Bombers Away? The B-1 Could Be Near Its Demise!

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag


Nixon launched it, Carter killed it and Reagan resurrected it. In its infancy, the Air Force's B-1 bomber was a quick and dirty military metaphor — Republicans wanted to buy weapons to defend the nation from the Soviet Union, and Democrats didn't. Now it could become a different kind of symbol: the Air Force is thinking of retiring its total 66-plane B-1 fleet to hit budget targets set by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Top Air Force officials met behind closed doors late last week to determine if permanently grounding the B-1 fleet makes sense.
No decision has yet been announced, and there's always a chance the service is bluffing. After all, news of the B-1 early retirement first cropped up in a blog maintained by Air Force magazine, an independent publication whose interests still tend to be pretty much in sync with those of the Air Force itself.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2000020,00.html#ixzz0sFGCqkuK

so B-1B bombers going to retire.!!!
 

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
Pretty much a step child since its launch. Great design it is. As it is there is a discussion on relevance of a bomber in todays age for which we also have a thread on DFI. The coming of the UCAVs also probably has a role to play in this. What next? B2s? Its pretty expensive to maintain those too.
 

bhramos

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2009
Messages
25,625
Likes
37,233
Country flag
Pretty much a step child since its launch. Great design it is. As it is there is a discussion on relevance of a bomber in todays age for which we also have a thread on DFI. The coming of the UCAVs also probably has a role to play in this. What next? B2s? Its pretty expensive to maintain those too.
i think every advanced Fighters or Bombers are expensive to maintain, this even happened in cutting of F-22 numbers.
may be Russian Fighters and bombers are cheap to buy and maintain compared to west.!!! so still RuAF depends more on Tu-95 then Tu-160.
 

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
The cost factor has increased due to the American perseverance with stealth which is anyway becoming a standard feature in all aircrafts of the future. Problem is that America is now finding increasingly difficult to fund and will look to strike a balance. Before they took the liberty to have all kinds of weapons system. Now they will look at using multi role aircrafts i guess.
 

BunBunCake

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 10, 2010
Messages
405
Likes
75
Pretty much a step child since its launch. Great design it is. As it is there is a discussion on relevance of a bomber in todays age for which we also have a thread on DFI. The coming of the UCAVs also probably has a role to play in this. What next? B2s? Its pretty expensive to maintain those too.
Yusuf, there's no way they're going to retire the B-2's. Those are some killer babies.
They're going to upgrade them, and also the B-52's (which are MUCH MUCH cheaper)

Now new bombers for the USAF till 2025, (the 6gen bomber program)
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top