Are bombers obsolete?

[TimothyC]

Now here's a question: Why don't we use long-loitering big missile bus drones as a defense system instead of ground-based SAMs? Instead of shooting a SAM from the ground, we can have a big loitering drone shoot a long-ranged (hypersonic) AAM instead? Won't such a weapon have all the advantages of a ground-based SAM, but also have the advantages of a mobile aircraft? Imagine turning a B-52 or something into an airborne SAM. It doesn't even have to be a giant drone, it can be manned.

That's the concept behind the Douglas F6D Missileer (which was never built, but the concept became the F-14).

Stuart - With the current technology base, would the best defense against high-flying hypersonic aircraft would be Direct Energy Weapons correct? Or are the issues with shooting through an atmosphere, combined with the fact that the craft would be dealing with a lot of heat anyway make the lasers less effective?

[Sea Skimmer]

Now here's a question: Why don't we use long-loitering big missile bus drones as a defense system instead of ground-based SAMs? Instead of shooting a SAM from the ground, we can have a big loitering drone shoot a long-ranged (hypersonic) AAM instead? Won't such a weapon have all the advantages of a ground-based SAM, but also have the advantages of a mobile aircraft? Imagine turning a B-52 or something into an airborne SAM. It doesn't even have to be a giant drone, it can be manned.

Been proposed at times, hang SAMs on an airship for example and the above mentioned F6D. The problem with any kind of airborne launcher though is this means destroying the SAM system is as easy as shooting down said launcher. Radar will see the launcher a long ways off and it will be an easy target vs. a normal SAM battery which has a number of dispersed launchers on the ground. This means the airborne launcher either needs to be heavily defended itself, defeating the point of saving money on the size of the SAMs, or else its just going to die quickly. This is why F6D died, it was subsonic and totally fucked if the enemy got within range of it. If you want to make the airborne launcher fast and truly mobile so it doesn't die easily then you are building a fighter. So F6D was replaced by the F-14.

Also while something like a B-52 can fly a long time, once it lands it could take over a day to ready it for another mission, which means you'd need swarms of them around to fly standing patrols. That is the advantage of the SAM, it just needs fuel for a generator to power its radar and other then that it can stay ready to shoot at short notice for a long time. If you had swarms of B-52s flying patrols, one would quickly ask why not just send the B-52s to attack the enemy air bases and missile launchers?

A B-52 armed with SRAM modified into hit to kill ABM weapons was proposed to do just this, operate as an offensive boost phased intercept system rather then for defense. It'd fly around enemy missile launch areas and shoot down any rising ballistic missile it saw with the ABM SRAM, then toss a regular SRAM to kill the launcher. The NCADE program is aimed at making AIM-120 into a two stage ABM weapon so that any fighter can have a capability like this (we have a billion weapons to replace SRAM for killing the launcher) . NCADE might be a window into what a future anti hypersonic AAM could be like too, but it'd surely have to grow bigger to do the job right.

[Stuart]

With the current technology base, would the best defense against high-flying hypersonic aircraft would be Direct Energy Weapons correct? Or are the issues with shooting through an atmosphere, combined with the fact that the craft would be dealing with a lot of heat anyway make the lasers less effective?

Eventually yes. Once we get high-powered enough lasers working properly. Unfortunately with the YAL-1 reduced to R&D status, that time is getting steadily more distant.

[Simon_Jester]

One obvious difficulty that comes to mind is how big you need the airborne laser to be to score kills against aircraft, especially large bombers; they're not going to be quite as sensitive as missiles unless I miss my guess.

[Norade]

I know that we're wary of putting weapons into space, but could anti-bomber weapons fired down from space be in any way effective and cost efficient?

[Simon_Jester]

I know that we're wary of putting weapons into space, but could anti-bomber weapons fired down from space be in any way effective and cost efficient?

I kind of doubt it.

Anything in orbit has to be moving very fast relative to the Earth's surface, unless it's so high up that it's out of range for any conceivable practical weapon system. Therefore, if you need to cover a specific target on the ground with orbital kill-sats and keep it covered permanently, you need a whole constellation of satellites, each of which mounts expensive weapons.

To make matters worse, it will be hard to hit the bomber from orbit. Missiles fired from an orbital platform have tremendous speed, but that speed is in a preset direction, and the missile itself won't have enough fuel to make significant changes to its course. Therefore, the missiles cannot pursue the bomber effectively if it doesn't happen to be lying in the satellite's sights: the missile will just go barreling harmlessly past the bomber at re-entry speeds.

