By Kris Osborn, Warrior
(Washington DC) Lasers, hypersonics, drone attacks, massive ordnance carriage and long-range, nuclear-capable cruise missiles are a just a few of the emerging elements being woven into a new generation B-52 bomber, a modern variant of the classic, Vietnam-era weapon now surging beyond 50-years of continued service.
Weapons upgrades to the B-52 have been underway for many years, and breakthrough progress has been made within just the last 10-years. One of the largest and potentially most-impactful upgrades involves a large re-configuration of the aircraft’s weapons carrying capability called the 1760 Internal Weapons Bay Upgrade (IBWU). The new weapons bay is a centerpiece of the emerging B-52J variant of the aircraft, which will surge that aircraft into the 2030s and beyond. The IBWU will enable the aircraft to carry up to eight of the newest “J-series” bombs in addition to carrying six on pylons under each wing. IWBU uses a digital interface and a rotary launcher to increase the weapons payload, service officials told Warrior Maven years ago.
“The B-52 1760 Internal Weapons Bay Upgrade provides internal J-series (smart) weapons capability through modification of Common Strategic Rotary Launchers and upgrade of aircraft software,” an Air Force spokeswoman told Warrior Maven as far back as 2018.
66-Percent Increase
The B-52 has previously been able to carry JDAM weapons externally, but with the IWBU the aircraft will be able to internally house some of the most cutting-edge precision-guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, among others. Overall, the IWBU effort will bring a 66-percent increase in carriage capability for the B-52. The IWBU also affords an opportunity to increase fuel-efficiency by removing bombs from beneath the wings and reducing drag.
The first increment of IWBU integrates an internal weapons bay ability to fire a laser-guided JDAM. A second increment integrates more modern or cutting-edge weapons such as the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, or JASSM, JASSM Extended Range (ER) and a technology called Miniature Air Launched Decoy, or MALD. A MALD-J “jammer” variant, which will also be integrated into the B-52, can be used to jam enemy radar technologies as well. In recent years, engineers have been equipping all of the Air Force B-52s with digital data-links, moving-map displays, next-generation avionics, new radios and an ability to both carry more weapons internally and integrate new, high-tech weapons as they emerge.
For example, In 2021, the Air Force shot the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon, a hypersonic weapon which received targeting data from sensors 1,000 miles away.
The B-52 has been a nuclear-capable aircraft since the beginning of the nuclear age, yet more recent innovations will greatly improve its nuclear capacity. The aircraft will travel with the now-in-development Long-Range Stand-Off weapon, a nuclear-capable, dual-use cruise missile in development for the future. There will also be an upgraded variant of the well-known B-61 nuclear bomb integrated into the aircraft called the B-61 Mod 12; this variant essentially consolidates multiple existing variants of the bomb into a single weapon capable of area blasts, penetrating attack and varying yield capacity.
Given all this, the question then becomes … is there a limit to how much the B-52 can be upgraded? Is there a point at which the massively upgraded bomber will ultimately become obsolete? Provided the airframes remain viable or able to be reinforced, the answer to this may simply be a “very long time.” Today’s B-52 is entirely different from the 1960s platform which primarily dropped unguided or “dumb” bombs across wide swaths of territory and even “carpet bombed” certain critical areas.
“Mother Ship” B-52
Today’s B-52 will fire nuclear weapons, long-range cruise missiles, precision-guided bombs and function as an air-mobile “bomb truck” arsenal plane of sorts. The largest and potentially most impactful innovation of great consequence to the B-52 may be its growing ability to focus as a drone-launching “mother ship,” meaning a platform able to launch and recover drones from the air. This enables multi-node forward reconnaissance operations as well as an ability to test enemy air defenses, blanket areas with ISR, paint or find targets for other aircraft and even deliver weapons when directed by a human.
