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From: dela@thermal.ee.rochester.edu (Del Armstrong)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: B52 Replacement (WAS Re: B2 vs. F117A )
Message-ID: <1991Mar4.204134.4041@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 4 Mar 91 20:41:34 GMT
References: <1991Feb26.011655.5357@cbnews.att.com> <1991Feb28.051210.8528@cbnews.att.com>
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From: dela@thermal.ee.rochester.edu (Del Armstrong)
In article <1991Feb28.051210.8528@cbnews.att.com>, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
> >From: Mary Shafer <shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov>
> >A number of people called me on the error, but not one seemed to
> >understand that "little" bombers (F-111, F117) and "big" bombers
> >(B-52, B-2) each have their own role and that we need both types
> >of aircraft.  
> 
> However, it's not entirely clear that the B-52 replacement needs to be
> as expensive as the B-2. 
> [Henry's comments on the B-2 as a skud killer deleted. -DA]
> I actually agree with Mary that a new big bomber is needed.  But it needs
> to be something that the US can afford in substantial numbers, so that it
> can be risked in combat in something less than an all-out nuclear war.

I agree, completely. We'll always need to be able to drop lots of 
conventional bombs on somebody ... possibly somebody far away from 
where our bombers are based.

Every time this comes up, I have the same knee-jerk 
reaction ... what's so dumb about designing a heavy bomber
variant of the Boeing 747 (or whichever big "mass produced"
people hauler you happen to like)?

If this is a bad idea, will somebody please put me out of my
misery, and explain why? :-)


	Del Armstrong
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