Which, come to think of it, is a whole different problem: guided missiles are not designed to survive reentry.

Now, it's conceivable that high power lasers could be mounted on satellites and used against high-atmosphere targets, I suppose... but such lasers are very large, so large that we have to put them in a Boeing 747 at the moment. We can't conveniently launch satellites of that size and mass, and won't be able to do so in the near future.

[Norade]

I know that we're wary of putting weapons into space, but could anti-bomber weapons fired down from space be in any way effective and cost efficient?

I kind of doubt it.

Anything in orbit has to be moving very fast relative to the Earth's surface, unless it's so high up that it's out of range for any conceivable practical weapon system. Therefore, if you need to cover a specific target on the ground with orbital kill-sats and keep it covered permanently, you need a whole constellation of satellites, each of which mounts expensive weapons.

To make matters worse, it will be hard to hit the bomber from orbit. Missiles fired from an orbital platform have tremendous speed, but that speed is in a preset direction, and the missile itself won't have enough fuel to make significant changes to its course. Therefore, the missiles cannot pursue the bomber effectively if it doesn't happen to be lying in the satellite's sights: the missile will just go barreling harmlessly past the bomber at re-entry speeds.

Which, come to think of it, is a whole different problem: guided missiles are not designed to survive reentry.

Now, it's conceivable that high power lasers could be mounted on satellites and used against high-atmosphere targets, I suppose... but such lasers are very large, so large that we have to put them in a Boeing 747 at the moment. We can't conveniently launch satellites of that size and mass, and won't be able to do so in the near future.

That's all what I figured, but I know we have members who work along the cutting edge so I figured I'd throw it out as a question.

[Sea Skimmer]

The best use for space would be for tracking the bombers in the first place. The US is working on improved infrared satellites that will not just warn of ballistic missile launches, they'll also track them as they fly. Adapting a system like that to tracking hot hypersonic bombers and cruise missiles would let you gain a worldwide surveillance coverage which is very handy.

[Norade]

The best use for space would be for tracking the bombers in the first place. The US is working on improved infrared satellites that will not just warn of ballistic missile launches, they'll also track them as they fly. Adapting a system like that to tracking hot hypersonic bombers and cruise missiles would let you gain a worldwide surveillance coverage which is very handy.

Thanks for the information, that does seem more useful than a satellite that shoots down at the Earth. It also means that you're expensive ground based launchers will have the best targeting data they can to ensure as few misses as possible.

[Sea Skimmer]

Thanks for the information, that does seem more useful than a satellite that shoots down at the Earth. It also means that you're expensive ground based launchers will have the best targeting data they can to ensure as few misses as possible.

Yeah exactly.
But going even further, if the enemy hypersonic bomber is not shot down, you can continue to track it and follow it home. Unless the hypersonic aircraft is able to spend considerable time at low speeds to cool off and disappear from the IR scopes, it should be possible to track it all the way back to touchdown. Then you could cue other surveillance assets to take a close look, figure out its exact location on the airfield, or at least a number of likely locations, and attack it with your own fast reacting hypersonic and space based weapons.

This would of course not work against enemy hypersonic gliders or missiles, but as Stuart has pointed out those are already inherently easier to shoot down.

[Norade]

Thanks for the information, that does seem more useful than a satellite that shoots down at the Earth. It also means that you're expensive ground based launchers will have the best targeting data they can to ensure as few misses as possible.

Yeah exactly.
But going even further, if the enemy hypersonic bomber is not shot down, you can continue to track it and follow it home. Unless the hypersonic aircraft is able to spend considerable time at low speeds to cool off and disappear from the IR scopes, it should be possible to track it all the way back to touchdown. Then you could cue other surveillance assets to take a close look, figure out its exact location on the airfield, or at least a number of likely locations, and attack it with your own fast reacting hypersonic and space based weapons.

This would of course not work against enemy hypersonic gliders or missiles, but as Stuart has pointed out those are already inherently easier to shoot down.

Even better, I love the complex games of intel counter-intel that are played and the ever evolving ways we gather that intel. It really goes to show that intel and logistics wins wars as much as any soldier and any weapons system.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah you can't kill what you can't find. One of the main reasons everyone wants hypersonic weapons isn't even just how challenging they are to defend against, but simply that they reach the target very quickly. That makes it much more realistic to hit and kill mobile targets you can easily locate when they fire, such as like multiple rocket launchers, but not easily track once they strike down, move and merge into thousands of other military and civilian vehicles.
The alternative strategy is weapons platforms that loiter over the target area, which is obviously limited by the ability of those things to survive air defenses for a long time, and be numerous enough to cover all the enemy territory.