Non-Stealthy B-52
As for a B-52’s limitations, one might simply consider its potential vulnerability. As a large, visible “non-stealthy” aircraft easily found by enemy weapons systems, the B-52 is certainly not well positioned to thrive in what Air Force leaders describe as a “contested” environment, as it might easily fall prey to enemy air defenses or other enemy weapons. This is why the ability to launch drones, engage in long-range multi-node mesh networking and deliver massive amounts of ordnance once cleared above a hostile area become so critical to the longevity and continued relevance of the B-52.
Should a B-52 be able to launch and operate small numbers of drones from safe stand-off distances, deliver long-range precision weaponry from beyond range of enemy attack or deliver massive amounts of lethal, devastating bomb attacks over an area once air supremacy is established ….. The B-52 may well fly for decades more into the future.
B-52 Surges Into Future Decades
Famous for carpet bombing densely concentrated groups of Viet Cong during the Vietnam War, the classic US Air Force B-52 has surged into the 21st century as a massively sustained, upgraded and enhanced air combat platform poised to serve several more decades into the future.
Today’s B-52 is quite different from the B-52 of the Vietnam era, a large bomb truck blanketing enemy areas with large, unguided bombs to enable ground forces to maneuver and destroy enemy positions. One might think that such a large, non-stealthy platform such as the B-52 might be ill equipped for modern, great power warfare in a highly contested environment, yet weapons developers have gathered and incorporated a wide range of lessons learned from years of combat and integrated new generations of technology into the classic bomber. Today’s B-52 will not only have an entirely new, more survivable and fuel efficient engine but also be equipped with a new internal weapons bay, massively expanded weapons arsenal and long-range precision-guided cruise missiles.
A lesser known yet critical aspect of combat aircraft modernization is that, with some maintenance and structural support, air frames themselves can remain viable for years beyond their anticipated service-life. This is definitely the case with the B-52, as today’s B-52 operates with an entirely new sphere of technologies and air combat capability compared with the Vietnam-era fighter.
Lessons from Vietnam
The current B-52 technological composition and the concepts of operation with which it flies were likely heavily informed by what Air Force weapons developers learned from its combat experiences in Vietnam. For instance, large B-52s were shown to be quite vulnerable to North Vietnamese Air Defenses. During the War, 18 B-52s were lost in combat and 12 due to other circumstances, mostly over Vietnam. North Vietnamese forces effectively used SA-2 surface-to-air-missiles to destroy B-52s, something which makes sense given the altitudes the aircraft flew at and the kinds of bombs it attacked with.
An interesting essay written by the National Museum of the United States Air Force describes some of the tactical challenges B-52s encountered during the Vietnam War. One challenge, quite simply, was that during some operations like the famous Linebacker II, the bombers flew predictable routes which were seen and tracked by the North Vietnamese.
“The bombers flew the same routes every night and gave away the element of surprise.Already knowing the B-52s’ route, North Vietnamese fighters reported the bombers’ altitude to the SAM crews, who simply launched unguided SAMs to where they predicted the bombers would be,” the essay says.
B-52 & JDAMs
There may indeed be a connection between the vulnerability of lower-flying B-52s and the successful arrival of precision-guided, air dropped, high altitude bombs such as Joint Direct Attack Munitions during the Gulf War era. Clearly flying at higher altitudes, if supported by longer range sensors and weapons, can achieve a tactical impact while enabling crews to operate at safer stand-off distances. It would make sense that, following Vietnam, Pentagon weapons developers prioritized precision and range in their explorations of next-generation air attack weapons. Sure enough, the Pentagon debuted several precision-guided air bombs during the Gulf War in 1991.
It would make sense if the communications networking technology now arming the B-52 emerged from Vietnam-era combat lessons as well, as commanders learned the value of knowing enemy locations, sharing targeting detail and expediting connectivity between air and ground forces. With a new digital communications system called Combat Network Communications Technology (CONECT), B-52 crews can receive mission and targeting updates while in-flight, enabling them to adjust to new combat information.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University
