Northrop Grumman has won the contract to build the US Air Force’s next-generation Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), an industry-shaping deal that breathes new life into the world's sixth-largest defense company.(Photo: Courtesy/ Northrop Grumman)
Posted on 10/27/2015 2:34:35 PM PDT by 17th Miss Regt
The Air Force just announced that the Long Range Strike Bomber contract has been awarded to Northrop Grumman.
Is this to replace the B52, B2 or the B1?..............
Protests from the losing companies in three..two...one...
Do cruise missiles and drones, not to mention
ICBM’s, make long range bombers obsolete? Are
we gearing up to fight the last war?
Most likely, it will be the Last War............
It is flown remotely as with a drone, but the crew is just lawyers.
Boeing / Lockheed consortium was not successful. I’m guessing they will protest.
Northrop Grumman has won the contract to build the US Air Force’s next-generation Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), an industry-shaping deal that breathes new life into the world's sixth-largest defense company.(Photo: Courtesy/ Northrop Grumman)
The total build will be scaled back from current plans to a total of something like fifteen aircraft, of which two will crash during the flight test and early adoption period.
Boeing potentially has another option: It could try to buy Northrop’s aerospace unit. Once Northrop has completed the LRS-B design, divesting the business to another party might make sense to investors, according to analysts who spoke to Defense News on background to talk openly about the contract award.
No. We are stuck in that we must keep up with better planes. We were inferior in aircraft until 1943 in the Pacific. We survived by our aviators superior adaptability. (see John Thatch with his “Thatch Weave”). Our inferior aircraft was due to penny pinching before our entry into the war.
The Air Force plans to buy 80 to 100 Long Range Strike-Bombers to replace its aging B-52s and B-1s, which the service plans to retire in the mid-2040s. The new aircraft will be significantly stealthier than the B-2, capable of carrying conventional and nuclear weapons. Initial operating capability is slated for the mid-2020s, with nuclear certification planned two years after that.
Yes.
It’s a joke, it’s a joke. They are looking at a new bomber made from as many off the shelf components as possible to keep the costs down, to replace some or all of the legacy bombers in the current inventory.
ICBM's are not for use in conventional wars. Cruise missiles need platforms to get them close enough. The LRSB is to be configured so that either conventional or nuclear payloads can be carried.
And the torpedoes. Don’t forget the torpedoes. We didn’t have any decent ones until late into the war. Our subs would come back from missions with all tubes fired, no kills.
You have to buy it to find out what's in it?
“Do cruise missiles and drones, not to mention
ICBM’s, make long range bombers obsolete? Are
we gearing up to fight the last war?”
We still have colossally expensive manned planes because we have colossally big and lobbied-up aircraft companies. These planes are like forging ever heavier chainmail and stronger armor plate for our mounted knights after gunpowder has been introduced. I spent an entire career in military contracting. The idea isn’t to have something good, or cutting edge or effective on the battlefield, it is to have something expensive that needs repairs and to sell lots of them. The companies and the politicians don’t give a damn how the equipment performs on the battlefield. They only care about their cut or their cronies or their constituents.
None of this will change until we get our national Goliath’s *ss kicked by some tiny David. David will be so small that all they can afford are super fast, super cheap, disposable weapons.
Hint, Israel is the world’s largest builder and user of drones. Obama threatened to shoot down their manned planes if they attacked Iran. Probably the only thing holding them back from droning Iran into oblivion is the fear President Nobel Peace Prize will use nukes on them.
Lot of overlap in their missions. The LRSB should be able to do most of them.
Won’t happen because of anti-trust laws. The aerospace industry has been so consolidated already, that there are only two or three firms left who can build 5th generation warplanes.
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