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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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.