Are bombers obsolete?

[Thanas]

free will

Either make a point or quit spamming.

[Norade]

free will

If you really want to debate around in circles about free will versus predetermined fate I'll go around with you. But this isn't the thread. That assumes that smiley even went that deep.

[adam_grif]

I'm laughing because you just seriously proposed that the reason people can identify "being screwed with" is because they have free will. Regardless of whether or not it exists (and it doesn't), that isn't the reason people can identify when they're being screwed with and switch to another channel. Or were you just making the equally stupid claim that computers can identify when they're being screwed with, but are unable to change channels and/or do anything about it?

[Stuart]

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.

The difference is having a system on board that can think for itself. A human crew can get a message, decide whether it sounds likely or not, check it, ask for a repeat, try different channels etc. However, all that is a detail. The real thing is this. A bomber can turn around, come back home, land and refuel. A ballistic missile can't do that. Once it has been launched, it is ona ballistic path to its target and nothing can change that. It cannot be deviated or aborted. Once launched, it will follow the ballistic arc that was programmed into it and will go where it was told to go. Absent any form of missile defense, once a ballistic missile is successfully launched, the target it was aimed at is already doomed, nothing done by either side can save it. In contrast, a bomber can be aborted and told to come home at any point up to the final second before laydown (it's a myth that, after a certain point, the bombers will ignore messages sent to them ordering an abort. However, there are subtle safeguards built into the system to prevent fake aborts being sent. Ones that a computer couldn't simulate or replicate. That's as far as anybody can go on that subject.

Stas, Chockie has the right of it here, although his capabilities are a little off. Had B-70 gone into production, it would have been coming in at 90,000 feet and at Mach 3.2 - Mach 3.5. Most of the B-70 performance details quoted relate to the first prototype XB-70 AV-1 that was thermally restricted and had one fuselage and two of its wing tanks sealed off. The production B-70A would have been significantly faster, more agile and longer-ranged. Your figures on OTH radars are correct but so are Sea Skimmer's comments; those radars simply tell us something is coming, they don't tell anybody anything accurately enough for fire control solutions. It's been argued that the detection range they afford is actually a bonus for the offense; it tells the defender what is coming but also tells him he has time to respond and de-escalate the situation. With a missile attack, the OTH tells him the missiles are on the way and that nothing further can be done to de-escalate the situation.

This is a critical difference. In the bomber case, the long-range radars tell the defender he is going to die in (say) 30 minutes unless he de-escalates. In the missile case, the long-range radars tell the defender that he is already dead and he has 30 minutes to make sure as many of the enemy as possible die with him. The first case is much the better.

The fact is that aircraft moving high and fast are very difficult targets, even when they are on their own. A mass of such aircraft coming in behind a wall of air-to-surface, air-to-air and air-launched anti-radar missiles are much harder targets yet. Back in the early 1960s, missile proponents tried to claim that future developments in surface-to-air missiles would solve that problem. The catch was that their products never came close to fulfilling their promises. To give you some idea of the gap; even S-400 comes nowhere close to fulfilling the promises made for 1970 SAMs. The only real defense against bombers coming in that high and fast using presently-available technology is based on fighters and that is decidedly iffy. The best interceptor in the world today (by a significant margin) is the latest modernization of the MIG-31 and it is only marginally capable against a B-70.

At the moment, the best hope of defense against a manned, hypersonic high-altitude bomber is a directed energy weapon like a laser. That's becoming more promising but it has a long way to go.

[Simon_Jester]

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.

Well, I'm not one of the ones who works on the cutting edge (though I'm about two degrees of separation from part of the laser cannon research community). But I know the physics, and I listen to the people who do work in this area, so... sometimes I get it right.

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.

Ah, Count Chocula? Remember my question on Page 4?

The question that troubles me is: how much of that is due to the lack of a need? Once everyone concluded that nobody was going to be building Mach 3 nuclear bombers any time soon, I'd expect the incentive to develop countermeasures to drop off. Even if you have the basic technology to build the right kind of air defense system, there's no point in developing applications specific to stopping high speed bombers that don't exist. Not when there are other kinds of defense (like ABM) that protect you against a threat that really exists (like ICBMs). So can we use the absence of counters to the B-70 today as proof that no such counters would exist had it been deployed?

