The U.S Air Force is outlining strategies to enable B1B to carry more weapons including
hypersonic once.
The B-1B is a supersonic variable-sweep wing, heavy bomber used by the United States Air
Force (USAF).
It is commonly called the "Bone".
It is one of three strategic bombers in the U.S Air Force fleet as of today, the other
two being the B-2 Spirit "Stealth Bomber", and the B-52 Stratofortress.
The U.S has 100 of these.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how U.S Air Force plan to make B-1B more lethal?
Let’s get started.
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The B-1A was originally designed during the 1970s as a high-altitude, Mach 2.0-capable
nuclear bomber.
However, President Jimmy Carter canceled the program on June 30, 1977, in favor of air-launched
cruise missiles carried onboard the B-52, intercontinental ballistic missiles and what
eventually became the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
This was done after it became apparent that penetrating Soviet airspace at high altitudes
in a conventional non-stealthy aircraft was likely a suicidal endeavor.
President Ronald Reagan eventually revived the Lancer program on Oct. 2, 1981, however,
the new B-1B was optimized for low-level penetration.
Additionally, the aircraft was modified with new engine air intakes and other upgrades
to reduce its radar cross-section.
The resultant B-1B aircraft no longer possessed Mach 2 capability—topping out at roughly
Mach 1.25—but had much better survivability because of stealthier profile.
Most airplane wing designs are tradeoffs.
Wings are set for low-speed stability or high-speed performance, or some middle point.
Even with flap systems and leading-edge slats, fixed wings are compromises.
A multi-role aircraft needs more flexibility.
Having variability in the wing configuration has distinct advantages in making a single
aircraft adept at multiple missions.
The B1B is powered by 4 General Electric F101-GE-102 afterburning turbofan engines.
Each of these can generate 17,390 lbf (77.4 kN) thrust when operating normally and 30,780
lbf (136.9 kN) with afterburner.
These enable B1B to have an excellent range of 5,900 mi or 9,400 km and a service ceiling
of 60,000 ft.
The engine performance makes B-1B capable of hauling a lot of weapons.
B-1B has a massive payload of 125,000 lb (56,700 kg) internal and external ordnance combined.
It has 8 external hardpoints for 50,000 pounds (23,000 kg) of ordnance and 3 internal bomb
bays for 75,000 pounds (34,000 kg) of ordnance.
Depending on mission B1B can carry a variety of ammunitions like Mk- 84 general-purpose
bombs, CBU-87/89/CBU-97 Cluster Bomb Units, GBU-38 JDAM, AGM-158 Joint Air to Surface
Standoff Missile (JASSM) to name a few.
At this point, there are two ways being looked into to enhance the weapons carrying capacity.
1.
The B-1B was designed with 8 external hardpoints to carry large nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.
But these hardpoints were not put to much use.
Due to START treaty, B 1B lost its nuclear delivery role and the cruise missile racks
were removed completely.
In recent times, one of the hardpoints was used to mount the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod.
So, these unused external hardpoints could be used to enhance the weapons package.
2.
B-1B has 3 internal weapons bays of which the front two are connected by a common bulkhead
that can be repositioned in order to create a much larger continuous bay.
The large carriage could be used to carry bulky hypersonic cruise missiles internally.
Currently, B 52 Stratofortress is being positioned to carry hypersonic missile which it can do
externally only.
So, B-1B could be added to that role.
To explain the concept, a demonstration was held.
It was conducted at Edwards AFB with the 419th Flight Test Squadron due to its experience
with testing on the platform.
The demonstration presented a hypersonic missile mock-up attached to a Conventional Rotary
Launcher (CRL)
Viewers may note that this CRL is also used in B-52H.
The CRL is basically a weapon carrying and deployment system designed for the B-52 that
enables it to carry a variety of munitions.
It was made available to the B-52 fleet in 2017.
For this purpose, the bomber was also outfitted with a mock Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff
Missile attached to a pylon.
It was hooked to one of the original hard points on the plane.
Lt. Col. Dominic Ross, B-1B program element monitor said,
"The purpose of the demonstration was to show that we’re still able to move the bulkhead
from the forward intermediate bay to the forward location; increasing the intermediate bay
capacity from 180 inches to 269 inches.
Additionally, we demonstrated that we can still carry weapons externally on six of the
eight hard points, which increases our overall carriage capacity.”
Ross added, “It increases the magazine capacity of the
B-1B.
Currently we can carry 24 weapons internally, now it can be increased to potentially 40
based on what type of pylon we would create.
This gets the B-1 into the larger weapons, the 5,000 pounders.
It gets it into the hypersonics game as well.”
He noted that expanded capabilities will be non nuclear to keep the the aircraft compliant
with New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START.
Capt. Timothy Grace, test weapons systems officer stated that the bulkhead modification
can be accomplished, and then reverted back.
He explained, “It’s not a permanent modification, it’s something that can be done through
a few work shifts with the Maintenance (Flight).
So depending on what the targets are that we’re going after, the weapons we need to
carry, we can move that bulkhead, and do the external carriage.”
Col. Richard Barksdale, 28th Operations Group commander, from Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota
said, “It would basically increase the weapons
capacity to make the bomber more efficient, so that we’re able to strike more targets
with the same aircraft,” Barksdale said.
“It would allow us to more efficiently plan for targeting and use fewer aircraft with
fewer aircrews in harm’s way to strike the same number of targets.
It would also decrease the support required, whether that’s tankers or other support
assets.”
Barksdale stated that the added capability will be like having “more arrows in the
quiver of the B-1.”
Barksdale said, “It really shows the aircraft was originally
designed for that capability; to move that bulkhead forward and make a larger bay, it
shows the forethought of the original engineers and now, that can potentially come into fruition.
To me, just the opportunity to increase the weapons load capacity is pretty exciting.
It’s a pretty impressive capability.”
Though B1B is a relatively old platform but the versatility of the design makes it relevant
even today.
It’s enormous payload capacity and long-range gives the U.S Air Force tremendous operational
flexibility.
The U.S Air Force is now developing the first prototype of the new B-21 Raider bomber.
The B-21 Raider is envisaged to be a super stealthy bomber which will be able to penetrate
the most sophisticated air defenses for decades into the future and be able to take out high-value
enemy targets without the rival even knowing it was there in the first place.
Till the time B-21 Raider is fully operational and enough number of them gets deployed , the
current bombers will have a role to play.
It may also be that B-21 Raider will be assisted in combat by current crop of bombers.
In this situation enhancing the lethality of B1B makes complete sense and is a testimony
to the out of box thinking capability of U.S Air Force personnel.