The US Air Force has been planning to retire its 40-year-old B-1B,
these will eventually be replaced by B-21 stealth bombers.
But before the B-1B are sent to the scrapyard, they are being prepared for a new role.
As reported by Forbes, B-1Bs and their crews are being trained and armed to take
on Russian warships, specifically the ones sailing in the Black Sea.
It was reported that these bombers have been actively used in drills in this region lately.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how the US plans to kill the Russian
Black Sea Fleet? Let's get started.
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While the Black Sea was a dangerous place for NATO for a long time,
since the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine’s the Crimean Peninsula - things have become alarming.
The Russian Black Sea fleet was already a formidable force.
It contains warships, submarines, missile boats, Anti Submarine vessels, Minesweepers.
The Black Sea Fleet has its official primary headquarters and facilities
at Sevastopol Naval Base in the city of Sevastopol.
The remainder of the fleet's facilities is based in various locations
on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, including Krasnodar Krai, Rostov Oblast and Crimea.
The availability of Crimea has allowed Russia to deploy long-range, land-based anti-air and
anti-ship systems, such as S-400 Triumph Surface to Air Missile and Bastion-P
coastal defense cruise missile system. Crimea is now a Russian stronghold on
NATO’s southeastern flank and is one of the most well-defended positions.
The area is now peppered with air defense systems
and anti-ship systems that cover almost the whole of the Black Sea.
It can be said that if a conflict takes place,
the Russian Black Sea fleet poses a serious challenge to NATO.
As per reports, four B-1Bs from the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base in Texas
were shifted to the Royal Air Force base at Fairford in early October.
On Oct. 19, two of the bombers took off for a 12-hour mission.
The bombers code-named Dark 01 and Dark 02 flew east over the North Sea,
got refueled through a USAF KC-135 from RAF Mildenhall, and moved to the Black Sea.
The bombers were escorted by the Polish and Romanian air force as well as a
Canadian air force contingent in Romania. The bombers equipped with targeting pods
under their bellies rehearsed firing deadly LRASM or Long Range Anti Ship Missile.
B-1B is a supersonic variable-sweep wing, heavy bomber used by the United States Air Force.
The B-1B is a bomber with the capability to fly at a supersonic speed
topping out at roughly Mach 1.25.
The B-1B has 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.
In the early 1980s, 100 B-1s entered service and were meant for the nuclear-strike role.
The USAF removed it from the nuclear role in the 1990s.
The fleet also shrank and currently, around 45 are present.
The focus for B-1B is now maritime missions.
AGM-158C LRASM is essentially an anti-ship variant of AGM-158
JASSM thats Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile.
The stealth missile is designed to strike ships as far away as 300 miles or 480 km
though the exact range could be more. The missile is subsonic and but since it is LO
(Low Observable), the enemy warship will not see it coming till it is very close.
It is powered by an F107 turbofan engine and has a 1,000 lb (450 kg) blast-fragmentation penetrator.
The warhead is potent enough to cripple a large warship.
LRASM costs around $3 million apiece which makes it twice as costly as Harpoon missiles.
The missile deploys multiple sensors & techniques to hone in on the targets.
For the initial phase of the journey, it has an inertial and jam-resistant GPS navigation system.
For mid-course guidance, a two-way data link is present,
which allows the launching aircraft to send course corrections data.
In the terminal phase, it has a Radio-frequency sensor is activated along with an Infra-Red sensor
In this phase, the missile skims close to the surface which makes it hard to intercept.
It is important to note that LRASMs can be deployed in swarm mode which will enable
them to saturate enemy defenses. LRASM also employs electronic
counter-countermeasures (ECCM) to overcome the enemy’s countermeasures.
In 2017, B-1B became the first type the USAF modified to carry the Long-Range Anti-Ship missile
Lt. Col. Timothy Albrecht, a bomber planner with the 603rd Air Operations Center in Germany,
said last year during an earlier B-1B deployment to Europe,
"LRASM plays a critical role in ensuring U.S. naval access,”
A single B-1B can haul 24 LRASMs. While Russian assets are well
equipped with strong air defense systems, a saturation attack by multiple B-1Bs from
different directions firing a barrage of LRASM will be almost impossible to defend against.
A pair or two of B-1s could potentially kill Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.