This is the problem. Spotting and nailing B-70s might be extremely difficult, even impossible, with today's air defense networks. But there's a reason for that: no one ever built a B-70 force. The only way the world's air defense systems are going to have to engage targets travelling at Mach 3 and angels one hundred in the next decade is if the Martians invade.

So the S-400's inability to perform against B-70s doesn't prove quite as much as you might like, because if we'd actually had a B-70 force for forty years, you can bet that the approaches to Moscow would be covered by something better at taking them down than the S-400 is.

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?

The point in the bullshit is (apparently) that the targeting radars for the individual missile batteries lack the range to spot incoming Mach 3 aircraft, launch, and bring them down before they get into range to fire their weapons. That's a completely different problem from whether the bombers were detected on the early warning network in advance. Knowing the bombers are coming doesn't mean that your personal private missile battery has a lock on them.

Whether it's as big a problem as Chocula thinks... no idea.

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.

As long as the SR-71 was the only thing that could fly that high and fast, I'm not sure it posed enough of a threat to spur crash programs on building hypersonic, high-ceiling missiles the way something like the B-70 would.

If the B-70s had been built, there would be dozens of Stuartskis* banging on doors and insisting that the Soviet Union could not afford a bomber gap. With just the SR-71, not so much. Free-ranging recon planes flying overhead are a strategic nuisance, one that causes problems in the event of a nuclear war. Free-ranging B-70s flying overhead are a strategic disaster, one that causes the end of the world** in the event of a nuclear war.

So I don't think we can accurately describe the situation just by looking at the hypothetical parameters of the Valkyrie without looking at the parameters of the systems that would have been developed in hopes of countering them.

*Stuart's Russian counterpart
**If you're a Kremlin official, it may not be the end of the world, but it's most likely the end of your world...

I'm laughing because you just seriously proposed that the reason people can identify "being screwed with" is because they have free will. Regardless of whether or not it exists (and it doesn't), that isn't the reason people can identify when they're being screwed with and switch to another channel. Or were you just making the equally stupid claim that computers can identify when they're being screwed with, but are unable to change channels and/or do anything about it?

Humans do have an ability superior to most computers when it comes to knowing when they're being screwed with, as demonstrated by the huge number of bugs that humans catch when programming computers. Free will is as good a name for that ability as anything, since we don't actually have a word for it.

[K. A. Pital]

The number of radars like that in the entire world doesn't get very far into the fingers and toes of counting.

Yup. They do have a multi thousand km coverage though. I said nothing about firing at the bombers, though - merely detecting them. Early warning affects the reaction time and warning time for missile posts, which Chocula assumed is counted on the basis of detection without early warning. There's also AEW planes - utilized by USA, Russia, China, etc. - just like you said.

Early warning is critical to the functioning of a national defence against stratobombers. That is all I meant to say and Chochula's ignorance of early warning with some calculations of reaction time is just omitting a huge aspect of warfare.

[UnderAGreySky]

Okay, so we're finding it incredibly hard to shoot down the bombers.

How about shooting down the stuff dropped by the bombers? We already have SAMs that can intercept supersonic weapons. Bombs have a small RCS, agreed, but is it really too small to detect? How about the heat generated by a supersonic toss from high altitude? Would the IR sensor on a SAM be able to track it?

[Stuart]

Yup. They do have a multi thousand km coverage though. I said nothing about firing at the bombers, though - merely detecting them. Early warning affects the reaction time and warning time for missile posts, which Chocula assumed is counted on the basis of detection without early warning. There's also AEW planes - utilized by USA, Russia, China, etc. - just like you said. Early warning is critical to the functioning of a national defence against stratobombers. That is all I meant to say and Chochula's ignorance of early warning with some calculations of reaction time is just omitting a huge aspect of warfare.

That's true of course; the exact working of air defense systems is extremely complex. AEW aircraft don't actually have much of an effect against high altitude targets though; they're prime role is advance detection of targets below the radar horizon and providing a counter-strike free facility for managing the air battle. Chockie's main point, that a fast enough bomber can reduce the reaction time of a missile defense system to less that that in which it has time to react is fundamentally sound. In this case a simplistic analysis gives the right answer despite it missing out so many additional factors. There's a mass of complications on both sides of the equation that have to be added in (for example, the all-pervading influence of radio-electronic combat that ties the reaction time equation into knots). It should also be noted that netting radars together to try and overcome these problems brings issues all of its own while installing ever-larger and more powerful target acquisition and guidance radars brings further complications (they were one of the reasons why S-400 is so far behind schedule and still isn't truly operational).

