Gee. I didn’t know the Cold War was so misunderstood. I reckon it could be called “bad behavior” in todays parlance. How could we be so stupid. Snicker w/sarcasm.

re Stealth in general- If you give the B-2 or anything else the radar signature of, let’s say a hummingbird, folks will invent a radar/sensor to detect humminbirds. It’s just a math problem. See?

re- “That’s the gist of JV2020 anyway.”

Yeah. Hang your hat on that 100% and you’ll lose. Plus, you sound Naval Avaition centric…I hope we have the tankers to execute what you see on those multi-million dollar glossies of the “Enterprise”. Do you see any big wet wings on our “plans” Ensign? Didn’t think so….Another: Snicker w/sarcasm.

re “..And speaking of bigger payloads, I don’t see as much of a need for them”

Is that what they preach? Or is that just the nature of today’s enemy- beard and Kalishnikov? Sometimes you can’t fix a mech problem with 3/8 sockets and you have to go larger..Don’t scare me with such talk and make me think I might be better off living in Montana.

re- “…burning toxic plastic and composites”

Advice- Avoid the Rhino in that same scenario. Or anything “new”.

b2

Yes, countries with viable air defenses may be few and far between, but they exist. And THAT technology is relatively cheap, meaning it’s proliferation is virtually assured. When that happens, we’ll need stealth.

And let’s not forget the importance of surprise. Getting fighter bombers inside the defenses to hit high value targets and soften those defenses on the first day of battle is essential to minimizing losses later on.

That’s the gist of JV2020 anyway. JSF is the goto guy for 1st and 2nd day of battle, then the better-armed Rhinos can boom in and deliver bigger payloads.

And speaking of bigger payloads, I don’t see as much of a need for them. Carpet bombing is a dying art, what with JDAM and LGBs. We’re in the “targets per sortie” world, not the “sorties per target” days anymore.

Even if all that doesn’t work, it’s still nice to be “invisible” when you’re trying to do things your enemy might not like.

Any new bomber we decide to build will look nothing like anything that’s really been flown before. Of that much I’m confident.

[Edit: Stealth is nice to have. On the other hand , stealth is not the only performance-based driver in the decisions made for aircraft design, nor should it be.]

As I understand it, the B-2′s really good at flying in undetected and delivering a relatively (for a bomber) small payload. So that’s great if it’s the Cold War, and you want a nuclear first strike option.

But are we at all likely to be fighting a war against air defenses we can’t suppress? And given the rate at which countermeasures to stealth are appearing, how much longer can we count on stealth to make it “safe” for bombers to fly into heavily defended airspace?