Should the Air Force Buy 250 B-21 Stealth Bombers?

By Kris Osborn, President, Warrior

The US Air Force has in recent years expended massive amounts of energy attempting to balance its bomber fleet, prepare for the future and close a long-standing “bomber-deficit” troubling Air Combatant Commanders for years. 

Although the service’s B-2 has been successfully upgraded with somewhat unanticipated levels of success, and the B-52 is essentially an entirely new aircraft compared to its inception decades ago, the service has for years been struggling to address the size, composition and readiness challenges it has been confronted with in recent decades. 

An Air Force bomber-vector text years ago emphasized the need to sustain upgrades for the B-2 and further extent B-1B operational service to preserve the service’s bombing capability until sufficient numbers of the B-21 arrive. Several years ago, senior Air Force officials said the service could, or at least should, potentially acquire more than 150 to 250 B-21s.   The need is there, particularly given today’s global threat environment, to build and deploy a 250-or-more aircraft B-21 fleet. This possibility makes sense given the tactical and strategic range of operations the B-21 is an “will-be” capable of. It will operate with an ability to control drones, sense threat areas, process sensor data from otherwise disparate pools or sources of information and transmit as needed across a multi-domain force. The B-21 will also be capable of flying unmanned missions and operating as a stealth “attack’ platform as well as a multi-mode sensor “node” or aerial communication hub across a joint, multi-domain force. 

Many of the technological details related to the B-21 are of course not available for security reasons. yet the aircraft is reported to contain breakthrough levels of stealth technology. 

In a historic moment arguably shaping, defining or inspiring a new generation of stealth technology …. the B-21 took to the sky several years ago.. With the next-generation, first-of-its-kind US Air Force B-21 Raider becoming airborne, it was a massive development resulting from years of innovations, research, technological breakthroughs and testing. 

Could it be a new era for stealth attack? On Dec. 10, 2023 Multiple reports and photographs are emerged showed the B-21 Raider take off from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calf., en route to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. (one key report announcing the flight is here in Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

Very little is known technically about the mysterious sleek looking new bomber, as the program is still largely secret or “black,” however it is described by senior Air Force leaders and weapons developers as a paradigm-changing leap forward in the realm of stealth technology.  Years ago, earlier in the developmental trajectory of the B-21, former Military Deputy for Air Force Acquisition Ret. Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch told Warrior the B-21 will be able to hold “any target in the world at risk … anywhere … anytime.”