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The B-21 Raider Has Only 1 True Enemy
The National Interest ^ | 8/8/2024 | Harrison Kass

Posted on 08/08/2024 9:22:19 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111

The B-21 promises to be the culmination of those stealth refining efforts, with some claiming that the new stealth bomber will have the radar cross section (RCS) of an insect. While the claim – that a large, fuel-guzzling military aircraft could have the RCS of a honeybee – seems hyperbolic, one Washington thinktank is backing the claim, and urging the US to pursue large-scale acquisition of the B-21.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War
KEYWORDS: b21; bombers; defense; military
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Is this thing really worth it? Seems overpriced and not worth the money as drones can do a lot of this? Please tell me I am wrong!
1 posted on 08/08/2024 9:22:19 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
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To: whyilovetexas111

The US is thousands of miles from where our national interests lie. We have to get there first. The raider can carry drones and drop them anywhere.


2 posted on 08/08/2024 9:26:57 AM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: whyilovetexas111

“Indeed, expectations could be the bomber’s biggest enemy for the moment.”

Second only to a congress that wants a totally vulnerable America...


3 posted on 08/08/2024 9:29:39 AM PDT by null and void (I identify as a conspiracy theorist. My personal pronouns are told/you/so.)
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To: Gen.Blather

The Raider can even carry air-to-air missiles with on board avionics to acquire a target and guide the missile in, making it an effective fighter as well as a bomber.


4 posted on 08/08/2024 9:30:01 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
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To: whyilovetexas111

5 posted on 08/08/2024 9:32:08 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: whyilovetexas111

More expensive and useless as the B-2 has been.


6 posted on 08/08/2024 9:33:06 AM PDT by CodeToad (Rule #1: The elites want you dead.)
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To: Gen.Blather
The raider can carry drones and drop them anywhere.

As soon as those drones are dropped, the position of the B-21 would be revealed, since the drones would not have the same stealthiness of the B-21.

The better option might be to have millions of drones with the stealthiness of an insect, and have them constantly 'floating' or hovering above the enemy.
7 posted on 08/08/2024 9:33:33 AM PDT by adorno (CCH)
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To: whyilovetexas111

A horde of small-nuke-armed drones is a vastly cheaper platform in terms of devastation on targets per dollar. What these things are good for is delivering massive amounts of conventional ordinance anywhere in the world with great accuracy. It’s for beating up on countries that won’t get with the globalist programme.


8 posted on 08/08/2024 9:33:41 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: adorno

And they would be powered by?


9 posted on 08/08/2024 9:36:38 AM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: adorno

Could a small nuclear battery powered by plutonium supply sufficient power to keep a drone loitering aloft indefinitely? I’m thinking of the atomic batteries that once powered pacemakers and perhaps wristwatches? years ago until the disposal safety challenges led to their removal from common use.


10 posted on 08/08/2024 9:46:49 AM PDT by desertsolitaire (Perhaps the Great Ape Lawgiver in the series Planet of the Apes was correct in his view of humans?)
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To: whyilovetexas111

That enemy is “reality”.


11 posted on 08/08/2024 9:49:45 AM PDT by Thud
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To: CodeToad
> More expensive and useless as the B-2 has been. <

And now a word from somebody who knew how to balance a budget:


12 posted on 08/08/2024 9:51:32 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: whyilovetexas111

No; you’re right.
The MIC LOVES to spend OUR money.


13 posted on 08/08/2024 9:53:40 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: adorno

How do we refueld/recharge that many drones, even in “shifts”?


14 posted on 08/08/2024 9:55:16 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: whyilovetexas111
one Washington thinktank is backing the claim, and urging the US to pursue large-scale acquisition of the B-21.

Let's find out who is funding that "thinktank"

15 posted on 08/08/2024 9:55:50 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: whyilovetexas111
I just read an article in one of the defense magazines that says the days of stealth are numbered and so are the days of the B-21. The AF plans upwards of a thousand new drones in the next FY I just read today.

Makes me wonder if the Raider or Northrup are going to last long. Got a bad feeling about both.

16 posted on 08/08/2024 9:58:21 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (More important than why there was nobody protecting the AGR roof, how did Crooks know that?)
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To: whyilovetexas111

“large, fuel-guzzling military aircraft”

Consuming fuel generates heat. Where does the heat go without generating a trail?


17 posted on 08/08/2024 10:04:20 AM PDT by alternatives?
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To: whyilovetexas111

Only a fool thinks stealth is viable in the never ending war between stealth and radar. We get a new generation of stealth every 10-20 years. Meanwhile the microchips analyzing radar inputs double every 18 months at least. We are something like three generations into the planes. Computing power is way more than 5000 times as powerful.

See also… battleship.


18 posted on 08/08/2024 10:15:02 AM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI. )
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To: Carriage Hill

Start with a simple Rubber band powered propeller to get airborne and then have a solar panel with a battery for cloudy weather take over ?


19 posted on 08/08/2024 10:16:34 AM PDT by mabarker1 ( (Congress- the opposite of PROGRESS!!! A fraud, a hypocrite, a liar. I'm a member of Congress!!!)
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To: Carriage Hill
How do we refueld/recharge that many drones, even in “shifts”?

LOL, they will plug themselves in like RUMBA.

20 posted on 08/08/2024 10:17:27 AM PDT by usurper (AI was born with a birth defect.)
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