The US Needs to Rebuild/Repioritze it's Aircraft Fleet

The US dose have some wonderful technology,I'm not saying it doesn't! But, we're loosing our edge quickly becuase our leaders have neglected to fund some things adequatly. Some of the stuff in development will be a big help when it's ready and I will credit it here.

Bombers: Bombers were and still are the backbome of air warfare. Sure there are Different types and sizes, but the BOTTOM line is this: if you want to get an opponents attention, Drop a couple tons of explosives on his head at the right time and place and he WILL listen to you. "Fighters are cool, but Bombers are Important" ~ Unknown USAF Officer.
To stay effective the US needs bombers, just as badly as we need fighters. They could do a lot by building more B-2's and developing the B-X/B-3 concept. It doesn't even need to be a stealth, We just Need a new long range strtegic bomber of some kind because our current bombers are getting old and attrition is taking it's toll on the fleet. Our ability to mobalize quickly and strike anywhere in the world is still the conerstone of our Deterance and Power Projection abilities.

Fighters: Fighters are just as improtant in many ways as bombers. Fighters serve a dual purpose, they are both offensive and defensive. The F/A-22 and F-35 are going to get more important as time goes on.


Support Aircraft: These are things like the E-3 AWACS, KC-10, C-130, ECT. they aren't glamorous and they never be crowd magnets, but they are critical to the force multiplyer concept (If you don't believe me, See if you can fly an F-16 to the UK or the middle east without a KC-10! (You'll run out of gas over the ocean!)) these are the planes you don't pay attention to untill you need them.

Bottom line, The USA Needs to upgrade it's Aircraft Fleet.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

I'm retired Air Force and agree with you totally. The problem is not our capability to do this but the lack of resolve. We, the people of the United States of America pay taxes and vote in politicians to oversee were this tax revenue is spent. Your taxes provide the funding for the defence budject.
Our nation has to spend tax revenue to fund other national programs, not just national defence. This is the real reason why we have not modernized our military aresnal.
Look how long it took to upgrade the bomber and tanker fleets. Also once modernaziation starts to take place how many of the origional quanities of new aircraft ordered are actually delivered? The Pentagon orders 100 B-1 bombers and the quanity drops down to 50. This is caused by a lack of funding.

they are getting the raptor and jsf thats good also they are upgrading their tankers and transport planes there is a thread on here about that also the us bombers for now are ok and how do you know they dont already have something better lurking in the shadows

I completely agree - the F-15 is rapidly becoming a 2nd rate aircraft as new Russian planes are sold around the globe. Even more concerning is that to upgrade the Eagles it costs 90% of what it would take to simply replace it with a Raptor.

The B-1 fleet is old, the B-52 is slated to be in service for another 25 years I believe. I would really like to see a B-3 with at least Mach 2+ cruise along with high altitude bombing capabilities. Maybe some stealth tech as well - and it should cost less then a B-2.

The B-52 started its' career has a dedicated bomber and eventually wound up as ALCM platform. The reason this happened is that it lost its' capability to penetrate air defence corridors. Our military planners wanted to scrap the entire B-52 fleet and replace them with the B-1 but due to lack of funding they were unable to purchase the necessary quanities of B-1s to accomplish this. The B-52 is still flying in a modified format to fill this gap.
Yes, more advanced military aircraft are being developed and deployed operationally but never in sufficient quanities. You most remember an air war is a game of attrition. This is the reason why stealth technology is so important. Once you control the sky you have ground superiority.

i know. and can you make the B-52 so that you can control is like a UCAV with remote control then you fill it up with bombs and just fly the airplane in the enemy that is one big flying bomb

You came very close to what the intentions of our military planners are considering. The B-52 may just become a launching platform for the UCAVs.
It will also have the capability to refuel the drones while in-fllight.
You may consider this speculation on my part, maybe so but what better platform to conceive this concept from?

i know tte B-52 sure has space to lauch ucavs and it could also hold a lot of fuel to ucavs