by Kris Osborn, Warrior
Years ago, the Air Force published a “bomber vector” report which sought to articulate a strategy for how the service would navigate its continued bomber shortage moving years into the future. The plan included a delicate balance between efforts to add new bombers such as the B-21 and refurbish, upgrade and maintain promising existing platforms. This balance, driven by necessity more than anything else, led the Air Force to increase efforts to modernize its legacy fleet. Sure enough, the B-52 is an almost entirely different plane than it was at its inception decades ago, and the Air Force continued to resurrect older B1-B frames and modernize them.
The exact number of B-21 bombers may be somewhat in flux, and the Air Force is prioritizing and fast-tracking its production. As the new Raider fleet approaches its desired numbers, the Air Force is looking at legacy platform sustainment and modernization to help bridge the gap. The B1-B is an extremely significant part of this effort, because while it may seem obsolete in some respects when considering attacking great power nations with advanced air defenses, it still seems to occupy a critical place within the Air Force’s current force design.
B1-B Workhorse Bomber
The Air Force’s B1-B may capture fewer headlines than a sleek-looking, stealthy B-2 or well-known F-35, yet the decades-old bomber has performed a massive volume of missions in recent years.
The B-1, which had its combat debut in Operation Desert Fox in 1998, went to drop thousands of JDAMs during the multi-year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The B-1 can hit speeds of MACH 1.25 at 40,000 feet and operates at a ceiling of 60,000 feet. It fires a wide range of bombs, including several JDAMs: GBU-31, GBU-38, and GBU-54. It also fires the small diameter bomb-GBU-39.
Therefore, despite its age, the B1-B has surged into current service as part of a key Air Force strategy to retain a viable and effective bomber fleet until larger numbers of the new B-21 arrive in the fleet.
B1-B Technical Overhaul
This is why the Air Force has been pursuing a massive technical overhaul of the B1-B, giving the aircraft an expanded weapons ability along with new avionics, communications technology, and engines.
The engines have been refurbished in recent years to retain their original performance specs, and the B-1 has also been getting new targeting and intelligence systems. A new Integrated Battle Station includes new aircrew displays and communication links for in-flight data sharing.Another upgrade called The Fully Integrated Targeting Pod connects the targeting pod control and video feed into B-1 cockpit displays.
The B-1 will also be able to increase its carriage capacity of 500-pound class weapons by 60 percent due to Bomb Rack Unit upgrades In recent years, the Air Force has also reconfigured the B-1B weapons bay to carry more weapons, increasing the B-1B’s magazine capacity from 24 weapons internally, all the way up to 40.
Hypersonic B1-B
The adjustments to the bomb bay also enable the B-1B to carry hypersonic weapons, something which greatly increases the aircraft’s lethality. The B1-B bomb bay was re-engineered several years ago and expanded to accommodate the addition of hypersonic weapons, something which adds great relevance to the aircraft. A B1-B armed with hypersonic weapons can bring additional relevance to a high-end fight by holding enemy targets at risk from greater stand-off ranges beyond the reach of air defenses.
Accommodating larger hypersonic weapons into a B-1 bomb bay a number of strategic implications; not only does it massively increase the target envelope and range but also allows for longer mission “dwell” time over targets to sustain attacks.
The timing of upgrading the B1-B weapons bay was significant as well, given that it served two key Air Force aims – accelerate hypersonic weapons to war and sustain and upgrade the B-1 to its maximum extent.Integrating large hyperonics also works with the Air Force’s broader intent to quickly merge innovations from the science and technology realm into operational use.
An Air Force Science and Technology strategy released several years ago, emphasizes greater synergy between scientifically-oriented weapons breakthroughs and “bending” metal on prototypes and systems in preparation for operational combat use.
Kris Osborn 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