These days, it takes multiple years (approaching a decade) to get an air defense system up and working. The time involved is growing ever-longer and I don't see that trend ending. It may well be that the complexity of air defense systems will be self-defeating; that one day quite soon they will be too complex to work at all. This is a very important factor; air defense systems are inherently much more complex than missile defense systems.

Viewed objectively, we could be in at the start of an exciting era. The old preconceptions are being turned upside down and we could be watching the birth of a whole new series of strategic options.

By the way, Stas, does your tagline come from Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg? It has his masterly use of language.

[Stuart]

How about shooting down the stuff dropped by the bombers? We already have SAMs that can intercept supersonic weapons. Bombs have a small RCS, agreed, but is it really too small to detect? How about the heat generated by a supersonic toss from high altitude? Would the IR sensor on a SAM be able to track it?

This is something that's being evaluated right now. Oddly, the technology comes out of ABM in that shooting down an RV from a missile that leaked through the defenses presents a very similar challenge to shooting down a descending bomb. So, providing a defense against descending bombs could leverage ABM technology. One particular technology used was evidenced by a missile called Sprint and a derivative program Hibex. Those relatively short-range missiles had marvellously high acceleration and a descendent of them could be used in the manner you suggest.

It might well be that the missile screen becomes orientated to dealing with descending bombs while intercepting the bombers gets left to manned aircraft. That division would simplify the command control problem as well

[Norade]

I'm laughing because you just seriously proposed that the reason people can identify "being screwed with" is because they have free will. Regardless of whether or not it exists (and it doesn't), that isn't the reason people can identify when they're being screwed with and switch to another channel. Or were you just making the equally stupid claim that computers can identify when they're being screwed with, but are unable to change channels and/or do anything about it?

Sorry it was late, I should have said superior intellect and non-linear thinking skills would allow us more room to seek confirmation before diverting or changing targets. A human would also be far harder to reprogram to send back at the user than an ICBM with an abort/re-targeting uplink.

[Sea Skimmer]

Okay, so we're finding it incredibly hard to shoot down the bombers.
How about shooting down the stuff dropped by the bombers? We already have SAMs that can intercept supersonic weapons. Bombs have a small RCS, agreed, but is it really too small to detect? How about the heat generated by a supersonic toss from high altitude? Would the IR sensor on a SAM be able to track it?

The rule of thumb is a store like a bomb or missile has about .1 meter squared RCS. That's small, but still big enough to be detected at a useful range, at least far enough away that the nuke could be destroyed from outside its own blast radius. IR would work against powered bomber launched nuclear missiles like SRAM or ALCM, but its unlikely it'd work against a gravity bomb. It'd depend on the details though, a nuclear bomb dropped at mach 3 is going to get hot quickly from the air drag.

However a nuclear bomb is small enough that it can be realistically armored, the first ones dropped on Japan were (I would suspect newer ones have a nice strong steel case to protect protection too, if not outright armor plate), which would mean only a direct SAM hit would kill it. A proximity burst hitting the bomb with fragments would be hard pressed to defeat more then the thinnest armoring. In addition, the SAM battery may have a lot of trouble detecting such small targets if its radar is subject to jamming from the bombers own ECM systems. One of the ways you beat jamming is simply turning down the sensitivity of the radar, which means very small targets just won't be shown.

Also bomber could also always be armed with a larger number of smaller nuclear weapons and release several of them at a target should the defense present a serious risk of shooting down the nukes. Right now the most nuclear weapons a bomber can carry on paper is 36 for the B-1B, though the B-1B is currently stripped of its nuclear capabilities by treaty. This is already no small number.

However if we were to rearm it it with a new small nuclear weapon patterned after the Small Diameter Bomb shape, then over 100 nukes could be carried, the same is true of the B-2 which currently can haul 16 nukes or the B-52 which can haul 20 nukes. A hypersonic bomber being a totally paper concept right now it'd hard to know what the payload will be, but its unlikely to be small. Otherwise the plane would just be too expensive to make any sense.

