The events in Syria brought the issue of the future of strategic aviation into the spotlight again. What will it become - faster and more lifting, smarter and less noticeable? While the PAK DA remains the "dark horse" of the Russian military aviation. But it is known that in its response to the challenge to Russia, the United States is guided by the Tu-160.
The war with ISIS underscored the well-known truth: if artillery is the "god" of general war, then the bomber is, without a doubt, the "god" of air war. The whole point of air weapons boils down to strikes, primarily at ground targets. These are either enemy troops or objects of production and economic potential in its rear. The militants have already had to experience the action of Russian "strategists" - Tu-95, Tu-160 and Tu-22M.
"Reminiscent of the battle starships from Star Wars - a lance-shaped fuselage built on the principle of a" flying wing ", small keels"
There are also "demigods" - fighter-bombers and attack aircraft, solving, in principle, the same tasks, but due to the limited range and duration of the flight - not far from the front line. Alas, even the "kings of the air" - fighters, glamorous by popular culture - justify themselves only insofar as there are bombers and their varieties, which must either be fought or protected.
In the USSR / Russia and the USA, a lot of attention was always paid to bombers. But due to the fact that America is separated from potential adversaries by oceans, the emphasis in the development of its bomber aviation was placed on large strategic, while in the USSR - on medium tactical "bomb carriers".
This feature also determined the appearance of the US fighter aircraft during the Second World War. American aircraft had a long flight range, powerful enough weapons, but at the same time, compared to Soviet, British and German fighters, they were heavy and not very maneuverable. The designers did not particularly bother giving them these qualities. What for? After all, their main task was to accompany the "air fortresses".
The day is past
In the Cold War, strategic bombers became as symbolic of global confrontation as ballistic missiles. Over the years of confrontation, the Soviet Union created and put into operation six types of such machines, not counting the Tu-4 (including its modification Tu80 / 85), which was copied from the American B-29.
Soviet "strategists" include the Tu-95 turboprop, as well as the Tu-16, M-4 / 3M jet and the supersonic Tu-22, Tu-22M and Tu-160. Currently in service are Tu-95, Tu-22M, which are "under fifty", and Tu-160, which are only a little over thirty, which have changed their seventh decade.
The United States had eight types of strategic bomb carriers designed and commissioned. These are piston V-29 and V-50, hybrid jet-piston V-36, jet V-47 and V-52, supersonic V-58 and V-1, as well as stealth V-2. From this "constellation" the expanses of the air ocean are currently plowed by only three types: B-52, B-1 and B-2. The youngest of them - V-2 - has been in operation for a quarter of a century.
Not surprisingly, when the "great confrontation" ended in 1991, the number of heavy "bomb carriers" was also reduced as part of the reduction of strategic offensive arms.
Russia's share in the world arms trade (infographic)
But when cold "winds" blew in relations between Russia and the West in 2014, long-range bombers again attracted attention. Initially, the Tu-95 began to make patrol flights near the borders of Western states, and in early June last year, the United States decided to send B-52s to overflight the borders of Russia as part of NATO exercises planned for the same month.
So, no ballistic missiles can replace the "good old" strategic bombers. However, if their kindness is questionable, then old age is beyond doubt. Both the Tu-95 and the B-52, which form the basis of the strategic aviation of Russia and the United States, took off for the first time in the same 1952. It is obvious that in the 21st century it is at least strange to stake on the machines of the middle of the last century in deciding the question of "to be or not to be" to entire states. It is not surprising, therefore, that Moscow and Washington are seriously thinking about strengthening and renewing their strategic bombing power.
Flocks of "White Swans" and PAK DA - today and tomorrow
In late May, it became known that Russia intends to build at least 50 Tu-160 bombers, also known as the "White Swan" (in the West, they are called Blackjack), by the end of this decade. So that no one would think that Moscow intends to replicate not the most modern technology to the detriment of developing new technology, the Commander-in-Chief of the Aerospace Forces (VKS) Viktor Bondarev emphasized that the purchase of a whole flock of White Swans would not interfere with the creation and commissioning of the so-called PAK YES (A promising long-range aviation complex).
According to the plans currently available, the PAK DA must make its first flight no later than 2019, and in 2023–2025, this type of aircraft will replace the Tu-95, Tu-22M and Tu-160.
If the configuration of the "White Swan" and its tactical and technical characteristics are well known, then the PAK DA is a "dark horse". Here is what Wikipedia says about him: “According to Anatoly Zhikharev, commander of the Long-Range Aviation of the Aerospace Forces, we are talking about a fundamentally new aircraft with an aiming and navigation system. Such an aircraft should be capable of using all existing and promising types of weapons, should be equipped with the latest communication and electronic warfare systems, and also have low visibility. " Apparently, it will be created by the Tupolev Design Bureau.
