I would take the B-1
If you took the B-2 and flew it in broad daylight, an enemy with AAA guns can easily shoot you down via optical sights.(This is one of the reasons stealth bombers conduct their operations at night). Moreover, if your mission was to destroy SAM sites with HARM s. The enemy’s SAM/AAA radar will not light up as they cannot detect you. So how the hell do you get a fix on that site?
You can say that one can use bombs, but it is a rather painstaking process by bombing individual SAM/AAA radar sites one by one using scanners, SAR images, realtime reconaisse photos. You could use JDAMS but they need the coordinates which military planners don’t often have if the enemy shifts his SAM/AAA sites daily. Moreover the B-1 has a bigger bomb load than the B-2
I prefer the B-1 because of its speed and ability to travel at Mach 1-1.5? If the B-1 was to travel into some very hostile countries crammed full of MiGs and Sukkhois. The bomber better go in fast and get out quickly before he is shot down. The B-1 can be coated with Radar Absorbant Material (RAM) and its sleekness gives it some stealth.
Sorry if I made some mistakes in staing the facts as I don’t work in any form of military organistaions or have the funds and time to do research as I am still below 20 and a student.
I would have to go with the BONE on this one.
I would have to pick the B-1, for the simple reason that it’s more versitile than the B-2. If you can only have one aircraft, I think the one that can perform day or night and has a decent chance of avoiding interception even if it’s located is the way to go. The B-2 is only effective as long as it can’t be found, and as some here have pointed out that’s not always going to be the case, be it an accidental visual sighting or some technological development.
B1-B for me just awesome , gotta have loads of noise ,
All the argument about how well speed and raw bo,bing power are pretty much obsolete now anyway though right? I mean we don’t carpet bomb a city to level one house anymore. There were people (civilians) in Baghdad that never left town while bombs rained down from any number of aircraft and were safe during the recent air war right.
I would think it comes down to the fact that again you’re comparing aples to 2X4s. Both of these planes work very very well doing the jobs that each was DESIGNED to do. Maybe I don’t have all the facts together, but it seems a very strange pairing here to me anyway.
Gotta go with the Bone. Having lived near Dyess AFB, I may be a little prejudiced.
Gentlemen,
The original question was “Which of these two bombers would you rather have in your corner?” My question back to you is “What is it you want me to do?” If you want me to go downtown into a dense EM environment with the capability to service a large number of high value targets with precision guided weapons then the B2 is the way to go. If you want me to go after a terrorist training camp near a sensitive border area with a large number of precision (or even unguided) weapons, then the Bone is the way to go, although that is not what was used on this particular mission. This scenario is changing…the number of new small diameter bombs you can load in a Bone or B2 is huge. But that is down the raod. On the merits of the DoD making the decision to bring 27 Bones out of the Arizona sun and put them back on the line in the war on terrorism, then Le Bone is what you might be looking for. Particularly if you want an airplane with a long loiter time capable of servicing on-call close air support or air interdiciton missions with a variety of precision guided munitions. This includes precision guided area weapons like the wind corrected munitions dispenser (WCMD) or Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW). The Bone is the hands-down winner. I exclude the Hog from this discussion only because we are talking bombers.
You cannot confuse missions/functions with the number of desired mean points of impacts (DMPIs) leadership wants serviced and what the systems were designed to accomplish. Each aircraft carries a finite number of weapons, fortunately all of them precision guided now. Each of these airplanes was designed to accomplish certain things. The Bone’s missions have evolved over it’s life time but no one would task a Bone to go downtown Night One/Wave One to strike high value/high priority or regime leadership targets in a dense radar and electromagnetic (EM) environment. The Spirit (B2) thrives in this environment.
So, I ask again, what is it you want me to do? Then I will tell you what I want in my corner. Just another variation to this interesting theme.
The B-1B’s a giant 4-engined Thunderchief, minus the gun! The B-2 could be replaced partly by that FB-22 bomber concept (Popular Mechanics).