Hindsight: FB-111H better buy then B-1B?

[Sea Skimmer]

I’ve been thinking about this a long while and it seems more and more clear that in pure hindsight the B-1 was a waste of money and the FB-111H would have been a better and generally more useful choice. Particularly since no FB-22 or similar aircraft has appeared, and a new bomber will certainly have a very long and painful gestation with IOC unlikely before 2025.

My reasoning as follows

1) The improved penetration (stealthy) capability of the B-1B has not yet proven to be of any practical value. All B-1B combat missions have had SEAD support or else faced zero opposition.

2) The B-1B has suffered considerable maintenance problems and has not been upgraded sufficiently to keep its penetration capability current. So in effect it just does jobs the B-52 would have done otherwise, and in any case the B-52 was highly successful in the low level penetration role in Desert Storm. Not one was lost even on over 60 carpet bombing sorties against Taji, right on the outskirts of the massive Baghdad defenses.

3) The long range of the B-1B, while superior to a FB-111H is inferior to that of the B-52. Additionally the ban on using the external pylons significantly reduced the effective payload.

4) The INF treaty removed the threat of every last US theater air base being destroyed immediate upon the outbreak of war before medium bombers could scramble. This would have made the FB-111H much more viable in a nuclear role without excessive tanker support.

5) Arms limitations treaties have removed the B-1B from the nuclear role completely, and forced the scrapping of numerous B-52s which could just as well have done any job the B-1B has actually been called on to do.

6) The B-1Bs existence ensured that funding for the B-2 would be curtailed. If we had no other modern strategic bomber its likely the B-2 would have seen at least 30-40 aircraft produced if not more, providing a much more robust and unique capability.

7) As the FB-111H was estimated to cost about 40% as much as B-1 the USAF would be able to produce twice as many. Each FB-111H could carry a dozen SRAM missiles, giving two of them exactly the same nuclear firepower as a treaty limited B-1B. But with two airframes attacking instead of one, it’d be much harder to counter. Conventional payloads would be similar in a 2:1 comparison as well, but a wider range of targets could be stuck and a decent carpet bombing capability remains. The FB-111H is also more suitable for employing certain kinds of precision guided weapons, particularly pre JDAM ones because it would have been able to use its external pylons. No ALCM spam to scare the communists into demanding a ban. Rather any attempts to limit the FB-111H would force the commies to also accept major limits on the Tu-22M.

8.) A somewhat long production run of ~200 FB-111Hs would give the USAF a single homogenous fleet to retain after 1991 at economical price. The existing F-111 models were retired in large part because they were spread across so many radically different variants each usually with less then 100 airframes.

9) While the B-1B can be based far outside a theater, important for reducing the burden on forward air bases, range on the FB-111H is already sufficient to avoid tight competition with F-teen series tactical aircraft. Additionally the FB-111H is less likely to create political problems for air base access due to its smaller size and less overtly strategic nature.

So the only real downside I see is that an FB-111H might undermine funding for the F-15E. But since existing F-111s and B-1Bs didn't stop the F-15E from being funded I think that is unlikely to be a serious problem. An FB-111H is over 50% heavier after all. So what do people think?

[eion]

Those all seem like very reasonable arguments in hindsight. A cheaper plane that can still perform the same job is always a good thing.

I know that one of the reasons behind the naming of the F-117 was to attract the highly skilled fighter pilots needed to control the Wobbly-Goblin. Would this also hold true in a comparison between the FB-111 and the B-1, or is the "B" just too much of a black mark to hide?

Doesn't the FB-111 also have a lower crew requirement than the B-1?

[Sarevok]

The B-1 normally flew with a crew of four. So I dont think excessive crew requirements are a factor in doing comparision.

[eion]

The B-1 normally flew with a crew of four. So I dont think excessive crew requirements are a factor in doing comparision.

The FB-111 has a crew of two, so in Sea Skimmer's 2 for 1 plan it comes out even.

[Sea Skimmer]

On the B-1B you have a pilot, copilot, defensive and offensive systems operators. The FB-111H doesn’t really need a copilot because it’s a much smaller and shorter ranged aircraft. The need for a defensive system operator also dropped off over time because electronic warfare became far more automated. Indeed it had to be automated to be effective now. So that was a big deal in the 1970s, but by today it doesn’t matter too much.

So on the FB-111H you basically have a pilot and an offensive systems operator. This is also how the B-2 is setup with its two man crew. So not only would number of crew would be equal, number of pilots would also be equal which is important since they cost the most to train.

Interestingly back in the 1960s a three seater ‘improved bomber’ variant of the F-111 was proposed with the third seat being for above mentioned defensive systems operator. I forget exactly what it was designated but I think it had the notional designation of FB-111M or something. It never got very far.

[Stuart]

In hindsight, you're probably right but that applies to a lot of things. For example, in hindsight, the USAF made a bad mistake back in the early 1950s when it selected the B-52 over the B-60. Sure the B-52 was 100mph faster, flew 5,000 feet higher and was thus a much better penetrating aircraft than the B-60 while still having a bomb bay large enough to carry the required nuclear payload. Only, with hindsight we know that the B-52 would never have to penetrate Soviet air defenses, it would spend its life dumping conventional bombs on conventional targets. And, the B-60 had a huge internal bomb bay with four times the capacity of that on the B-52. For the work the B-52 actually did, the B-60 was actually much better - and one could buy four B-60s for the cost of three B-52s.

[Sea Skimmer]

I’m not so sold on the B-60 idea, mainly because the B-60 is directly based on the structure of the B-36 and it’s thus doubtful the aircraft could still be flying as late as the 1980s let alone 2040. Metal fatigue would do them in soon enough with constant carpet bombing in Nam, and thanks to our targeting policies the superior weight of bombs would barely even matter.

