
Warplanes: B-52 Stays, B-1B Retires - protomyth
https://strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/articles/20190209.aspx
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dsfyu404ed
Not surprising at all. Fighters can be shoehorned into doing the B1s job
pretty well (before the B1 that's what we did anyway) but that still leaves a
need for "just stay up there and we'll call you if we need you" roll which the
B52 fills at a lower cost. Basically, if you just dropped one aircraft from
the fleet without replacement dropping the B52 would be more painful and save
less money so the B1 is the obvious choice.

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tropo
The B1 is the obvious choice, except that the upcoming B21 is supposedly a
stealth bomber meant to address some limitations of the B2. The fact that the
B1 is instead getting retired looks like a hint that the B21 will not in fact
be what it was claimed to be.

Meanwhile, the B52 is suffering metal fatigue. Replacement would be easy if
not for the fact that all of Boeing's large jets now have low-mounted wings
(major structure where bomb bay doors would need to go) and steeply sloped
rears.

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perilunar
> all of Boeing's large jets now have low-mounted wings (major structure where
> bomb bay doors would need to go)

Couldn't they just have separate fore and aft bomb bays?

> and steeply sloped rears.

Why is that an issue?

Alternatively, why not adapt the C-17?

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tropo
I'm assuming you don't want to waste the conical rear section. If you waste
it, then to keep the aircraft balanced you must also waste a section at the
front.

The steeply sloped rear seems to be trouble for adding a bomb bay there. You'd
want to fit a rotary dispenser, but it would need to be a conical section
designed for a specific location in the aircraft.

Sometimes we drop really long bombs to penetrate deep bunkers. These bombs
need really long doors.

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salawat
Now if they'd just approve the engine upgrade...

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exabrial
Always amazed they operated those things out of Kansas of all places given the
fickle Weather they'd operate in.

