Is The B-2 Cost Efficient?

The Rockwell 8-1A firmly reflected the strategic penetration strategy of the late sixties, seventies and eighties, driven by the Russians’ inability to produce anything approaching an effective lookdown/shootdown air intercept radar/missile suite. First implemented in the F-111, this strategy involves terrain following penetration at several hundred feet AGL and 500kt class speeds, using sophisticated onboard jammers to deceive or jam defending radar based weapon systems.

With planned deployment by the late seventies, a fleet of 240 B-1As armed with free fall nukes and SRAM nuclear defence suppression missiles would have spearheaded SAC’s manned bomber force. However, this never materialised as the Carter administration promptly cancelled the program, committing to theStealthyATSin the long run and the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) in the shorter term.

The initial stated objective of the ATS program was the design of a stealth technology bomber with a Radar Cross Section (RCS) so low, that a radar based air defence system could neither detect it nor intercept it. Penetration would take place at medium to high altitudes, conferring advantages in standoff missile range, payload/radius performance and airframe fatigue life. Deployment was planned for the early 1990s.

However, the Carter administration’s strategy suffered fundamental limitations, as it failed to address the inevitable and expected Soviet development effort in Over The Horizon Backscatter (OTHB) radar, lookdown/shootdown radar and missiles and improving Soviet Airborne Early Warning (AEW) system design. Too many valuable strategic targets were so deep inside the USSR’s landmass that deep penetration would be required to hit them and the 8-52 would clearly not be up to the task by the late 1980s.

Ronald Reagan subsequently reinstated the 8-1 in its multirole Bravo model, legislating for a crash build of 100 airframes as a strategic gap filler until the ATS became combat capable. These aircraft were unlike the dual role 8-1A optimised for low altitude subsonic penetration on strategic and theatre missions, nuclear and conventional. The airframe program was a major success story, although much publicised difficulties have since emerged with the hi-band jamming subsystem of the aircraft’s massive 107 module Eaton/AIL ALQ-161 Electronic War fare system (refer TE March 1987). It is worth noting that the complaint is centred on the performance of a jammer subsystem conceptually designed in the late seventies against then known threats, and now deemed to be inadequate against the high density threat environment of the nineties. Other subsystems have also been subjected to hostile media coverage although in these instances the criticism cannot be technically substantiated.

While these events transpired, Northrop quietly worked away at the ATS. The aircraft was a four engined flying wing, shaped for minimum RCS and skinned with radar absorbent materials. The engineering of the ATS was a task of monumental proportions, as it involved the development of approximately 900 new skin and structural materials, associated manufacturing processes and component fabrication processes all in addition to the tasks of airframe, propulsion and system design.

The design of the airframe alone was itself no mean feat, as RCS was as important a parameter in the design as basic aerodynamics and structures. This required a fundamentally new approach in design, involving massive computer simulations and modelling of RCS and aerodynamics before any hardware could be prototyped.

Northrop invested over $US1bn in facilities and equipment to design and build the ATS. An F-111 program style strategy of building prototypes to production standards with production tooling was adopted, almost necessitated by the need for extreme accuracy, quoted as being within 9mm wingtip to wingtip.

The development program was kept black until 1989, when a limited release of information revealed more about the top secret program. Significantly the USAF revised the aircraft’s role in the mid eighties to include the low level penetration mission, probably in response to the Russian OTHB effort. This resulted in the complete redesign of the wing, which was said to have benefited the overall design in other areas at a cost of at least 12 months delay to first flight. The ATS was designed to Mil-Std-1760 to accommodate any conventional munition relevant to the aircraft’s mission. The 8-2A will thus carry a payload of 37,300lb of munitions with a quoted unrefuelled operating radius of 3,000nm and a single refuelled radius of 5,000nm.

Beyond any doubt the 8-2A is one of the aeronautical/systems engineering marvels of the century and a historical milestone of major proportions in integrated airframe/systems design.

Endorsement by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and strong support by trade journals in the US clearly illustrates that this perception is shared by industry experts, it is therefore all the more interesting that this aircraft is subject to such sustained political attack.

We will therefore attempt to summarise and discuss the respective cases for and against the aircraft to place the debate in some perspective.

The Case for the B-2

The USSR has now deployed a generation of true lookdown/ shootdown fighter aircraft – the MiG-29 Fulcrum, Su-27 Flanker and MiG-31 Foxhound, supported by capable Mainstay AEW and OTHB. These are backed by a new generation of tactical and strategic SAMs, the SA-10, SA-11 and SA-12 all of which have high kill probabilities against low flying targets. Additionally, the adoption of modern digital signal processing techniques over the coming decade will further consolidate these capabilities Soviet economic reforms may be unsuccessful and as a result, a return to hardline Stalinism may occur with a resulting improvement in the ability to deploy new technologies. To add to SAC’s commitments, many Third World nations are acquiring substantial military capabilities with modern Western and Eastern Bloc equipment (eg India).

