In an essay advocating for large-scale acquisition of the B-21, a Washington thinktank claims unprecedented stealth for the new stealth bomber.
The multi-author paper from the Hudson Institute stresses the strategic deterrence potential of the Northrop Grumman B-21 based on its ability to penetrate the most sophisticated anti-access-area denial (A2/AD) defenses, its long range and flexibility.
While citing these qualities the paper argues that a planned buy of just 100 Raiders is too small to effectively deter U.S adversaries or execute the necessary missions to defeat them.
I noted the slow, limited pace of planned B-21 acquisition in a piece back in September which relayed the Air Force’s projected maximum production rate of B-21s at just ten per year a decade in the future.
The Hudson paper calls for doubling the original buy “as a starting point” and for plainly making Congress aware of the need for more B‑21s so that it can adjust funding and plan for additional production.
The authors note that another DC-based thinktank, The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, recommends constructing a Raider force capable of defeating two major powers simultaneously, suggesting that America procure 288 B‑21s. They added that, “A prominent former national security official projected the number to range from 300–400.”
Their argument hinges both on nuclear threats from U.S. adversaries and the Raider’s ability to penetrate their defenses.
The latter turns upon stealth and in the paper, Dr. Christopher Bowie, a former RAND researcher, USAF strategic planner and former Northrop Grumman analyst, asserts that the B-21 should feature a smaller radar signature than the B-2 which the Air Force “revealed 30 years ago” has the radar cross-section of an insect.”
The B-21 has taken a non-traditional defense procurement route the Hudson paper points out, acquired through the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) and so has been subject to less public scrutiny, enabling more secrecy. That makes it difficult to judge Bowie’s claim but technological progress suggests it’s possible.
The stealthy invisibility he alludes to likely underpins the claim by another of the paper’s authors, Kari Bingen, former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security.
In her section of the paper, Ms. Bingen maintains that, “With the range, survivability, and munitions previously discussed, the B‑21 can threaten military and war-making infrastructure throughout mainland China. The B‑21 could linger deep inland, surveil terrain, and await updated targeting information to carry out additional strikes or pass targeting coordinates to other networked platforms.”
The assertion that B-21s could operate deep inside Chinese territory and linger there is a major – if currently unverifiable – hint at its A2AD penetrating prowess. Bingen suggests that a fleet of B-21s raises fundamental questions for China’s military planners and leadership, bolstering its deterrent potential.
With optional conventional or nuclear payloads with precision standoff capability and deep underground penetration, the B-21 could hold highly sensitive Chinese military infrastructure at risk and likewise threaten its burgeoning Naval fleet in blue water.
Like his co-authors, Bowie points to substantial unrefueled range for the bomber which, if the approximations in the paper are accurate, could lie in the region of 4,500 to 6,500 nautical miles (or more) despite being smaller than the B-2. That could allow it to reach targets from unpredictable points on the map without the giveaway of aerial refueling rendezvous.
These and other assertions in the paper regarding the flexibility of the manned (or potentially unmanned) bomber and its synergy with other legs of the U.S. nuclear triad (missiles, submarines) as well as conventional combined arms present a forceful rationale for buying it in numbers.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, makes a cost and sustainment argument for acquiring more B-21s using the B-2 for comparison.
Adjusted for inflation,” she says, “the average procurement unit cost (APUC) of a single B‑2 was $1.38 billion, while the APUC of a B‑21 is an estimated $706 million, roughly half the price. But up-front purchase cost is only half the battle.”
While estimates of the B-21s sticker price differ as I have noted in previous articles, it would not have a high bar to clear in improving on the B-2’s operational cost and functionality.
Eaglen asserts that for every flight hour, “a B‑2 costs the Air Force anywhere between $110,000 and $150,000 plus an additional 60 hours of maintenance on the aircraft. Furthermore, B‑2s must be stored in specialized $5 million air-conditioned hangers that protect their stealth coating.”
We don’t know what the comparable operating costs of the B-21 will be, Ms. Eaglen says technical innovations have made its stealth coating easier and cheaper to maintain. “Northrop Grumman has continuously improved on its radar absorbent material coating, and its latest development will allow the aircraft to be maintained and housed on the flight line rather than in cooled hangers.”
She could add that such durability would dramatically widen the number of locations at which a larger fleet of B-21s could be based, complicating China or Russia’s responses further.
Obviously, buying in bulk allows for leveraging economies of scale, dropping the unit cost of each B-21 with a larger overall investment. The B-2 is in part crippled by the exorbitant cost of the ludicrously paltry 21 examples produced.
A larger buy could also help offset the deterrence-lacking fleet of just 133 B-52s, B-1s, B-2s and B-21s the Pentagon plans to have in place by 2033. To call the above force “irrelevant” given existing readiness rates and tactical reserve considerations is sheer understatement.
Verifying the capabilities hinted at in the Hudson Institute paper simply isn’t possible at present. But even if they represent a familiar argument from the U.S. defense establishment for enlarging acquisition of one of the weapons systems it favors, America’s strategic deterrence and armed forces have atrophied to such a disturbing extent that a bomber that looks smaller than an insect to radar looks pretty good right now.
