In the photo, the strategic bomber-missile carrier B-1B "Lancer" and the strategic air tanker KC-10A "Extender" are following along the runway. These types of strategic aviation may soon be deployed to Australian air bases in order to "contain the Chinese threat." But to carry out combat duty in the air near the Chinese coast, B-1Bs do not need additional refueling from the Extender, since the range to the South China Sea from the Tyndal airbase is 4,000 km, and the range of the Lancer is 5,500 km. Therefore, the list of likely targets for the B-1B is far from limited to China alone.
For dozens of analytical publications on the topic of long-term territorial disputes over the island archipelagos Spratly and Diaoyutai, the strategic importance of which is gaining strength for China and the United States literally every month, it is possible not to pay attention to the fact that among the top ten plans of the US Air Force, a rather interesting point has appeared about the impending redeployment of US strategic missile-carrying bombers B-1B "Lancer" to an airbase in the Northern Territory in Australia. Information on this topic on the web is rather scarce, as are the statements made in early March by US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart and published on theaviationist.com.
With the already familiar to all condemning rhetoric of the American power and foreign policy departments, D. Picart caught the Celestial Empire of expansion in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, and also focused on the need to take retaliatory measures, which, in fact, is the transfer of "strategists" B-1B to the Australian continent. The American lieutenant colonel also noted the significant operational and strategic advantages in delivering global strikes in this region after the appearance of the Lancers. The information, as you can see, is absolutely standard, typical for the American central media, and does not carry any information about the details and consequences of the use of these aircraft in the southeastern OH from the Eurasian continent. The fact that for all sorts of tactical maneuvers to contain the PLA in the Asia-Pacific region, the Americans have simply impressive arsenals of various types of missile weapons is also pushed for thought. Naval and air bases in Okinawa, Guam, the Philippines, a whole military city in South Korean Pyeongtaek, covered by several Aegis destroyers (armed with tens to hundreds of Tomahawks) and dozens of Patriot PAC-2 anti-aircraft missile systems / 3 ", hundreds of tactical fighter aircraft with all types of high-precision missile weapons (ALCM" JASSM-ER "," SLAM-ER ", etc.), a squadron of strategic reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles RQ-4" Global Hawk ". The entire Chinese coastline is within range of these weapons. Then the question arises: why is there also strategic strike aviation, and even with a full-fledged air wing of refueling aircraft?
To answer it, you need to remember that strategic aviation is a delicate matter, and when it comes to any redeployments or new concepts for its use, the reason for this is global changes, and all sorts of tiny Spratly and Senkaku immediately appear in the background in the role of secondary issues. It is worth looking at the development of the Australian Armed Forces itself, which is taking place on the American-Japanese technological base, as well as the geographical location of this continent.
Due to the lack of information on the number of B-1Bs planned for redeployment, we will build on the exact base of the transferred vehicles. Based on open sources, it can be determined that they will be deployed at the RAAF Tyndal airbase (northern part of the Northern Territory state, 260 km from the Timor Sea). The northern part of the continent was not chosen by chance: after all, it is 2000 km closer to Eurasia than the Amberley and Edinburgh airbases, which adds another 30% to the B-1B's range. The US Air Force also plays into the hands of the relative proximity of AvB Tyndall to the northern coast of Australia, while at the same time being deep enough in the continent to cover the object with an echeloned aerospace defense made up of Patriot PAC-3 and THAADs. Coastal military facilities are less insured against massive SLCM missile attacks from enemy multipurpose nuclear submarines. The proximity to the Pacific and Indian oceans will allow the Lancers to be quickly involved in possible anti-ship operations (B-1Bs are carriers of stealth anti-ship missiles AGM-158C LRASM).
But more alarming is that a year earlier, all 63 B-1B missile carriers were transferred from the regular US Air Force command to the 8th Army of the Global Strike Command, which belongs to the nuclear forces. "Lancers" are back in the nuclear triad, and can use both conventional ALCM / ASM "JASSM-ER" / "LRASM" and strategic AGM-86B / C (the latter will require the installation of specialized suspension points, which were dismantled in 1996, when, in the eyes of the West, Yeltsin's Russia was not a threatening geopolitical enclave in Eurasia). Getting these missile carriers into the so-called "nuclear standings", based on the Tyndal base, dramatically changes the geostrategic situation not only in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, but also in Central and Western Asia. And this already speaks of the threat to the southern borders of the CSTO. The subtleties of using this region as an air bridgehead for planning a probable strategic air and space offensive operation of the US Air Force is a whole lot. Each of the 63 B-1Bs is capable of carrying 20 AGM-86B ALCM strategic ALCMs in its internal weapons bays and on external suspensions, and all Lancers can carry 1,260 missiles, which exceeds the official number of ALCMs in the US Air Force.
The range of AGM-86B is 2,780 km, which, when launched over Pakistani territory, allows them to reach military installations in any of the southern CSTO countries (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan), as well as strategically important cities such as Novosibirsk. The importance of this city for the country's military-industrial complex can be judged by only one "branch" of production of high-precision front-line fighter-bombers Su-34 and participation in the PAK FA program of JSC NAPO im. V. P. Chkalov ". And to the territory of Pakistan and other Asian states "Lancers" will safely help to get the whole squadrons of strategic air tankers KC-10 "Extender", some of which can be used from bases in Australia itself, and some from Arabian air bases. The threat also appears for strategic objects in the Caspian Sea and on the Black Sea coast.
They cover the "Tyndale" B-1Bs and the entire territory of the Celestial Empire and the Far East, where the actions of American air tankers are absolutely not constrained by anyone, under the cover of dozens of island facilities of the US Air Force and Navy, bombers and tankers are like a fish in water. The clear and cunning "batch" of the United States with the dispatch of B-1Bs to Australian Tyndall Air Base, played out today, envisages a multi-year deployment with the subsequent transformation of Australia into the largest stronghold of American interests in the southern hemisphere. It is no coincidence that the Royal Australian Navy has sharply gone into quantitative and technological growth (purchases of patrol Poseidons, agreements with Japan on the unique Soryu submarine submarines), and the Air Force acquired a logistics base for servicing the F-35A in the APR.
The militarization of the Australian continent is not surprising at all. Washington has long understood that the efforts made by Russia to control the Arctic region are many times more effective than the demonstration flights of the NORAD air defense aircraft or the occasional surfacing of the Sea Wolf and Los Angeles class submarines. The Russian Aerospace Forces and the Russian Navy are creating a powerful military infrastructure here with several air defense / missile defense lines based on the S-400 and MiG-31BM interceptors in Tiksi, AvB with anti-submarine aircraft and other equipment for reconnaissance and destruction of sea targets. The Americans in Alaska and Greenland, from the point of view of their distance from continental facilities for logistics with equipment and provisions, have poorer capabilities than our bases on Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya and other islands. We are deliberately aware of all operational missile-hazardous areas in the Arctic.
When planning an aviation "strategy" through Australia and Central Asia, everything is much more complicated, since most states here have an unstable military-political situation associated with both religious differences and various territorial disputes and actions of terrorist organizations "fed" by the States themselves. Here one can expect a "stab in the back" from any direction, and having mixed up their strategic link in this vague geopolitical "mess", the Americans very skillfully create a new "puzzle" for Russia and its allies, requiring the use of additional military-technical tools in a new round of the "cold war ".
