The B-2 Is Dreaded by All America's Rivals.
For One Main Reason - it carries nuclear weapons!
The stealth bomber is deadly and troublesome to track.
The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has swept wings measure fifty-two meters across—half the
length of a football field!
Its cockpit bulges naturally from the surface like that of a
One critical aspect of the B-2's low-observability is.
The B-2's skin is already majorly made up of non-conductive carbon-graphite composite
combined with titanium.
Like the intakes, flaps, and leading edges of the wings, the most reflective areas are
sprayed with other coatings, which have been repeatedly tweaked over the years.
Furthermore, the skin is coated with an elastic, rubber-like polymer meant to 'smooth away'
seams, screws, or joints between different materials, creating a chink in its stealthy
geometry.
Altogether, these features reduce a B-2's radar cross-section to roughly .1 to .05 meters
squared.
Though most evident from the front, the B-2 is designed to remain low-observable from
all angles intended to penetrate deep into enemy airspace.
Spirits are camouflaged for daytime and night strikes with non-reflective dark-grey paint
created to blend in with the sky at any distance of twenty-three miles or greater.
The B-2 also sports unique bays intended to release a chemical to obscure contrails, but
these were never used operationally.
Alternatively, the Spirit has a LIDAR sensor to detect contrails, giving the pilot a possibility
to change altitude to eliminate them.
The Spirit is designed to fly across worldwide while carrying twenty to thirty tons of weapons—but
not to do exceptionally quickly.
Its turbofans lack afterburners, which in any case, would cause infrared and even radar
signatures to bloom.
The Spirit's greatest speed is 630 miles per hour.
So, it's a bit faster than a Jumbo Jet, while its range of five-to-seven thousand miles
is typically multiplied by two to four aerial refuelings using a pop-up hatch behind the
cockpit.
This lets B-2s fly non-stop missions lasting nearly two days from Whiteman in Missouri
to hit targets across the globe.
When B-2 approaches defended airspace, it enters stealth mode,' retracting antennas,
cutting off specific communication links, and even limiting the use of its flaps.
If dangered by long-range radars and missiles over a wide area, it may descend to a low
altitude to reduce detection range.
Its Terrain Following System allows the colossal bomber to skim as low as two hundred feet
above the ground.
For its nuclear strike mission, which is still crucial today, the B-2 can carry up to 16
B-61 or megaton-yield B-83 nuclear gravity bombs on the rotary launchers within its two
bomb bays!
A Spirit's avionics are compressed versus the electromagnetic pulses created by nuclear
blasts, and the pilots wear creepy white facemasks to shield their eyes from the flash of detonation.
The B-2 can also carry long-range AGM-154 JSOW glide bombs and AGM-158 JASSM stealth
cruise missiles to deliver standoff attacks without risking getting too close to increasingly
powerful modern air defense radars.
Most amazingly, the B-2 is uniquely configured to deploy up to two bulky thirty-thousand-pound
GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, designed to blast apart command bunkers up to sixty-one
meters underground.
This capability is meant to threaten the 'decapitation' of hostile foreign leaders and destroy subterranean
weapons facilities!
The B-2's ability to deliver such devastating weapons deep within the most well-defended
airspace makes it a premium, highly specialized war machine without equivalent—at least
unless China' develops a decent H-20 stealth bomber.
So far, B-2s have primarily leveraged their range and payload rather than stealth for
actual combat operations.
Hopefully, the Spirit's awesome firepower and low-observable characteristics will never
be tested in the kinds of high intensity and likely nuclear, great-power conflict it was
designed to fight.