The takeoff weight of the vehicle is from 100 to 200 tons, and it will fly at subsonic speed. Armament - cruise missiles, including anti-ship missiles, and bombs.
There are many images of this bomber on the Internet, in which it often resembles combat starships from "Star Wars" - a spear-shaped fuselage built on the principle of a "flying wing", small keels. Sometimes this miracle of technology is adorned with wings of variable geometry. That, in fact, is all. According to Wikipedia, the aircraft has a flying wing design, that is, it will be similar to the American B-2.
"Significant wingspan and design features," continues Wikipedia, "will not allow the aircraft to overcome the speed of sound, but at the same time will provide reduced visibility for radars."
PAK YES, of course, will fly and will probably be a good plane. If the domestic civil aviation industry (not counting the "Superjet" made from foreign components and the yet unborn MS-21) has practically disappeared, then Russia has not yet forgotten how to make world-class winged military vehicles. The question is how effectively the PAK DA onboard equipment will help it to solve combat missions, and most importantly - will the Russian economy "pull" the mass production of these machines?
The United States, in its potential response to the "bombing" challenge to Russia, is guided mainly by the Tu-160.
But is it worth it to focus on it? That question was posed by Tom Nichols, a National Security Specialist at the Naval War College who also teaches at the Harvard University affiliate. In his opinion, expressed on the Nationalinterest.org Internet resource, the decision of the Russian Federation on the additional construction of fifty Tu-160s (now in service with Russia there are a dozen such machines), "does not mean anything" from a military point of view. Nichols believes that this is just one of the "provocations" that does not require any response from America.
After all, the classic American strategic "trident" - bombers, ballistic missiles and missile submarines, says Nichols, are a relic of the Cold War. He was needed in order "not to put all your eggs in one basket." In the event of the first strike by the USSR on the objects of the US strategic nuclear potential, at least one of the "teeth" of this trident, for example, strategic bombers, was to retaliate.
Nichols believes that in modern conditions neither Russia nor the United States will try to inflict "paralyzing" nuclear strikes on each other. For this, he is sure, they do not even have sufficient means of attack. If in 1981 both sides had a total of 50,000 warheads, now, in accordance with the START III treaty, only 1,550 on each side.
This, says Nichols, is clearly not enough to neutralize the enemy with a preemptive strike (apparently, taking into account the significantly increased effectiveness of defense against ICBMs). In addition, he stresses, the means of warning of a nuclear attack, combined with missile defense, make the strategic nuclear facilities of the United States and Russia significantly less vulnerable than during the Cold War.
Why, then, does Russia intend to spend colossal funds on the construction of a whole flock of "White Swans"? And then, Nichols believes, Russia has a massive nuclear capability and a military obsessed with symbols of nuclear power. The continuation of the production of nuclear "toys", he notes, makes everyone happy: the Russian military-industrial complex gets jobs and money, the military gets a nuclear "umbrella." And the Russians have the opportunity, as Nichols puts it, to "punch themselves in the chest," claiming that they can contain Obama's nuclear "ferocity."
The final conclusion that Nichols makes is this: "Our response to nuclear threats to Russia should be the absence of any response other than confirmation of our ability to protect ourselves." As for the new Tu-160s, the main thing, Nichols emphasizes, is that their number does not go beyond the limits of the one determined by the START-3 treaty.
Tu-160 - the exterior is old, the content is new
Speaking about the resumption of production of White Swans, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov told RIA Novosti: “In fact, this is a new aircraft - not Tu-160, but Tu-160M2. With new flight characteristics and new capabilities. It will only be an old glider, and even then it will be digitized, and its capabilities will be completely new."
It is quite possible that it is so, but the question is different: is Russia capable of mass production of this modernized bomber? Some experts are hesitant. “Those who make such plans still think that we are living in Soviet times, when it was enough to make a loud statement, and all design bureaus, together with factories, immediately rushed to carry it out. And no one counted the costs, but even worse, no one thought about whether it was necessary,”one Moscow military expert told IHS Jane's Defense Weekly.
Keywords: combat aviation, the Russian army, the Pentagon, the Air Force, the defense industry complex, fighters, the army and weapons, the USA and the USSR, the Aerospace Forces
In the list of serious weaknesses of the Russian military-industrial complex, not in the last place is the shortage of qualified labor, especially if we compare the situation in this sector of industry with Soviet times. According to IHS Jane's Defense Weekly, the number of trained and experienced personnel that Russia now has for the production of Tu-160 does not exceed 10% of that which was at the disposal of the USSR in the 1980s.
