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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

At this point in history, what's the point of having a super expensive bomber plane with an actual human pilot vs. having a much cheaper, autonomous, hyper-sonic, and disposable delivery vehicle in the form of a rocket? Flying from A to B with cm. precision is pretty much a solved problem. Doesn't require a human flying a thing.

Why would you fly such a thing in any situation where you might have to risk losing the plane + pilot?

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Hypersonic missiles are not cheap. The LRHW that US is putting on land and ships costs $50 million per unit. Its payload is probably a single bomb worth. Its range is 1700 mi. The B-21 costs $500 million. It can carry the same amount of ordinance in one mission as the same cost in hypersonics.

The B-21 can carry multiple, cheaper cruise missiles. It can drop the air-breathing hypersonic cruise missiles whenever those are developed. It can loiter over the battlefield dropping bombs as needed. It can come back and do it the next day. It can fly halfway around the world.

> what's the point of having a super expensive bomber plane with an actual human pilot vs. having a much cheaper, autonomous, hyper-sonic, and disposable delivery vehicle

Russian hypersonic missiles are being shot down by old Patriots [1]. Meanwhile, our commercial autonomous systems—arguably ahead of our military’s—still lag humans.

If we want to bomb someone, land-based missiles are the way to go. They overwhelm defences. And they’ll be just as loud as a hypersonic missile.

Bombers, on the other hand, can fly stealthily. They can also loiter, similar to a carrier strike group, sending a message without provoking MAD.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-stopped-russian-crui...

> Russian hypersonic missiles are being shot down by old Patriots [1].

The "hypersonic missiles" being shot down by Patriots are the kind of ballistic missiles the Patriot was designed to shoot down, they've gotten lumped in as new "hypersonic missiles" (which is technically true of many ballistic missiles) alongside Russia's new hypersonic cruise missile (Zircon) that they were announced alongside as a propaganda technique to magnify the perceived degree of threat, but they aren't the same thing at all.

Kalibr and Kinzhal. Designed and manufactured after the Patriots that shot them down were put into long-term storage. (I don’t think S-400s, either which Moscow sells for half a billion dollars to apparently chumps, were meant to be taken out by decades-old Patriots. )

For reasons ranging from corruption to skills degradation, Russia simply isn’t technologically capable of producing advanced weapons anymore. (They are capable of making the marketing.)

Those were Kalibrs that were supposedly shot down. Only certain variants are hypersonic in the final approach, and that doesn’t mention the variant at all.

Look at how Russia uses their old heavy bombers for an idea: they use them to carry missiles that can be released outside of air defense range. The larger plane reduces the fuel required by the missile (meaning more explosives) and allows the missiles to be positioned and fired faster than a truck or ship can get into position. The idea of flying over the target is kind of old - modern glide bombs (again, use the aircraft's energy instead of reducing payload) have a 20-50km range and are more accurate.

The super expensive stealth bomber lets you move into a very unexpected position and release missiles/glide bombs in a way that may not allow for any air defense work at all.

There's operational/capability benefits that can be rationalized, but in terms of aquisitions it's probably cheaper and politically easier for USAF MIC to build billion dollar bombers, sustained by billion dollar basing and aerial tanking to drop million dollar smart bombs. There's inertia in terms of integration into existing systems and interservice history (drama) with each branch fighting for dollars and relevance over their piece of future long range strike mission. Don't discount the politics - the airforce is not going to NOT have expensive planes supported by expensive tanking fleet. The navy is not going to NOT have expensive carrier groups supported by expensive replenishment. The marines fine with pivotting to maritime strike missions, but they're a small. Army is bigger, have little role in IndoPac (really what B21's about - China), Airforce and Navy going to lobby against Army stepping on their turf.

PRC side stepped that by elevating rocket force (previously artillery corp) as it's own branch, PLA writing on long range strikes is more or less prompt global strike with ICBMs. They also don't really have a another choice since it would take decades to build up alternate power projection methods (carriers, bombers). They're still developing those options but in theory their near term equalizer is to spam 10,000 or even 100,000s of icbms to take out expensive reusable US platforms and other critical targets. And with PRC value engineering, at significantly less cost.

> Army is bigger, have little role in IndoPac (really what B21's about - China), Airforce and Navy going to lobby against Army stepping on their turf

The Army has our silo-launched missiles fleet. (EDIT: Never mind!)

