U.S. MANNED BOMBER FLEET IN JEOPARDY

"KEEP OUR BOMBERS"

Sometime last year, before September 11th, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, (OSD), made a decision to cut 32 B-1 bombers from our arsenal from the 92 we presently have to 60 and mothball the rest at the graveyard for our military aircraft, Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona. Ten of the planes would be put in INVIOLATE storage and could be pulled back out of storage but would have to be upgraded later at considerable expense. The OSD chose this plan from the options the Air Force offered as a way to pay for the cost of the B-1 upgrades that are presently being done. It could be assumed the Air Force was not expecting them to take this option.

OF 180 COMBAT-READY BOMBERS, 32 B-1s AND 18 B-52s WOULD BE CUT

We presently only have 207 long range bombers B-52�s, B-1�s and B-2�s in our entire national arsenal of which only 180 are combat ready.

The OSD is also planning to cut 18 B-52�s. This would mean a total cut of almost 25% of our long range bombers - with the increasing threat of Iran, Iraq and North Korea - all of which have much stronger surface to air missile threat than did Afghanistan.

NO MORE BOMBERS WILL BE BUILT UNTIL 2037

There are 94 B-52�s in service built in the 1960�s with 1950�s technology. There isn�t another long range bomber scheduled to be built until 2037 when all of our current bomber air frames structurally will begin to wear out, which means we could be trying to fight a war in the 2030�s with bombers equivalent to Model T�s. The B-1 bombers were fought for by President Reagan and pushed through in the 1980�s ahead of normal lead times for development and testing causing early deficiencies that would have been caught in a normal production cycle causing them initially to have a poor reputation. In addition, they have been disparaged to some degree by the Air Force because they wanted more B-2�s of which only 21 were built in the 1990�s. The truth is that the B-1�s are a great airplane, supersonic and can carry the most payload of any of our bombers. They are reliable and the bugs have been worked out

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So?

I don't think that this is too much of a problem. The bomber part of the triad has been on its return anyways since the introduction of the Minutemans and the SLBMs. The F-16s, F-18s and other aircraft are perfectly capable to do bombing as well. F-16s can even carry more payload then a Lancaster(!). The time of big bad bombers like the BUFF is over. With cruise missiles and unmanned planes, I think we are a whole lot better off. Big bombers are only good for a few things, I think 150 should be enough...

[Edited on 12-2-2003 by Devils Advocate]

I don't agree.

Heavy bombers are necessary for many purposes.

Carpet bombing is just a good exemple. For the nuclear forces, it's a good choice. Heavy bombers have a long range, can fly a long time and you can call them back until they don't reach their point of no return. An ICBM or an SLBM, when it is launched, you can't call it back !