I still love this Boeing concept though for air launch UAV swarm armed with what appear to be guided hand grenades.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d1ORgVjZto

[Norade]

Yeah you can't kill what you can't find. One of the main reasons everyone wants hypersonic weapons isn't even just how challenging they are to defend against, but simply that they reach the target very quickly. That makes it much more realistic to hit and kill mobile targets you can easily locate when they fire, such as like multiple rocket launchers, but not easily track once they strike down, move and merge into thousands of other military and civilian vehicles.
The alternative strategy is weapons platforms that loiter over the target area, which is obviously limited by the ability of those things to survive air defenses for a long time, and be numerous enough to cover all the enemy territory.

I still love this Boeing concept though for air launch UAV swarm armed with what appear to be guided hand grenades.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d1ORgVjZto

Holy shit those are awesome! They give comm bandwidth without wasting satellites on short range info, they carry weapons, and can drop from damn near any aircraft. Better yet, they're cheap enough to be deployed early and often.

[Count Chocula]

Now is the time on Sprockets vhen ve dance play with numbers!

Assume a squadron of 12 B-70 type US bombers approach the eastern coast of Russia from somewhere over Norway, cruising at Mach 3 at 100,000 feet inbound to Moscow. Assume an S-400 missile battery in Pskov, about 350 US standard miles from Moscow, that detects the flight at a slant range of 250 miles (the estimated detection range from Wiki). So, no sleep 'til Brooklyn or 600 miles 'til Moscow.

The "B-70s" are 19 miles above earth, so the overland max detection range is 231 miles. At Mach 3, the "B-70s" are covering ~2,300 miles per hour. Assuming the B-70s plan to drop bombs on Pskov from directly overhead, the Pskov S-400 crews have about 5 minutes to detect the inbounds, target and launch against them. But wait! If Pskov's the target, those B-70s will drop their JDAM-style nukes from 100k and Mach 3 at a range of 50 miles minimum, maybe farther, from the target. Now there's only 4 minutes and ~40 seconds' worth of time. The missiles themselves have a stated range of 130 nautical miles, or 150 statute miles. So the missiles have 3 minutes, 40 seconds as an engagement envelope. But...the 9M96E2 missile fired by the S-400 has a maximum height capability of 30km, or 18.6 miles. The B-70s are already above the maximum engagement height of the S-400 system, and the B-70s may be able (with control from their human crew) to trade a half-Mach of speed for another 10-15,000 feet of altitude, nosing over and resuming speed and cruise altitude when past Pskov's basket.

But wait, I'm a smart Russkie, and instead of engaging I'm going to send my radar information to Moscow and let them decide what to do! My early warning gives Moscow almost 16 minutes to coordinate a response to the inbound capitalist running dogs! Plenty of time! So it took Pskov 1 minute to recognize the incoming threat and send it to Moscow. 15 minutes to respond. Still good. So it took the watch commander in Moscow a minute to confirm the feed from Pskov, decide it was legitimate, and pass the intercept information on to his intercept crews. So what? THAT WARNING MEANS NOTHING, because the Moscow missileer is still bound by his own S-400's detection range. As of today, to my knowledge, there ain't no Russian JTIDS equivalent that would allow a missile radar in Pskov to feed track data for an intercept solution to a missile battery in Moscow. And the B-70s would STILL be at the extreme top of the S-400 missiles' engagement range!

The S-400's missiles, at an average velocity of 1,000m/sec (see prior reference), would take 30 seconds to intercept the B-70s directly overhead the launchers. That's IF those B-70s went right over the launchers, IF they didn't zoom out of the defense's engagement envelope, IF they didn't hit their ECM on first launch warning and go evasive. Probable end result: bye-bye Moscow. With an effective high-altitude supersonic cruise missile profile and no evasion.

Aside from current numbers, crewed bomber crews could make climbs, dives, turns, course changes, and engage ECM in a manner that no ICBM could do, then drive in and deliver the payload. Just on the comparison between a 1960's XB-70 and a current generation S-400, the bomber force wins hands down.

[Shroom Man 777]

That sucks. Does that comparison apply to other modern day SAMs as well? And, what about fighters and interceptors? MiG-31s, F-15s, and F-22s?

[Norade]

From what has been said here, no fighter can come close to fighting at that height, and any that can might as well double as bombers due to the size needed. It looks like better detection and bigger and better missiles is needed, or that you need satellites to kill these planes at the runway before they can take-off.

