U.S. Bombers Buzz North Korea as Trump’s Asia Trip Looms

The Wall Street Journal ^ | November 2, 2017 | Jonathan Chang

[PJammers]

There has been talk of the use of advanced weaponry. It’s also possible, it was a clandestine operation.

[familyop]

"Wouldn’t it be something if he ordered action while standing among the people of South Korea."

Alright. Yes. Perfect!

But even if he does not choose to give the order,...

"Hey, Kim Jong Un! If you want to try to harm my brothers and sisters in the Republic of Korea, you'll have to go through me first!"

[And the same for the people of Japan from Japanese soil. My President and anyone else assigned by him to do so are welcome to use these words and have rights to use them.]

[familyop]

"Wouldn’t it be something if he ordered action while standing among the people of South Korea."

Alright. Yes. Perfect!

But even if he does not choose to give the order,...

"Hey, Kim Jong Un! If you want to try to harm my brothers and sisters in the Republic of Korea, you'll have to go through me first!"

[And the same for the people of Japan from Japanese soil. My President and anyone else assigned by him to do so are welcome to use these words and have rights to use them.]

It should solve the problem of North Korea so often trying to convince ROK people that they're a second wheel to the U.S., so to speak. It would let them know that they are important to us...precious, even.

[They are a great people. After having spent time with some of them, I couldn't help but love them. Very loyal and generous! So are the Japanese people. They've also been getting along increasingly well with each other in recent times.]

[familyop]

"all the demonstrations down range of nork “icbm” and over japan— mean nothing if the warheads are now buried— if they are."

They're on mobile launchers, parked here and there and moving sometimes.

[Hugh the Scot]

True enough. Do you know what it would take to refit a few of them for a nuclear role?

[jeffersondem]

“Do you know what it would take to refit a few of them for a nuclear role?”

I do not know. Probably nothing several tens of billions of dollars couldn’t fix.

But it might take years. It would take funding from Congress and that will be a problem because Democrats and many Republicans don’t see the need.

[Hugh the Scot]

I didn’t know if it might be similar to the process of re-MIRVing the Minuteman III.

[John S Mosby]

Possible chi-coms did this? Xi sees the handwriting/poster Trump sent? Xi is quite powerful (said to be as powerful as Mao after recent consolidation- and could have eliminated the grafters living off the “coal contract” major export from Norks to chi-coms. coal is all norks have, and china likes the “buffer” state without the personnel headaches- ie. let em starve).

[John S Mosby]

A result of some “treaty” agreement? Wonder what russkies bomber “lost” it’s capability for nuke delivery. Not being AF, seems like the viability of a platform has been superseded by the cruise missiles (stand-off B52, fighters, Carrier-based aviation, and.. submarine launched cruise- aside from the icbm boomers/mrv’d warheads).

The B1 was to replace slow buffs with supersonic speed (better than the old B-58 hustler)— and then, de-certified for it, am wondering why? Technology changes.

Again, not much USAF, more USMC and USN and spec war.

[OldMissileer]

A result of some “treaty” agreement? Wonder what russkies bomber “lost” it’s capability for nuke delivery.

In the 1990s I ended up on a team in the Former Soviet Union observing and giving advice on the safe removal and destruction of both Soviet ICBMs and strategic bombers. I still have a folder full of photos of our time there. We cut up hundreds of certain Bear and all of their Bison bombers. I even helped with the acquisition of special equipment we sent over to literally cut up (like scissors) some of their SLBM submarines.

The B-1B is a great aircraft but, due to politics, only 100 were produced and attrition had already left us with fewer. The first production run of B-1Bs were not the same as the last group so there were many differences in design, parts, etc.. The cost of maintaining the B1-B was high due to the fact they were not all alike while the B-52s had been around for decades and were pretty much standardized so overall costs were lower and reliability was better. That led to the removal of the B-1B from our nuclear forces.

The B-1B was/is a fantastic aircraft but economy of scale basically killed it as a nuclear delivery vehicle when we had to draw down due to treaties.