Also while the B-52 never faced Soviet defenses, it did face those of North Vietnam and took non trivial losses in the process. 100mph actually matters when the main threat is heavy AAA and barrage fired SAMs. That’s besides the MiGs that got within .50cal range. I’m always just amused that the USAF claims that it could get not one but two tail gun kills, and somehow not even have a single B-52 hit by enemy fighters armed with missiles. Yeah right. the FB-111H is nice because it can fly low even better then a B-1B could, and up high it'd be faster too under certain loading conditions. It has less space for ECM, barring some EA-6 style pods, but a direct doubling of the fleet makes up for that.

[JBG]

What about having both for a high/low heavy/lighter combination?

[Sea Skimmer]

The SAC already did have a heavy/light combo in real life with the B-52 and the FB-111A. The B-1B pushed the FB-111A out of service, the aircraft were converted into tactical F-111G models from 1989 onward. But the FB-111A was more or less a stock F-111 airframe with a bigger wing and new avionics, not a radical enlargement (15 feet longer) as the FB-111H was.

Buying the B-1B and FB-111H at the same time isn’t happening. It’s too much money in total and neither aircraft would have any economy of scale. The USAF did not need that. Indeed one of the reasons I’m not big on the B-1B is because it also lacked much economy of scale, 100 bombers isn’t small but its not very good either. The planned production of 232 was cut way back to make room for the B-2 in the budget latter on (well after FB-111H was totally dead as a concept). I don't want to kill the B-2 (killing B-1B helps it in fact, B-2 was hurt by the fact that we already had just bought a new big bomber), and I want a larger number of bomber airframes.

The F-111 program in general was plagued by too many variants each with very small production runs. Since each one had totally different avionics the maintenance and training costs multiple greatly. So this is why it died out so quickly after the end of the cold war despite excellent service in the Gulf War. The FB-111A for example was just 76 airframes strong, F-111E 94 airframes strong.

With 200 FB-111Hs, it’d actually be a decent sized fleet that’s worth all the specialist maintenance and training each unique model of aircraft in the air force required. All the other F-111s would die within a few years as historical after 1991. But of course this is all in hindsight. Without hindsight the B-1B has a pretty absurd advantage with its massive external warload. That's really the dumb thing. The B-1B design was based all around a very large weapons load, at the expense of range, and then by stroke of arms treaty the use of the external portion was banned and so was the internal ALCM capability.

[JBG]

Thanks for the response Sea Skimmer.

I suppose I was thinking about the B-1 replacing the B-52 in adequate numbers and thereafter partnering the F-111s.

A bit like the B-58s and the B-70s in TBO though with the F-111s retaining tactical capabilities.

Your point about the variants of F-111s made me sit up! The RAAF amongst a small number of airframes has I believe 3 different types!

[Sea Skimmer]

Thanks for the response Sea Skimmer.

I suppose I was thinking about the B-1 replacing the B-52 in adequate numbers and thereafter partnering the F-111s.

Well the thing is the FB-111H is a 1979 proposal. By the time the B-1 would be done production, it'd be more like 1989 or the early 1990s and by that point buying a radically modified F-111 into bomber is no longer very attractive. We'd want something newer with stealth, and the F-15E is also in production giving us a very potent fighter bomber.

A bit like the B-58s and the B-70s in TBO though with the F-111s retaining tactical capabilities.

Well TBO pays for that via the USAF having no ICBMs at all. If all that funding could go into bombers then we could easily afford a light FB-111 sized airframe (TBO has the B-71 bomber variant of SR-71 for this catagory), medium B-58 class airframe and heavy B-70 class airframe.

Your point about the variants of F-111s made me sit up! The RAAF amongst a small number of airframes has I believe 3 different types!

Yeah the RAAF had its very own variant, F-111C. Only 24 were ever produced for the initial buy, so Australia had to buy a couple more of different versions, basically whatever the USAF had surplus that day, as attrition replacements after several crashed.

While any aircraft will have significant differences from variant to variant, the F-111 was extra bad because it was one of the first planes ever will all digital avionics, and it was the first military jet to use a turbofan engine. So the avionics kept getting better every year, and the new TF30 engine was endlessly troublesome, so the USAF couldn’t resist constantly buying newer variants. The early ones also had structural problems so bad they caused mid air breakups (the fix was a huge box of additional steel to hold the wings onto the fuselage) and this is all coming ontop of the painful gestation of the basic design.

[JBG]

Yeah the RAAF had its very own variant, F-111C. Only 24 were ever produced for the initial buy, so Australia had to buy a couple more of different versions, basically whatever the USAF had surplus that day, as attrition replacements after several crashed.

While any aircraft will have significant differences from variant to variant, the F-111 was extra bad because it was one of the first planes ever will all digital avionics, and it was the first military jet to use a turbofan engine. So the avionics kept getting better every year, and the new TF30 engine was endlessly troublesome, so the USAF couldn’t resist constantly buying newer variants. The early ones also had structural problems so bad they caused mid air breakups (the fix was a huge box of additional steel to hold the wings onto the fuselage) and this is all coming ontop of the painful gestation of the basic design.

After the USAF retired its Aardvarks some lucky sods from the RAAF went to Davis-Montham on a shopping spree. Hence the G models.

The structural problems led to the Govt refusing to accept the new aircraft until they had been sorted so we leased some brand new F-4s for a while. 24 of them I seem to recall. Umm, I think that is also the number of super bugs we are buying too!

I won't go into Carlo Kopp's proposals for a mixed F-22 and modernised F-111 fleet - some strongly held opinions there.