[Shroom Man 777]

An interesting question to ask, now, would be: How do you then defeat bombers?

[K. A. Pital]

What a load of fucking tripe, Chocula. Large early-warning radars would detect the bombers incoming from 3000-4000 km, right? So what's the point in this bullshit?

[Norade]

Even so if detected from that far off what can Russia do to stop them? The S-400's can't reliably stop the bombers and no fighters can do anything to get within engagement range and effectively do anything to them. The only option is to scramble your own bombers and hope that you can force them to back down when they see your birds go up. That is assuming any threat to the states had a budget large enough to build hypersonic high altitude bombers, and maintain other avenues of power projection.

[Stark]

Are you guys really playing 'if we magically had this capability we don't, but the other guys didn't have the capability to stop them, WE'D BE UNSTOPPABLE' game? S-400 can't engage targets that don't exist. This is... a flaw now?

[Sea Skimmer]

What a load of fucking tripe, Chocula. Large early-warning radars would detect the bombers incoming from 3000-4000 km, right? So what's the point in this bullshit?

Only an over the horizon radar could do that, which means resolution too poor to guide any sort of missile, and a very large fixed radar site that will quickly die in a modern war. Nuclear or otherwise. The number of radars like that in the entire world doesn't get very far into the fingers and toes of counting.

How the hell you think early warning range affects missile ceiling though beats me though. The actual effective ceiling limit on the large models of S-300 and S-400 missiles is around 40km though, enough to hit a B-70 or a SR-71, but only if it flies fairly close to the launch site. Both are limited by lack of air preventing controlled flight at a higher ceiling, but the plane has a big advantage in that it sustains its speed to an unlimited extent compared to the missile.

Russia and China can make up for that by deploying dozens of S-300 and HQ-9 batteries around specific cities, but no one else can do that. So far S-400 has not been advertises as having any kind of network based fire control system using remote radar stations, but it seems likely this is how the long range of the 40N6 missile will be used. The reported tracking range of the 64N6 BIG BIRD surveillance radar isn't long enough to make full use of a 400km range missile. OTH radar wont work, but something else that can see really far like a radar plane could do it.

Are you guys really playing 'if we magically had this capability we don't, but the other guys didn't have the capability to stop them, WE'D BE UNSTOPPABLE' game? S-400 can't engage targets that don't exist. This is... a flaw now?

Remember the SR-71 kept flying into the early 1990s, long into the evolution of S-300. S-400 is just S-300PMU3 given a new name for better marketing. The Russians had every reason to want capability against targets of that class, but the ceiling limit is a major aerodyanamic one. The aircraft can't go any higher either, but since the aircraft is already at that kind of ceiling, and can sustain that speed and height, it has a big advantage over a rocket missile rising from the ground. Nothing much a defense can do about that short of deploying a SAM the size of KEI. But its wrong to say S-300 just can't compete at all, that is only true if it were restricted to its smallest missiles.

[adam_grif]

When dealing with a nuclear war, does this matter? If we get 15 minutes of warning to Moscow, can't they have the ICBM's off the ground along with their own bombers launching for an offensive, and message sent out to the subs?

[Seggybop]

Forgive me for interjecting in the midst of this SAM discussion, but I'm kind of confused about the great benefit of having a crew that was discussed earlier.

It seems to me that a manned bomber will still have the same problems reliably communicating with its base/the same susceptibility to ECM/hacking as a drone vehicle, so assuming adequate autopilot software (which really seems like a relatively minor problem given the current state of our computing technology) shouldn't drones be the optimal long-term solution? What's so awesome about humans that I'm missing? If you can scramble an autopilot's programs you can do the equivalent to human-operated equipment, and if you can hack into a drone you can trick humans with fake data just as easily.

[Norade]

Forgive me for interjecting in the midst of this SAM discussion, but I'm kind of confused about the great benefit of having a crew that was discussed earlier.

It seems to me that a manned bomber will still have the same problems reliably communicating with its base/the same susceptibility to ECM/hacking as a drone vehicle, so assuming adequate autopilot software (which really seems like a relatively minor problem given the current state of our computing technology) shouldn't drones be the optimal long-term solution? What's so awesome about humans that I'm missing? If you can scramble an autopilot's programs you can do the equivalent to human-operated equipment, and if you can hack into a drone you can trick humans with fake data just as easily.

Humans also have free will, if they get the faintest that they're being screwed with they'll try another channel to confirm.

[adam_grif]

free will