Under the wing of the LRS-B, or between "2018" and "2037"
Despite the significantly reduced role of nuclear bomb carriers over the past half century due to the emergence of "smart" and high-precision missile weapons, America does not intend to "get out" from under the protection of their wings.
Initially, the US Air Force set the bar high for the future bomber. He was supposed to become invisible, supersonic, long-range and, moreover, be able to solve problems without a crew on board. The last requirement on this list is a product of the trend that is observed in military aviation, if not the whole world, then at least technologically developed countries.
However, it turned out that before 2037, this miracle of technology is unlikely to be put into operation. Therefore, the conceived bomber was named "2037". But this mark is still more than 20 years old. Do not fly all this time on obsolete machines! Therefore, the US Air Force decided to create an intermediate version of the strategic "bomber", which received the symbol "2018" - the year by which it was to be created and generally tested. The machine still carries the impersonal office name LRS-B (Long Range Strike Bomber), which translates as "long-range strike bomber". Sometimes it is also called B-3.
Life has made adjustments to these plans. "2018" is unlikely to enter service before the first half of the 2020s. Two competitors fought for the right to develop and build it: Northrop Grumman, the "parent" of the B-2, and a consortium of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. At the end of October, it became known that Northrop Grumman had won.
The total amount of the contract is estimated at $ 80 billion. For this money, Northrop Grumman, according to the American source Defensenews.com, is to supply 80-100 B-3 aircraft to the US Air Force. For reference: 21 B-2 bombers cost the Pentagon $ 44 billion, that is, one B-3 should be almost twice as cheap as the B-2, which cost about $ 2 billion. According to InsideDefense.com, the final price of the LRS-B could reach $ 900 million per unit.
Let's lift the veil of secrecy
How the military potentials of Russia and NATO compare
The main features of the appearance of the future car were leaked to the press. Here is what Forbes managed to find out about her last March. First, the flight range of the LRS-B / B-3 without refueling will exceed 9000 kilometers. He should be able to “reach” China and Russia without any problems. Secondly, its bomb load will be less than that of its predecessors. This is mainly due to the need to reduce the price of a new car. Experience shows that the price of a bomber rises roughly in proportion to its payload. In the "invisible" V-2, it reaches 18 tons.
However, the use of bombs that have become significantly "smarter" over the past quarter century, in combination with their reduced weight and size, will allow the LRS-B to inflict the same damage on the enemy as the B-2, but with half the bomb load. It is believed that a couple of dozen B-3s will be able to process up to 1,000 targets with high precision bombs daily.
Thirdly, no matter how strange it may seem, no "breakthrough" technologies in the creation of the LRS-B, unlike, for example, the B-2, will not be involved. In the B-2, many innovative or even revolutionary engineering solutions were used. Take its stealth skin, for example. But for every hour of flight, the B-2 required 18 hours of maintenance, which seriously raised the cost of operating this bomber. In addition, the B-2 received the derisive nickname of a bomber that cannot fly in the rain, because the water jets wash away the additional anti-radar coating from it.
LRS-B will be based on the most advanced technologies, but those that have already been invented and tested in practice. This will also be done in order to reduce the price of the new car. In addition, the B-3 is likely to be more versatile, computerized and maintainable than the B-2.
Fourth, the B-3 will not be supersonic. Supersonic and invisibility do not mix well. In this flight mode, the skin is seriously heated, plus the aircraft's acoustic signature significantly increases. Since you still can't run away from the rocket, the designers decided, it would be better for the LRS-B to be slower, but less noticeable. And the price of an aircraft with supersonic capabilities would be significantly higher.
Fifth, it still will not be "at times unmanned", as it was supposed. The US Air Force believes that a vehicle carrying nuclear bombs and missiles should always be under the control of the crew. This is a somewhat conservative point of view, given that there have been unmanned delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons in the form of ICBMs in the world for more than half a century. Probably, intermittent unmanning will be embodied already in the "2037" bomber.
Not in size, but in skill
Sixth, B-3 will be outwardly different from B-2. Many experts believed that, in principle, the LRS-B would be the same "flying wing" as its predecessor. But, as it turned out, the size of the aircraft and its outline in plan are just as important for stealth as the skin. During operation, it was found that the length / width of the B-2 facilitates its detection by long-wave radars. Therefore, B-3 is likely to be smaller than B-2. In addition, the B-2 was originally conceived as a night bomber, and the B-3 was supposed to be "round the clock".
