Arsenal ship revisited.
Only airborne.
IOW: a more expensive B-52.
It actually makes some sense. An F-22 or F-35 flying in front to designate targets, and a cargo plane some distance behind launching long-range missiles at the targets.
Such an aircraft would be an easy target for enemy fighter planes.
An airborne Yamato. What could go wrong?
Plane could carry heavier longer range AA missiles which fighters cannot carry, or carry more to supplement planes when they run out of missiles - since the F-22 is available only very limited quantities - 60 or so operational at any one time, and the F-35 can hardly pack anything (compare with SU-35S) and will also be in limited quantities, they both will run out quickly against swarming massed enemy fighters. (In simulation against advanced enemy planes: the F-22 will only take out 2.5 enemy to 1, and the F-35 is 3.5 lost to 1 enemy those assets will be used up quickly.)
Gimme a geosynchronous satellite with a maximum blasto laser and I’ll knock that sucker out of the sky in a microsecond. Sorry ‘bout the young women flying it.
For air-to-air combat, this is a silly idea. The Sov, er, Russians have long-ranged AAMs, as do the Euroweenies. Unless the range of AMRAAM is significantly extended, the ‘arsenal plane’ will be in range...
A better trick would be UCAVs armed with missiles working in tandem with the fighters.
However an ‘arsenal plane’ for ground attack - that has potential. A flying barge with tons of various sized PGMs ready to drop...
Go whole hog - Dig out the plans for the USS Los Angeles. Use the trapeze system to launch drones,
Let’s work on keeping the F-35 in the air first, kids.
What we need is a Death Star!
On the Arsenal Plane, the pilot’s seat will swivel a full 360 degrees and will come with a white Persian cat as standard equipment.
I think someone gave Ash Carter a copy of Dale Brown’s “Flight of the Old Dog” for Xmas ...
Actually the B-1R concept would work well for this. It already included a rotary AMRAAM launcher carrying 40 missiles. It could also fly at F-22 speeds. A little realized fact is that the B-1 has more ordinance capacity than a B-52.
I’m sure this proposal is a lot lamer and more expensive though...
Ordnance?