These beliefs, observations, and expectations for the B-21 have continued to emerge from senior Air Force leaders in recent years, many of whom have explained some cutting-edge, critical technologies, capabilities, and performance parameters the new B-21 will introduce.
Air Force leaders have made it clear that the B-21 will be capable of flying unmanned missions and controlling small groups of “wingman” support drones from the cockpit to fortify mission effectiveness and operational possibility.
When it comes to stealth, details are understandably not available. However, the bomber is explained as being built with breakthrough levels of stealth capability. This is extremely significant, as air defenses have continued to become more and more sophisticated and, some say, capable of tracking and attacking some stealth platforms.
The Russian media, for example, has claimed its S-500 air defense system is capable of this. However, that seems likely something quite difficult to verify as there is a huge difference between “detecting” that something is “there” with lower-frequency surveillance radar and actually “destroying” a moving target with higher-frequency “engagement” radar.
The B-21 is being built to evade both surveillance radar and engagement radar in order to fly over, target, and attack well-defended targets with precision bombs from high altitudes …. without an enemy ever knowing it is there. That is the premise of broadband stealth.
Some of the B-21 mission scope was referenced in a general way by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last December at the formal unveiling of the first B-21.
“You know, the B-21 looks imposing. But what’s under the frame and the space-age coatings is even more impressive,” Austin told an audience.
How is that achieved? Generally speaking, some of the areas of technological exploration pertain to the use of special radar-absorbing coating materials, thermal or “heat” signature management, internally buried engines, and a smooth, horizontal, bat-like exterior designed to generate little or no return signal to enemy radar.
Without vertically protruding structures and sharp edges, electromagnetic “pings” traveling at the speed of light cannot “bounce” off and generate a return rendering or shape of the plane. It has been said that the B-21 may look like a small bird to enemy radar, as electromagnetic pings cannot “bounce” off in a way that enables a return image showing the shape, size, and speed of the aircraft.
Temperature is also critical, as the closer the aircraft and its exhaust mirror the surrounding atmosphere, the more difficult it is for thermal sensors to detect a “heat” signature sufficient to distinguish the presence of the aircraft. This is part of why engines on stealth aircraft are often buried within, and heat exhaust or fumes are carefully managed, minimized, or controlled to reduce that aircraft’s detectability. It seems feasible that the B-21 could contain breakthroughs in all of these areas.
Alongside the emergence of new, if mysterious, stealth properties … the B-21 also introduces new concepts of operation as it will not only control drones to expand as surveillance and target detection reach but also draw upon a new generation of computing and sensing.
When Gen. Charles Brown was Chief of Staff of the Air Force not long ago, he explained in a speech that the B-21 would function as much as a sensor node or flying command and control platform just as much as a bombing system. This makes great sense, given the breakthrough progress in recent years in the realm of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled targeting, threat discernment, and sensor-to-shooter “pairing,” wherein target detail and otherwise disparate pools of incoming sensor data can be gathered, analyzed, processed, and transmitted from the point of collection.
Increasingly, combat platforms are being built not only to be attack platforms but also to function as key “nodes” within an elaborate, high-speed, meshed system of multi-domain sensors. This tactical approach, enabled by technological breakthroughs in the realm of computer processing speed and AI-enabled analytics, introduces new concepts of operation by extending a battlefield picture in real-time across multiple air, ground, space, and sea nodes, something that speeds up and vastly improves targeting and attack possibilities.
Finally, the B-21 will be dual-mission in that it will be nuclear-capable and fly with upgraded variants of nuclear weapons such as the B-61 Mod 12 nuclear bomb and likely the nuclear-capable Long Range Stand-Off weapon air-launched cruise missile.
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