ICBM silo force (as in triad) is under Air Force. Army and airforce competed for control over ICBM in the 60s, and airforce ended up getting ICBMs, army engineers built the silos. As far as I know, army doesn't have long range strike options. Army was hampered until recently from even expanding to medium range theater options due to INF. Army's Space Missile Defense Command did test advanced hypersonic weapon AHW a decade ago. Airforce response was, too expensive per unit, too destablizing, basically piss off army, long range strike is our turf.

>As far as I know, army doesn't have long range strike options.

Army bought Tomahawk, thus putting it in line with the other services. <https://breakingdefense.com/2020/11/army-picks-tomahawk-sm-6...>

I read discussion recently that Air Force ICBMs should be transferred to Space Force. Which makes a lot of sense and would spread out the nuclear triad.

The Army is getting medium-range strike. They now have land-based Tomahawk missiles. They are also getting the LRHW hypersonic missiles with 1700 mi range.

> but in theory their near term equalizer is to spam 10,000 or even 100,000s of icbms

Counting ones under construction (which are the vast majority), China is estimated to have a little under 500 ICBM launchers and probably not significantly more ICBMs than operational launchers. There's zero chance for them to "spam 10,000 or even 100,000s of ICBMs".

The economics, range, and flexibility of a nominal bomb carrier are vastly better than disposable and especially hypersonic delivery platforms. You also have to understand US military doctrine. Platforms like the B-21 are designed to deliver autonomous swarms of stealthy, networked, long-range weapons that can cooperate with each other and adapt to their environment. In this sense, the B-21 is as much a control plane and orchestrator as it is a delivery system.

For offensive systems, the US prefers slower, stealthier missiles rather than hypersonic missiles. While hypersonic missiles arrive on target faster, they have serious deficiencies in terms of precision, terminal guidance, range, and payload size. Consequently, the US has had hypersonic missiles for several decades but relegated them almost exclusively to defensive systems where those limitations matter much less because the target is coming to you. This is an option somewhat unique to the US due to their qualitative advantages in stealth and electronic systems, which they lean into heavily.

The US 6th generation platforms, like the B-21, are all designed to support unmanned operation, the pilot is optional. In a near peer conflict, communication channels may be severely degraded such that having a person in the seat will have value.

having a pilot makes it somewhat protected against electronic warfare

you dont want russia/iran to just steal your latest tech bomber, do you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid...

also rockets will never replace planes, these totally different platforms with different purposes

Precision is solved, but many of the solutions can be jammed.

What can't be jammed (easily) is laser guidance. The B-21 can fly over a target and a crewmember can point a laser at a target and the bomb will ride the beam down.

Remote laser guidance is difficult due to latency.

The B-21 was designed to operate both manned and unmanned.

Is it possible to provide laser guidance from satellite?

It may be possible from low earth orbit but time overhead is, at maximum, 20 minutes. Add in obstructions like terrain and non-ideal look angles and you may be only able to paint a target for several minutes if at all. This would require extraordinary precision and coordination to achieve.

I am comfortable saying that it is realistically impossible from higher orbits.

> At this point in history, what's the point of having a super expensive bomber plane with an actual human pilot vs. having a much cheaper, autonomous, hyper-sonic, and disposable delivery vehicle in the form of a rocket?

Putting munitions on single use hypersonic rockets is a lot more expensive than loading a bunch of them up on a reusable bomber.

Which is one point of bombers: they are logistically superior in an environment in which they are survivable to missiles for the quantity of munitions delivered. That's also why you have both stealth bombers like the B-21/B-2 and then less stealthy, heavier bombers like the B-52 for different environments.

You’re not factoring in the cost of pilots.

Pilots are, like other parts of the bomber, reusable in the conditions in which the plane is survivable, and the operational cost of pilots is fairly low.

Capex is high though, assuming they are even replaceable.

A 2019 RAND study put the cost of bomber pilots on the order of $10 million, which isn't cheap, but when the bomber itself is $2+ billion, doesn't really move the needle on the whole system.

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/...

A bomb truck is a cost-effective way to get cruise missiles and such in range from safer out-of-theater air bases. Making it survivable in a contested environment (stealth) opens up lots more mission profiles and lets you use even cheaper munitions like glide bombs and guided bombs, which is especially helpful in a protracted conflict. Plus it requires less escort.

A bomber isn't cheap, but it is cheaper than lots of ICBMs. And, in many cases, than multi-role fighters and/or cruise missiles.

A rocket can't stay on-station for hours at a time waiting for the right moment to deliver the payload. With mid-air refueling, this beast can hover near but out of reach, to produce a threat that may never strike. A nice piece to have when 'negotiating' with a near-peer antagonist.

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