The yield of each nuclear SDB would be lower, the 8in nuclear artillery shell suggests about 40kt should be within reason, but this could be made up for by using inertial guidance to provide higher accuracy. Most nuclear targets will die just fine from 40kt landing right on top of them, and large areas can be wiped out with a carpet of such warheads. A defender is going to have a very hard time of defeating enough small nukes to make any difference on how much he is going to die. The retargeting capability of a manned bomber has means that if the first nuke dropped does not work or gets shot down, the bomber circles around and drops another one.

[Simon_Jester]

Sorry it was late, I should have said superior intellect and non-linear thinking skills would allow us more room to seek confirmation before diverting or changing targets. A human would also be far harder to reprogram to send back at the user than an ICBM with an abort/re-targeting uplink.

Well, once an ICBM is launched there's no way in hell you're going to be able to physically turn it around and send it back at the user; the law of conservation of momentum will see to that. Once the boost phase ends, a ballistic missile has already got practically all the velocity it's ever going to have... hence the word "ballistic."

Building in maneuvering jets might let you move the point of aim slightly at the cost of payload/range. And I can certainly imagine being able to build a software backdoor so that you can send a "disarm code" to the warhead.*

But you're not going to be able to change the point of aim by thousands of kilometers, let alone turn the missile around in mid-flight and send it back where it started from. Nor are you going to be able to stop and fly around in circles while awaiting confirmation to attack, to retarget your bombs on the fly to go after an unexpected target like a mobile radar system... you get the idea.

And a lot of this is because of inherent limits in putting your nuclear warheads on top of a solid fuel rocket. Light that candle and it's going to burn to completion, picking up several kilometers a second of speed in whatever direction you told it to go. Without an equally powerful rocket in reserve for course changes, the warhead will land more or less where you aimed it on launch, just as an artillery shell would.

*Stuart, Skimmer, et al, I'm not saying that disarm codes are a desirable feature; I'm sure they feature far more prominently in video games than in real life. But I suspect that if you desired ICBMs that could be disarmed in flight, you could probably build them.

[Sea Skimmer]

As long as the SR-71 was the only thing that could fly that high and fast, I'm not sure it posed enough of a threat to spur crash programs on building hypersonic, high-ceiling missiles the way something like the B-70 would.

The SR-71 wasn't the only thing that could fly that fast and high though, it was just the only thing manned. It was also BTW proposed to reactivate the YF-12 prototypes in the 1980s and arm them with SRAM to destroy Soviet radar planes. Didn't happen, but the Soviets knew the US had that kind of capability and could restore it quickly if they wished. So R&D on the subject would not be ignored at all, all the more so once ABM mass deployment was banned, reducing the need to spend money on that very expensive subject. They also had to worry about the mach 3 SRAM itself, and programs like ASALM which did not enter production, but flew at mach 4.5 none the less, and actually broke mach 5.5 during a test malfunction (missile broke up soon afterwards from going a whole mach factor past design speed, the fuel throttle stuck wide open). Ceiling was around 80,000 feet. It could also still make around mach 2 at near sea level should the shooter decide to attack high and low at the same time.

*Stuart, Skimmer, et al, I'm not saying that disarm codes are a desirable feature; I'm sure they feature far more prominently in video games than in real life. But I suspect that if you desired ICBMs that could be disarmed in flight, you could probably build them.

It means you need a radio system on each missile, or rather more specifically on the warhead bus that can cover global distances, and does not use SATCOMs because those aren't going to survive the first minutes of a nuclear war. I'm not sure that's physically possible for any price, simply because the antenna size and power can't be all that big. It would be easier to make an ICBM which can only be aborted in the first ~2,000nm or so of its flight path, when its still got a direct LOS to friendly territory and the communications requirements are lower.

But good luck making it reliable enough to matter. It would REALLY suck if you fired off some ICBMs, aborted them, but one doesn't work and goes on to blow up Moscow anyway. Then the Russians shoot back with everything they have, and now you've already blown up a bunch of your own missiles...

[Norade]

Sorry it was late, I should have said superior intellect and non-linear thinking skills would allow us more room to seek confirmation before diverting or changing targets. A human would also be far harder to reprogram to send back at the user than an ICBM with an abort/re-targeting uplink.