Seventh, LRS-B will have more information and intellectual self-sufficiency than B-2. By the way, this is also partly due to the desire of the B-3 designers to reduce the cost of its operation. The more functions the aircraft and the crew perform independently, the less support ground services will have to be involved.
But this will require a major revision of the invisibility principles used for B-2. The stealth designers tried to make sure that its crew had as little contact with the ground as possible, since this could also unmask the "invisibility". However, the B-3 will be integrated into a complex of intelligent combat systems, in particular, it will work "hand in hand" with reconnaissance satellites, which means that it will almost constantly be exposed to electromagnetic radiation. The challenge is to effectively disguise it.
Finally, unlike the B-2, built in the amount of 21 copies, the US Air Force plans to purchase, as already noted, at least 80-100 B-3s. It is expected that this type of aircraft will replace all other strategic American bombers, including the B-52, B-1 and B-2.
Veterans do not grow old in soul
However, not only the soul, but also the wings and fuselage. And the program for updating the existing fleet of B-52, which currently consists of 76 vehicles, helps them in this. A total of 744 bombers of this type were produced in 1952-1962. Thus, about every tenth B-52 remained in service from this number.
"An old horse won't ruin a furrow," the US Air Force decided. The B-52 turned out to be too reliable and unpretentious aircraft to be written off only because of its advanced age. And in this regard, its fate is reminiscent of the Tu-95.
In the spring of last year, the process of re-equipment of the B-52 began within the framework of the "Connected Technologies [for Integration] into the Combat Network" (CONECT) program. This will significantly increase the "intelligence factor" of the old "bomb carrier" and will allow it to carry the most modern weapons on board. In total, within the framework of CONECT, 30 B-52s should be modernized.
That these bombers remain a symbol of US strategic power was demonstrated a few days ago. As the newspaper VZGLYAD wrote, one B-52, accompanied by one American and one South Korean fighter, flew over the territory of South Korea near the border of the DPRK. This flight was the response of the United States and its allies to a North Korean test in early January, presumably of a hydrogen bomb.
The American Internet resource Nextbigfuture.com called the B-52 "the plane that refuses to die" in December last year. According to the publication, the current plans of the US Air Force provide for the operation of machines of this type at least until 2040. This means that the youngest B-52 will be almost 80 years old by that time, because the release of these bombers, as already noted, was completed in 1962.
But the belief in "old horses" does not stop only with the B-52. The United States intends to continue operating the B-2. According to the Washington Post, Northrop Grumman will now perform these repairs not every seven, as before, but every nine years in order to reduce the time spent on overhauls of stealth vehicles.
The long-suffering (there is no other name for it) supersonic bomber B-1 with variable wing geometry remains in service. It is hard to imagine how many ordeals this aircraft suffered. It began to enter service in the first half of the 1970s, but after its production was frozen by President Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan again "put" the B-1 on the conveyor, but this did not save the bomber from technical problems that led to several accidents. As a result, B-1 first struck at real targets only in 1998, in Iraq, during Operation Desert Fox.
After the Cold War, it was converted into a "bomber" capable of carrying conventional weapons, and relatively recently, according to the American Internet resource Stars and Stripes, has demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq its "excellent qualities as a direct support aircraft for ground forces."
"Tactician" in the guise of "strategist"
And yet, in order to launch a "smart" cruise missile, not even a B-52 is needed. For this, the "flying fortress" B-17 of the Second World War is quite enough. Moreover, tactical bombers of the Su-34 type, modern American and Russian multipurpose fighters of the Su, MiG and F types may well be used to deliver small-sized nuclear weapons to the target, thus solving strategic tasks. Why, then, is a very expensive bundle of the most advanced technologies of the B-3 type needed?
The answer lies in the words of the former US Ambassador to Ukraine Stephen Pifer. He believes that NATO is best able to respond to Russia's actions with conventional, rather than nuclear forces. This is what, according to Pifer, Russia allegedly fears the most, since its conventional military forces have significantly weakened since the end of the Cold War.
Thus, there is every reason to assume that the LRS-B, which, unlike the Su, MiG and F, is capable of striking from overseas, was conceived primarily as a tactical bomber that can be used in the strategic variant. This is evidenced by its features: stealth; reduced price in comparison with B-2; "Circulation" in the amount of up to 100 units; increased versatility; maintainability; the ability to continuously "process" multiple targets. All this indicates that the ability to dump dozens of conventional bombs on the enemy's head is as important for a new bomber as it is a platform for launching nuclear cruise missiles.
Whether this is true or not, it will be possible to verify only in the conditions of a war, to which, hopefully, things will never come.
