-sustaining. They are the world's largest agricultural exporter, so they probably aren't going to starve. They still have some high tech manufacturing. They produce steel and coal, so they are set for manufacturing automobiles for domestic sale.
It would be difficult for people, but not as devastating to society as the Great Depression. The poorest and richest would be hit hardest. The wealthy would adapt to different markets and eventually start investing, the middle class would continue working as they always have. Life goes on.
It was already a 4 by the time I replied, so I'm not too broken up about it.
We certainly should not give him a pass. But a lot of people had already made their decision regarding Obama before he took office. Just look at the price of bullets between election and inauguration.
Obama is not the best president, but you can't say he was the worst until his time is done.
Whatever they do with it, I sure as hell hope it isn't as noisy as the B-52. I wish I'd known how loud those motherfuckers can be with their landing gear down BEFORE moving close to Barksdale AFB.
Funny thing is, my cat has lived in this area all his little life, and he sleeps right through their landing noise. And F-16s landing. And Thunderbirds/Blue Angels practicing for the annual airshow.
Whatever the case, I don't think there ever will be any sort of unmanned replacement for the B-52. It takes serious human-level brainpower (and balls) to refuel those things while in the air. Just watch the opening credits for Dr. Strangelove, then tell me you've got a robot that can do that.
Just because the debt is internal doesn't mean that the bombers and tanks can't be used to avoid paying it.
Guess who hurts first if someone owes you (China) 2 trillion and you sold that loan to others for 1.5 trillion.
As long as most countries keep using the US dollar for everything (trading oil, grain, CPUs etc), the USA has it easy.
So many don't seem to understand that it's rather different when you owe someone a lot of money in a currency you can create on demand (and have already created trillions of - google for Federal Reserve trillions).
It's not the same as you owing the Bank a lot of US dollars. It's more like you owing the Bank a lot of "sqldr" dollars that you can create cheaply in a computer under your control.
So who really is more screwed here? The one who is owed 2 trillion, or the one who can magically loan himself and friends 9 trillion out of thin-air.
At the moment, they need us just as much as we need them... time will tell.
I guess this is why Obama got his Nobel Prize. More power to "fight" for peace !
I would LOVE it if every single story about every penny spent by the US Gov't started out with that phrase: "Despite massive budget deficits,..."
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.