Against these potential threats SAC can muster a force of about 150 B-52G, 100 B-52H and 97 B-1B. By the late 1990s these aircraft will be readily detectable and vulnerable to fighter attack. Their considerable jamming capability may be defeated by newer radar and optical fire control technology. In a protracted conventional or nuclear conflict the force would be depleted well before substitute aircraft could be manufactured.

In this threat scenario there are two major ways in which SAC can respond. The first is by deploying greater numbers of advanced versions of existing aircraft, or by a major technological leap to bypass the existing/projected threat. The ATB with its very low RCS does the latter. By virtue of low RCS the ATB should defeat all Soviet radar based weapon systems in place, thus defeating not only the current generation of equipment but also cancelling out 50 years of cumulative PVO-S infrastructure development.

ATBs equipped with defence suppression weapons (Anti Radiation Missiles, standoff bombs, etc) could thus open up corridors through PVO defences allowing the 8-1 and 8-52 to penetrate to otherwise inaccessible targets. The ability of the ATB to penetrate undetected could also be utilised to attack very high value and well defended strategic targets such as nuclear warfighting command posts and Launch Control Centres (LCC), or alternately to search for and destroy mobile ICBMs which cannot be targeted by conventional SLBMs, ICBMs or Cruise Missiles. In the opening phases of a

nuclear conflict the ability to cripple the opponent’s command and control network can determine the outcome of the engagement, while destroying otherwise secure mobile ICBMs in turn cripples the second strike retaliatory force.

In a theatre role the ATB would be well suited to one-off surprise raids such as the Libyan strike, reducing the number of aircraft required to a handful of B-2As and their supporting tankers, all flying from the continental United States. This aspect of using the B-2A should not be underestimated, as the US has few allies with the commitment of the UK or Australia, as evidenced by the Libyan exercise. The aircraft’s range and sensor/weapons capability will also allow it to provide heavy bombing and minelaying support for US Navy units operating against coastal or maritime targets, much like the B-52G does today.

In summary, the ATB should offer the capability to defeat the current and past generations of radar based equipment thus forcing the USSR to completely rebuild its air defence infrastructure and inventory. To this must be added a substantial increase in the degrees of freedom available to the theatre and strategic strike planner, who can hit heavily defended targets with a minimum of support aircraft thus improving the chance of surprise and success while reducing the likelihood of losing airframes. Production of the ATB will provide a materials and fabrication technology base for the next generation of tactical aircraft, which will thus be able to incorporate stealth technologies at competitive costs. The modest number of ATB airframes planned will not require major changes to the SAC force structure with crews transitioning from the B-52G/H as the older airframes are phased out.

The Case Against the B-2

The case against the 8-2derives from several arguments. The first argument is that Soviet economic reforms will lead to a more benign government in the USSR and thus there is little need for the deployment of an aircraft specifically targeted at defeating the Soviet’s largest single infrastructure item. Another major argument raised is that the aircraft, if capable of performing its stealthy penetration role against high value targets, would be destabilising as it could encourage the US to execute a first strike at Russian command/control/communications facilities in any confrontation of that scale, thus precipitating a full scale nuclear exchange.

An argument from the opposite perspective is that the aircraft will be detectable by Russian air defences using OTHB and AEW, if not detecting the B-2s then definitely detecting their tankers, and thus the B-2A will offer little real additional capability in comparison with cheaper conventional aircraft. Given the immense overhead costs in the ATB program, critics have suggested that the money be better spent on more conventional aircraft. The principal alternative suggested has been the purchase of further 8-1Bs, with manufacturer Rockwell suggesting a unit cost of $US195m, although USAF estimates place this figure closer to $US228m, cf $US274m for a single B-2A.

Other alternative uses suggested for the money include tactical aircraft, considering that the estimated $US70bn could buy in the order of 1,500 F-15s or 2,500 F-16s. This argument has become very attractive with the Bush administration’s indiscriminate cuts to tactical aircraft procurement.

The remaining argument is one of whether the aircraft can successfully hunt down mobile ICBMs, with critics charging that the satellite/datalink targeting system is vulnerable to jamming and antisatellite (ASAT) weapons. As it cannot perform this important role, the expense of building it is unjustified.

Who is Right and Who is Wrong?