Well, once an ICBM is launched there's no way in hell you're going to be able to physically turn it around and send it back at the user; the law of conservation of momentum will see to that. Once the boost phase ends, a ballistic missile has already got practically all the velocity it's ever going to have... hence the word "ballistic."

Building in maneuvering jets might let you move the point of aim slightly at the cost of payload/range. And I can certainly imagine being able to build a software backdoor so that you can send a "disarm code" to the warhead.*

But you're not going to be able to change the point of aim by thousands of kilometers, let alone turn the missile around in mid-flight and send it back where it started from. Nor are you going to be able to stop and fly around in circles while awaiting confirmation to attack, to retarget your bombs on the fly to go after an unexpected target like a mobile radar system... you get the idea.

And a lot of this is because of inherent limits in putting your nuclear warheads on top of a solid fuel rocket. Light that candle and it's going to burn to completion, picking up several kilometers a second of speed in whatever direction you told it to go. Without an equally powerful rocket in reserve for course changes, the warhead will land more or less where you aimed it on launch, just as an artillery shell would.

*Stuart, Skimmer, et al, I'm not saying that disarm codes are a desirable feature; I'm sure they feature far more prominently in video games than in real life. But I suspect that if you desired ICBMs that could be disarmed in flight, you could probably build them.

Ah, I didn't mean to say that they would be turned around, but if fired at Moscow making them fall short into Scandinavia would be undesirable enough. Even simply having the missile abort at some stage in flight would be costly enough to make the bomber a better option.

[Sea Skimmer]

Here we go, ASALM flight envolope and test profiles

Effect of high launch speeds and alttiudes on bomber weapons range

And an example of how increasing speed and height deceases a SAM capability. SA-2 is just as the example, a limited system of course, but the point is illustrated well enough. Even if a SAM can hit a given target, it may not be able to defend a very large area while doing so. Funny enough the liquid fueled SA-2 has certain advantages over newer solid fuel SAMs at high altitudes, since the motor burn time is much longer.


Notice how as speed goes up, the SAM is reduced from being able to hit the plane in a tail chase and to the sides, to barely being able to hit it dead head on.

[Norade]

It's insane how much of a difference altitude and speed make to a SAM or even an AAM. For what little I know they have greatly decreased effectiveness below 20,000 feet and above about 60,000 feet. That is a rather wise band, but not when you can go under one with room to spare and over the other with room to spare.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's insane how much of a difference altitude and speed make to a SAM or even an AAM. For what little I know they have greatly decreased effectiveness below 20,000 feet and above about 60,000 feet. That is a rather wise band, but not when you can go under one with room to spare and over the other with room to spare.

That is why, as Stuart says, the systems are so complex, needing to cover all available engagement envelopes from NOE flights to skimming the edge of space. Simply needing the variety of missiles needed to operate most efficiently for each potential approach is bad enough, without adding in all the C3I infrastructure needed to run them all. And that's assuming it all works fine and isn't subject to EW or losses or general confusion in the fog of war.

Incidentally, if anyone hasn't seen the Sidney Lumet directed Henry Fonda film Fail-Safe, I highly recommend it. It IS basically Dr. Strangelove, to the point that Kubrick took the studio releasing Lumet's film to court over plagiarism charges (although both films were started independently, Kubrick didn't have delays blight his production), but without the black comedy. It goes into the problems that can be had when a worst case situation regarding strategic bombers being sent off on an attack run during the worst possible time, faces two superpowers. The film is worth watching for the final scene alone which is chilling as anything in Threads.

[K. A. Pital]

Chockie's main point, that a fast enough bomber can reduce the reaction time of a missile defense system to less that that in which it has time to react is fundamentally sound. In this case a simplistic analysis gives the right answer despite it missing out so many additional factors.

Yeah, the main point is valid, the faster is a bomber, the less is the system's reaction time. I just do love the abilities of super-huge radars like the Don-2NP and the like - it was built in 1980s when no real space combat vehicles were created, but it would be useful even against possible future space combat craft, since it was able to detect very small test balls dispersed in orbit as part of an international experiment. I'm sure the radar tech hasn't reached the full end of it's potential, too.

