New Bomber to Focus Heavily on ISR

[FARRIER]

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,207726,00.html?ESRC=dod-bz.nl

Aviation Week's DTI | David A. Fulghum | December 17, 2009

[Senior]

Use the ISR platform to take down the integrated systems then allow
more conventional bomb droppers to follow in a war, just a thought.  

[JoeTomasone]

For a second there, I really wanted to know why a new bomber would be focusing on this:

[Senior]

Joe T.  You are funny!!!!!!!!!!! LOL,

[CadetProgramGuy]

That was my first thought as well......Now I understand it is Intelligence, Surveillance, Recon

[Майор Хаткевич]

That was my first thought as well......Now I understand it is Intelligence, Surveillance, Recon

Which doesn't really make it a Bomber, eh?

[PHall]

That was my first thought as well......Now I understand it is Intelligence, Surveillance, Recon

Which doesn't really make it a Bomber, eh?

If it still has a weapons bay, then it's still a bomber.

The B-52 can or has done all of those missions, and it's still a "Bomber".

[Flying Pig]

They used the B-52 for damage assessment flights after Katrina.

[SarDragon]

And the Navy A-5, designed to drop bombs, was ultimately used exclusively for what we are now calling ISR.

[Senior]

I see this as a revision in design.  Scale back the size from a B-2, but large enough to hold enough fuel to be intercontinental. Large enough to carry smart bombs(to blow targets up, to carry loitering
smarter stay behind hunter/killer packages, and to carry weapons that take down electronic networks and electronic infrastructure).
Right now the B-2 carries the J-DAM that can target 16 independent
targets simultaneously.  I assume a weapons bay could evently carry
directed energy weapons (microwave? or lasers?) the article alludes to this type of weapon in the future.  Just a new way to still kill the
bag guy.  No one ever really wins in war.

[SarDragon]

I see this as a revision in design.  Scale back the size from a B-2, but large enough to hold enough fuel to be intercontinental. Large enough to carry smart bombs(to blow targets up, to carry loitering
smarter stay behind hunter/killer packages, and to carry weapons that take down electronic networks and electronic infrastructure).
Right now the B-2 carries the J-DAM that can target 16 independent targets simultaneously.  I assume a weapons bay could evently carry
directed energy weapons (microwave? or lasers?) the article alludes to this type of weapon in the future.  Just a new way to still kill the
bag guy.  No one ever really wins in war.

Oh, really? When did it acquire that capacity? That's pretty impressive for a modified gravity bomb. More here and here.

[PHall]

I see this as a revision in design.  Scale back the size from a B-2, but large enough to hold enough fuel to be intercontinental. Large enough to carry smart bombs(to blow targets up, to carry loitering
smarter stay behind hunter/killer packages, and to carry weapons that take down electronic networks and electronic infrastructure).
Right now the B-2 carries the J-DAM that can target 16 independent targets simultaneously.  I assume a weapons bay could evently carry
directed energy weapons (microwave? or lasers?) the article alludes to this type of weapon in the future.  Just a new way to still kill the
bag guy.  No one ever really wins in war.

Oh, really? When did it acquire that capacity? That's pretty impressive for a modified gravity bomb. More here and here.

16 bombs, 16 seperate targets, no problem.  Being precision guided weapons it's pretty much 1 bomb per target.
Unless the target is so big that a single 2000 poumb won't do the job.

[SarDragon]

But that's not how he stated it. He made it sound more like a MIRV - one munition with 16 explosive sub-units.

[Senior]

PHall thanks for interpreting my statement about the J-DAM.
One bomb per target.  A 2000lb bomb will really mess up your day.