The arguments for and against the B-2A reflect more than anything else the politics of the United States DoD where the individual services, much like in Canberra, fight tooth and nail for a bigger slice of the budgetary pie. The B-2A is a big slice and has thus drawn much fire, particularly from politicians with constituencies which would serve to benefit from ATB program cancellation. To these vested interests must be added cashflow-hungry special interest groups and the opponents of US strategic power projection policy who are understandably concerned about the vast increase in military power afforded by the aircraft.

The case for the B-2A, key arguments of which have been stated by the USAF, is derived from 50 years of cumulative experience in air defence system penetration techniques. The arguments are both technically sound (refer TE May 1987, and references [1],[2]) and a direct extension of existing Western air power doctrine. A very important point to stress here is that total radar invisibility is not necessary for the ATB to be successful in its role, primarily as a result of the Jam/Signal equation universally ignored by lay observers.

Reducing the RCS of an aircraft will reduce detection range to an inverse fourth power, while reducing the jammer burn-through range to an inverse square. The latter result is of major importance because the effectiveness of any jammer carried by a stealthy aircraft will be substantially enhanced, more so than any gain in detection range performance. A major reduction in RCS in the upper (H,I,J) bands, combined with the use of jammers and carriage of standoff weapons will defeat those radar based weapons which are now becoming effective against the established B-52 and B-1B. The margin by which the ATB defeats existing defences will be a measure of its longevity.

It must be noted that detection by OTHB(HF) and low-band (VHF/UHF) radar may be of limited benefit to a defending side if a stealthy penetrator can defeat hi-band (ie H,I,J) fire control radars as the defender has lost the means of shooting down the aircraft, whether by fighter or SAM.

The impact of the ATB upon the PVO will consequently be enormous. Former US Defence Secretary James Schlesinger is quoted as follows: “(The ATB) makes obsolescent $200bn worth of Soviet air defences”. What is often overlooked is that the sum represents a cumulative effort over several decades of a somewhat stronger Soviet economy.

Defeating the ATB will require development of new radar and optical fire control technology and deploying this technology, no mean feat by any standards and probably requiring 1-2 decades of effort to implement. The drain upon a weakened Soviet economy will necessarily slow down offensive weapons programs, a major benefit within itself.

The cost argument against the B-2 deserves some examination. Published figures indicate $US23bn spent on Research and Development, with 132 x $US274m = cca $US40bn for production with a total program cost estimated at $US70bn in 1999 US dollars, this including some SAC infrastructure and support. Critics of the program have concentrated upon a resulting $US500m+ program unit cost, claiming the ATB is the most expensive aircraft ever built. This however represents no more than politically inspired creative accounting, as it amortises all stealth materials and production technology infrastructure costs against the B-2 alone.

The reality is that much of this technology will appear in the ATA, probably the ATF and certainly other future tactical and strategic programs. A more reasonable costing is (flyaway cost averaged at $US274m) + (B-2A specific R ts)/132 + (R ts on items usable in other stealth programs)x(fraction of said items used in B-2 program)/132. This makes some allowance for the R ts carried currently by the B-2 which are not being charged against future projects.

Needless to say this figure will yield a costing closer to the flyaway cost than the commonly quoted $US500m figure. A cost within 20% to 40% of the seventies technology B-1 is hardly an unreasonable figure. The argument in favour of purchasing more B-1B/C aircraft thus loses some of its potency, as the B-2’s gains in radius performance and penetration capability balance the cost savings, from which must be subtracted the acquisition and infrastructure costs of additional tankers to support the enlarged B-1 force.

The cost vs benefit argument will thus have a tendency to devolve into the argument of whether the dollars could be better spent in other areas, such as tactical aviation. Assuming that were the case and the $US70bn were assigned to TAC, it would

b _ e unlikely to translate into the 1,000+ additional tactical jets

simply due to the need for a massive infrastructure upgrade to support the additional air frames, systems and aircrew. It may well be strategically unsound to invest heavily in aircraft of a technological generation which has been matched if not beaten by a principal adversary, given that the Advanced Tactical Fighter (F-14/F-15 replacement) and Advanced Tactical Aircraft (A-6/F-111 replacement) are due this coming decade.

To place this argument in further perspective the USAF have furnished some interesting figures on the relative impact of strategic bomber procurement on the US defence budget. B-52 purchases between 1952-61 absorbed 1. 4% of the total budget, B-18 purchases between 1982-86 absorbed 1. 6% of the budget while B-2 procurement is projected to account for 1. 3% of the budget between 1987-96.