These days, it takes multiple years (approaching a decade) to get an air defense system up and working. The time involved is growing ever-longer and I don't see that trend ending. It may well be that the complexity of air defense systems will be self-defeating; that one day quite soon they will be too complex to work at all. This is a very important factor; air defense systems are inherently much more complex than missile defense systems.

However, a huge IADS can double as a missile defence element if it's radars and missiles are capable of executing ABM duties. I'm not sure many nations outside of Russia and China whose continental position puts them at a disadvantage (the US position across the ocean with no real enemies on it's continent with little across-ground approaches is sure a massive advantage), would build massive IADS systems. Some nations' militaries are just too primitive yet to hope to have such a powerful system as the Soviet or the now expanding Chinese IADS.

By the way, Stas, does your tagline come from Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg? It has his masterly use of language.

Close enough. It's from the song Sacred War, one of the most famous Great Patiotic War songs, lyrics by Vasiliy Lebedev-Kumach and music by Alexandrov, who also made the Soviet Anthem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svyaschennaya_Voyna
The translation I've found is clearly superior to the one on Wikipedia, though

[Sea Skimmer]

It's insane how much of a difference altitude and speed make to a SAM or even an AAM. For what little I know they have greatly decreased effectiveness below 20,000 feet and above about 60,000 feet. That is a rather wise band, but not when you can go under one with room to spare and over the other with room to spare.

I don't know about those specific altitudes, it would depend on the airplane and missile, but the concept is right. Down low aircraft have high agility because they have thick air to work with, while up very high the missile begins suffering more from the thin air because of the limited size of its control surfaces. So the missile would rather attack the plane somewhere inbetween.


This chart shows the speed-height curves for sustained G loadings on the F-16. Notice that the 3 G curve doesn't go much past 40,000 feet even with the F-16 being very lightly loaded, this is the price of the small wing on the plane. Highest agility is found only in a small high subsonic band down low. In contrast the B-70 was supposed to be able to sustain more then 3 Gs at 80,000 feet.

[Norade]

It's insane how much of a difference altitude and speed make to a SAM or even an AAM. For what little I know they have greatly decreased effectiveness below 20,000 feet and above about 60,000 feet. That is a rather wise band, but not when you can go under one with room to spare and over the other with room to spare.

I don't know about those specific altitudes, it would depend on the airplane and missile, but the concept is right. Down low aircraft have high agility because they have thick air to work with, while up very high the missile begins suffering more from the thin air because of the limited size of its control surfaces. So the missile would rather attack the plane somewhere inbetween.


This chart shows the speed-height curves for sustained G loadings on the F-16. Notice that the 3 G curve doesn't go much past 40,000 feet even with the F-16 being very lightly loaded, this is the price of the small wing on the plane. Highest agility is found only in a small high subsonic band down low. In contrast the B-70 was supposed to be able to sustain more then 3 Gs at 80,000 feet.

The altitudes were very rough and taken from a little book on fighter combat done in the 80's, I can't be assed to get up and find out what the exact series was. Thanks once again for all the nice graphic illustrations even if I can only really use the surface info.

[Stuart]

I just do love the abilities of super-huge radars like the Don-2NP and the like - it was built in 1980s when no real space combat vehicles were created, but it would be useful even against possible future space combat craft, since it was able to detect very small test balls dispersed in orbit as part of an international experiment. I'm sure the radar tech hasn't reached the full end of it's potential, too.

The problem with those big radars is their vulnerability. They're very soft, high priority targets so they won;t live very long if everything goes to hell. One of the driving factors behind Skybolt was taking out such targets. That role was later taken over by SLBMs. In fact, SLBM shots taking out the big battle management radars would have been the first laydowns on opposition territory.

The big surge in radar technology now isn't radars per se but the signals processing and generation side of things. SPY-1/AEGIS is a good example; the basic radar hasn't changed much in over thirty years but the software control and signals processing side of things has changed out of all recognition. If we brought a 1983 AEGIS operator out of Ticonderoga forward to today, he would see as much difference in performance as a 1945 radar operator brought forward to the Tico in 1983. SPY-2 and SPY-3 radars are really further developments of the same basic technology; SPY-3 uses AESA and can eliminate the need for multiple different radars on the same ship but that again is really a matter of software control of radar function rather than radar technology itself. What I suspect we will see over the next two decades is a slow growth in basic radar technology but an explosive growth in the ability to use that technology. However, the real challenge isn't the radars themselves it's using the information they generate. As search ranges and discrimination rise, the volume of information gathered goes up exponentially and that simply chokes the system that handles it. At the moment, we're just barely keeping pace with the data flood.

