The US Air Force intends to modernize its fleet of B-52 strategic bombers. Improvement of onboard equipment and weapons will allow aircraft created almost 60 years ago to remain in service for a long time - it is assumed that the B-52 will be withdrawn from the Air Force no earlier than the 2040s, or even later. The situation in which the main strategic aircraft of the world's strongest air force is an almost 60-year-old veteran is an excellent illustration of the situation in the world today in the development of new technology (not only military).
The modern world is fraught with many paradoxes. One of them is a slowdown in technological progress with ever-increasing costs. This paradox is most clearly demonstrated in the military sphere. The cost of combat aircraft of each next generation grows by an order of magnitude: the F-22 Raptor in 2010 costs about 200 million dollars, the F-15 Eagle in 1985 cost about 20 million, the newest in 1960, the F-4 Phantom II "Cost a little over 2 million, and for the F-86" Saber "in 1950, taxpayers laid out just over 200 thousand.
Like any currency, the US dollar is subject to inflation, but it is obvious that over the past 25 years since 1985, the dollar has depreciated not 10 times, and even more so - not 1000 times since 1950. Nevertheless, each new generation of combat aircraft costs an order of magnitude more, while the development of new technology began to take much more time: When the Saber was created in the late 1940s, less than four years passed from the issuance of requirements for the aircraft to its adoption., Phantom traveled this path in the 1950s in seven years, the Needle took 11 - from 1965 to 1976. Finally, the Raptor went from issuing requirements for acceptance into service for almost a quarter of a century - from 1981 to 2005.
Such price jumps, coupled with a sharp increase in the time required to develop new technology (in this case, an aircraft), signaled the approach to a technological barrier, which now, with one or another time gap, all leading weapons developers and manufacturers rest against.
This is not the first time such a phenomenon occurs, but each time the barrier becomes higher, and the cost of overcoming it is more and more. After overcoming another barrier for some time, new developments arise as if from a cornucopia, and the technique, which was perfect yesterday, is already becoming obsolete today. Then upgrading the performance becomes more and more expensive until it reaches a certain limit, beyond which further improvements are too expensive. The energy accumulated in the course of overcoming the previous barrier is depleted. At present, the "stock" accumulated in the 30-50s of the XX century, during the preparations for the Second World War, during the war itself and after its end, has come to an end. The then technological breakthrough of enormous power was a success for the leading countries of the world precisely "thanks" to the Second World War, which forced an order of magnitude to increase investments in research in the field of military technology and fundamental engineering.
It is only worth saying that almost all of today's modern models of equipment and weapons grow from there, from the Second World War, when the first samples of jet combat aircraft, guided weapons of various classes, effective radars, and finally, ballistic and cruise missiles appeared.
The situation with the technological barrier is well understood by the "techies" in the industry. But often administrators either cannot or do not want to understand it, from company management to senior military and political leadership, as well as experts without engineering qualifications who work for the relevant structures.
This misunderstanding has dangerous consequences: betting on new technology without careful consideration of the cost-effectiveness parameter may lead to the fact that instead of, say, abstract "Model 1" combat aircraft, "Model 2" combat aircraft will be adopted. Each new aircraft will be twice as efficient as its predecessor and 10 times more expensive. As a result, a country that has created a new weapon will face an unpleasant dilemma: the purchase of new equipment at the same level of military spending will lead to a fivefold drop in the effectiveness of the Air Force. In order to maintain efficiency at the same level, a corresponding fivefold increase in expenditures will be required, and in order to maintain the same size of the Air Force and double its power, it will be necessary to increase expenditures tenfold.
Of course, such growth is usually extended over time, and in some areas is artificially slowed down, but, nevertheless, the constant increase in the military budgets of the United States and the USSR during the Cold War, despite the fact that the number of equipment in service with each new generation decreased, is excellent illustration of what was said.
As soon as the Cold War ended, and the unrestrained growth of military spending became impossible, the pace of development of new technology slowed down many times, and its mass production often became unrealistic. In Russia, this effect was blurred by the political upheavals from the collapse of the USSR, when the country had to abandon not only a host of promising programs, but also to severely curtail the already existing forces. However, in the United States, the list of promising samples, the development and production of which were hacked to death after the end of the Cold War due to the unrealistic price and the huge time frame, turns out to be no less.
The United States tried to cheat fate by forcing the jump over the barrier with a series of ambitious programs, the most famous of which is FCS - Future Combat Systems, but this proved impossible. The equipment developed under the FCS turned out to be incredibly expensive even for the United States, despite the fact that the modernized models of machines developed in the 1970s were practically not inferior to it in terms of efficiency. As a result, the program was terminated.
How quickly this barrier will be overcome is not yet clear. However, based on the information to date, the military and weapons developers in the United States and Russia are preparing for the fact that the systems in service today will be produced and remain in service for many, many decades. This is logical: there are no fundamental inventions capable of turning the world of military technology, as it was done in the middle of the last century with the help of a nuclear reactor, jet engine, radar, etc., so far, and are not foreseen. All that remains is to improve what is possible, gnawing out percentages of efficiency gains for more and more money in anticipation of breakthroughs in fundamental engineering.
And the best symbol of what is happening will be the same matte black B-52, a gigantic eight-engine bomber created in 1946-53, produced until 1962, a "perpetual aircraft" counting decades of service one after another.
