Should the US Air Force Buy 250 B-21 Stealth Bombers?

The following piece first appeared on Warrior Maven, a Military Content Group member website.

The US Air Force has, in recent years, expended massive amounts of energy attempting to balance its bomber fleet, prepare for the future, and close a long-standing “bomber-deficit” troubling Air Combatant Commanders for years.

Although the service’s B-2 has been successfully upgraded with somewhat unanticipated levels of success, and the B-52 is essentially an entirely new aircraft compared to its inception decades ago, the service has for years been struggling to address the size, composition, and readiness challenges it has been confronted with in recent decades.

An Air Force bomber vector text years ago emphasized the need to sustain upgrades for the B-2 and further extend B-1B operational service to preserve the service’s bombing capability until sufficient numbers of the B-21 arrive. Several years ago, senior Air Force officials said the service could, or at least should, potentially acquire more than 150 to 250 B-21s.

The need is there, particularly given today’s global threat environment, to build and deploy a 250-or-more aircraft B-21 fleet. This possibility makes sense given the tactical and strategic range of operations the B-21 is “will-be” capable of. It will operate with the ability to control drones, sense threat areas, process sensor data from otherwise disparate pools or sources of information, and transmit as needed across a multi-domain force.

The B-21 will also be capable of flying unmanned missions and operating as a stealth “attack’ platform as well as a multi-mode sensor “node” or aerial communication hub across a joint, multi-domain force.

Many of the technological details related to the B-21 are, of course, not available for security reasons. Yet the aircraft is reported to contain breakthrough levels of stealth technology.

In a historic moment arguably shaping, defining, or inspiring a new generation of stealth technology… the B-21 took to the sky several years ago. With the next-generation, first-of-its-kind US Air Force B-21 Raider becoming airborne, it was a massive development resulting from years of innovations, research, technological breakthroughs, and testing.

Could it be a new era for stealth attacks? On December 10, 2023, Multiple reports and photographs emerged showing the B-21 Raider taking off from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, en route to Edwards Air Force Base, California. One key report announcing the flight was here in Air & Space Forces Magazine.

Very little is known technically about the mysterious sleek-looking new bomber, as the program is still largely secret or “black,” however, it is described by senior Air Force leaders and weapons developers as a paradigm-changing leap forward in the realm of stealth technology.

Years ago, earlier in the developmental trajectory of the B-21, former Military Deputy for Air Force Acquisition Ret. Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch told Warrior the B-21 would be able to hold “any target in the world at risk … anywhere … anytime.”

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.