However, a huge IADS can double as a missile defence element if it's radars and missiles are capable of executing ABM duties. I'm not sure many nations outside of Russia and China whose continental position puts them at a disadvantage (the US position across the ocean with no real enemies on it's continent with little across-ground approaches is sure a massive advantage), would build massive IADS systems. Some nations' militaries are just too primitive yet to hope to have such a powerful system as the Soviet or the now expanding Chinese IADS.

This is a point that has been brought up quite a few times in the past. As air defense missile systems grow to be more capable, they begin to edge into missile defense territory. So, at what point does a system cease to be an air defense system and become a missile defense system? In the U.S. under the (spit) Carter administration, a number of US air defense missile systems, most notoriously Patriot but also Standard were deliberately "cooled down" in order to prevent them encroaching on missile defense territory. Most of the work that's going on now, PAC-3 for Patriot for example or the ABM applications of AEGIS and Standard is simply putting back the capabilities that were originally designed into them. In short, the capabilities we are only now, slowly and painfully, getting could have been ours in the 1980s for the asking. It actually cost us a lot of money to produce a less effective system (no surprise there).

You'er absolutely right about the geographical advantage of the USA. We're impossible to get at easily and trying to do so gives us a lot of warning. This is why bombers continue to be viable in the USA yet were not as viable in Europe. Referring you to the Minot film (and remember, if you listen carefully you can here a sepulchural voice from beyond the grave saying "You can do better than this. Group commander, report to my office 0900 with a standing explanation"). The first aircraft leaves the runway 2:56 after the alert is given, the second at around 3:38. In the US that is plenty of time; by the time the inbounds arrive the base will be empty. In Europe, those two birds would be the only ones that made it off, the rest would be caught on the ground. From a European point of view, SSBNs are the only realistic choice; ICBM/IRBMs based in silos or bombers on airfields are just too vulnerable to preemption. China and Russia both face similar problems, especially when looking at each other and they're complicated by a number of other factors that play into reaction times.

One thing that is happening is that, beacuse the realization that missile defense is actually very easy (although the "it'll never work" line is still around and dying hard - mostly used by people rather like the yokel who looked at a giraffe and said "there ain't no such animal" because it isn't mentioned in the Bible), a lot of small nations who wouldn't otherwise be looking at comprehensive air defense are moving into missile defense areas. Singapore is a pretty good example. Their air defense system is OK by local standards although it has its flaws and is dated but they are quietly investing in a top-of-the-line anti-missile system. There are at least two dozen countries (probably closer to three dozen now*) that are either developing anti-missile systems or buying one off somebody who is. Each of those countries has implicitly made a decision that, while comprehensive air defense is beyond their means, comprehensive missile defense is not. That really answers the question as to whether the bomber is obsolete or not; quite a few countries believe that they can afford a solid defense against ballistic missiles but far fewer believe they can stop modern bombers.

*Known countries with anti-missile systems under development or are buying into other people's programs

United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, India, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, Argentina and Brazil.

The ones colored blue are known to be developing their own (sometimes as a partnership - for example France and Italy or Israel and Singapore). Others are both buying into other people's and developing their own (Japan for example) This list is certainly incomplete.

[Shroom Man 777]

What on Earth does Brazil need ABM for?

[Vehrec]

If Brazil has ABM, who can threaten them? Probably the US, but that's a given factor in the world today. Missile defense is also a good way to display that you are a serious nation that needs to be taken seriously in terms of your capabilities. It's only one large step removed from satellite attack for instance-and anyone with Satellite attack capabilities can create huge amounts of trouble.

[Shroom Man 777]

But it's not like they're going to play military games with anyone at all, is it? They're not really antagonistic to anyone, and no one else really bothers them or tries to strong arm them.

[Simon_Jester]

Exactly No one threatens to attack Brazil. And they would like this state of affairs to continue, by making it impractical to threaten them. Easy to understand.