The cost arguments levelled at the B-2 program are thus in perspective of questionable weight, given that SAC will regardless have to replace a substantial fraction of its B-52 force with new aircraft over the next decade or so to prevent a shortfall in strategic bombing capability. This hasn’t however deterred political opponents of the program, particularly influential Democrats Levin and Aspin who have sought the cancellation or at least cutting down of the program. The latter has been interpreted as a means to the former, as the reduction in the number of airframes purchased will increase the program unit cost to the point where it will no longer be defensible politically, resulting in program cancellation.

This of course leaves the remaining arguments concerning the B-2’s ability to perform its mission and the alternative position concerning its potential destabilising effect.

The latter argument has been raised by critics against virtually every new strategic weapon deployed. Where it has succeeded in killing a program or delaying deployment, the Soviets invariably closed the technology gap and thus brought the strategic balance closer to equilibrium and arguably instability. The simplistic viewpoint that balance will deter aggression is very popular, although it appears that in practice a major imbalance in capability is a better means of preventing confrontation, for obvious reasons. It follows that this is a rather lame argument.

To the former argument the USAF have stated that the primary mission of the aircraft is “to penetrate the most sophisticated Soviet defences and threaten their most valued targets, whatever they may be”. In practice this would involve the destruction of ICBM silos, Launch Control Centres and Command Posts, with a secondary role of destroying mobile ICBMs and an additional conventional theatre/maritime role.

Vocal critics such as the Washington Union of Concerned Scientists and the Federation of American Scientists are quoted as criticising the B-2’s ability to perform its ‘primary mission’ of hunting down mobile ICBMs and its vulnerability to PVO defences. An alternative suggested has been the purchase of more B-1Bs with advanced cruise missiles and mobile ICBMs to balance current Soviet capability.

If these quotes are accurate the nature of the criticism illustrates that the critics may not fully understand the target of the criticism. The B-2 was clearly conceived as a multi-role penetrator with a major role to play in both strategic and theatre air operations and if anything its more esoteric nuclear roles have been pushed by the USAF to strengthen the case for the aircraft by emphasising those capabilites unavailable in any other aircraft. The USAF have openly stated that the B-2A is a ‘multi-role bomber’ which “carries a substantial (nuclear ie B-61, B-83, SAAM 1/11 and conventional ie Mk36, Mk62, Mk82, M-117, naval mines) bomb load, has excellent range and would be a superb bomber without its low observable characteristics”. It follows therefore that even if the aircraft cannot hunt down mobile ICBMs, it can still be utilised in a wide range of roles and thus this argument for cancellation is insufficient.

The strategy of isolating a single aspect of an issue and attempting to pick holes in it is a well established debating tactic, commonly practiced by politicians for whom it is daily bread and butter. The author however holds the view that this kind of debate can be dangerously irresponsible as it isolates many of the real issues from their native context. It is thus sad to see highly credible specialists in the hard sciences (or other disciplines for that) indulge in this sort of gaming with no respect for the professional expertise in defence penetration, electronic warfare, operations research, air war strategy and ultimately tactical airmanship required to clearly understand the implications of a program as complex and as far reaching as the ATB.

The author cannot help but recall a discussion some years ago with a research scientist who was adamant that chrome plating and polishing an ICBM would defeat all Star Wars laser beam weapons fired at the ICBM. And how joyous a world it would be if all things were so neat and simple . . .

This digression serves to stress the point that it can be most dangerous to judge the merits of any major issue on the basis of any single aspect alone, reducing a complex issue down to naive arguments understandable by absolute laymen cannot result in an objective debate.

The high profile B-2 program is becoming the victim of this problem above all. Critics with political axes to grind manipulating ‘expert’ observers who lack any relevant technical knowledge, lay commentators isolating attention grabbing aspects of the program and, to add to the chorus, irresponsible and often hostile coverage by the lay media. We have seen it all before with the F-111, we have seen a lesser repeat with the F-18 and more recently the B-1B. The question remains. What is it about high technology high profile programs that invites so many laymen to assert with so much vigour criticism of so little relevance?

As a final thought on the matter, would all of these ‘expert’ critics maintain their hostile point of view, were they strapped into a creaking, bomb-laden B-52G at 400ft AGL inbound to Sverdlovsk?

FURTHER READING:

(1) Fitts R E, ‘The Strategy of Electromagnetic Conflict’, Peninsula Publishing, 1980.

(2) Ball R E, ‘The Fundamentals of Aircraft Combat Survivability Analysis and Design’, Ch. 6, Fig. 6. 25, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1985.

The author highly recommends the latter title as it provides a very readable overview of electronic warfare/defence penetration issues.