Technology and stealth are great force multipliers. We proved that in 1991, when the first stealth attack fighter, Lockheed’s F-117 Nighthawk, went into action against Iraqi forces in the first Gulf War.
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The Nighthawk is now obsolete, replaced by far more capable stealth aircraft, including the B-2 Spirit bomber, and the F-22 and F-35 fighters. The United States still leads the world in this kind of tech, and now the Air Force has released some more photos of the new Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider stealth bomber, which takes all of this to the next level:
The U.S. Air Force released new pictures of its B-21 Raider, a nuclear-armed stealth bomber currently going through testing.
The new photos show the B-21 conducting tests, including flight tests and taxiing, as well as a rarely seen full-frontal view of the new aircraft stored under a hangar at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
The aircraft, which is set to replace the B-1 and B-2 bombers in the mid-2020s, is on track to meet its timeline for release, according to Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Andrew Hunter, who told Congress this month that the test program was “proceeding well.”
The test program, then, is proceeding as planned, and that’s good; this is one area that the Air Force, and the United States, would do well to stay on the leading edge of the wave because China and Russia would both love to take the lead from us.
But the real concern here isn’t the stealth capabilities or the tech in general; the real concern is the crews.
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Tech only works if the operators are dialed in, all the way. But the Air Force Academy has “transgender” speakers lecturing (hectoring) cadets, and the Air Force, in their own words, has made “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) a priority; see for yourself.
This isn’t how a military structure builds capability. The military isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, a jobs program; it’s a vital function for the preservation of the republic, whose sole mission is to keep people from other nations from harming us or taking our stuff. The primary purpose of the military – all the forces – is to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect, and to permanently revoke the birth certificates of any bad guys who would harm America. That’s the mission; anything that enhances that mission is good, while anything that impedes it is bad.
DEI, being divisive by its very nature, can only impede that critical mission.
The B-21, if it lives up to expectations, will be a game-changer, a vital piece of tech that will have bad guys looking at their air forces and starting to sweat a little, and that’s a good thing. It worked in 1991, when after the second day or so of air operations, Iraqi pilots who had been contending against F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons were looking at their aircraft and seeing coffins. But for this new tech to work, we’ll have to have the best crews, which means that the Air Force had damn well better change some of their operating assumptions and bring in, not the most diverse crews, but the best crews.
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Northrop Grumman has a page on the B-21 here.
Also: Note that the B-21 is scheduled to replace the venerable “Bone” – the B-1 Lancer bomber – as well as the B-2 Spirit. There is no mention of doing away with that grand old bomb hauler, the B-52 “Buff,” which came into service in 1952 – over 70 years ago – and is expected to stay in service for some time. If you need a few square miles of countryside rendered into dust and rubble in a hurry, the Buff will sure get that done, and it has a 100 percent rate for accuracy: Every bomb dropped from a B-52 always hits the ground, providing a great example of accuracy by volume. And “Arc Light” means never having to say you’re sorry.