Long-range bombers: How many does the U.S. need?.

The U.S. campaign in Afghanistan has added fuel to a long-smoldering debate in the nation's capital about the future of the Air Force's long-range bomber fleet.

Most strike operations were conducted by Navy tactical jets from carriers in the Arabian Sea. But about 10 percent were by B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers. These heavy bombers expended more than 80 percent of the tonnage dropped thus far, according to Air Force officials.

During the first weeks of the assault, U.S.-led air forces flew more than 2,000 sorties against Taliban and al Qaeda targets. They dropped more than 6,000 bombs, ranging from cluster bombs, which break up into hundreds of smaller bomblets while in the air, to 5,000-pound "bunker busters," which burrow deep underground before exploding. In early November, the Air Force began dropping 15,000-pound "daisy cutter" bombs for the first time since the Vietnam War.

At first, the attacks concentrated on command and control elements in bunkers, airfields, tunnels and caves, said Air Force Gen. Richard B. Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff The bombers were particularly useful, officials noted, because they can carry large loads over long distances, they are not reliant on airbases in the politically unstable Middle East, and they can drop their bombs from great heights, safe from enemy antiaircraft fire.

Then, in late October, the lumbering B-52s--the largest bombers in the U.S. inventory-began engaging in "long-stick" or carpet bombing against Taliban troop concentrations in Northern Afghanistan in preparation for possible ground assaults by opposition forces.

All of the bombers flew great distances to make their attacks. The stealthy, batwinged B-2s cruised from their headquarters at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., flying nonstop for as long as 44 hours, with pilot and copilot raking turns at the controls, to hit their targets. Afterwards, they landed at the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, refueled, changed crews and returned home. The B-52s and B-1s flew out of Diego Garcia, a 12 to 15-hour roundtrip.

The bombers did nor deploy to the immediate vicinity of Afghanistan for a number of reasons, officials said. First, the United States has access to few bases in the area that have the long runways and security required for bombers. Most U.S. allies in the region--such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia--have large Moslem populations who are sympathetic to the Taliban, and they are reluctant to provide bases for the United States to use in this conflict. The United States is exploring the idea of using former Soviet airfields in Central Asian republics, such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazhakstan, but these airfields have nor been used for years and may be in considerable disrepair.

Second, unlike tactical combat aircraft, the bombers are capable of transoceanic flight, particularly when refueled. The B-2s refueled in mid-air six times between Whiteman and Diego Garcia.

When a Bomber Lifts Off

"You accomplish an amazing feat each time a B-2 bomber lifts off from the plains of Missouri and crosses oceans and continents, undetected, to deliver justice from the skies over Afghanistan," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told personnel from Whiteman's 509th Bomber Wing, which flies the aircraft.

Still another reason that the bombers operate from the safest possible havens is that they are considered a limited national resource. While the Air Force has thousands of tactical combat aircraft, capable of short-range strike missions, it has no more than 208 long-range bombers in its active and reserve forces, and many of them are more than 40 years old. They include:

* 94 long-winged B-52s, which were first deployed in 1955.

* 93 supersonic, swept-wing B-1s, which entered service in 1985.

* 21 B-2s, which were introduced in 1993.

The Defense Department has had little to say about how well these aircraft are or are nor performing in Afghanistan. However, this summer--before Sept. 11--the Pentagon announced plans to reduce its bomber fleet substantially and upgrade the remaining aircraft.

In June, Rumsfeld proposed to cur the numbers of B-1s by one third-from 93 to 60--and to use the estimated $165 million in savings to improve the remaining aircraft. The reduction would close down an Air Force B-1s wing in Idaho and Air National Guard units in Georgia and Kansas.

The B-1 cutbacks are necessary to improve performance, said Air Force Secretary James G. Roche. "The B-1 aircraft's mission-capable rates have remained between 51 and 62 percent during fiscal year 2000 and fiscal year 2001, below the goal of 75 percent," he told a Senate armed services subcommittee.

"The B-1 aircraft missed Operation Desert Storm, because of its poor reliability and limited survivability in high-threat environments," Roche said. "Furthermore, only Block-D modified aircraft were available for deployment to Operation Allied Force. Although five aircraft dropped 20 percent of all bombs over Kosovo, they could only be deployed during the second week of the war following suppression of enemy air defenses."

The money saved during the planned consolidations would be applied "to upgrade the remaining B-1 aircraft and improve both its mission-capable rates and modernize its precision weaponry, self-protection systems and combat reliability," Roche said. "The Air Force believes strongly that this plan will make the B-1 bomber into the survivable, effective, long-range precision strike platform in this century that had been envisioned when it was built in the last century."

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper agreed. "When we go down to 60, we have more combat capability," he told a recent DFI International seminar. "We have 60 airplanes that we will send to war, versus 93 that we wouldn't."

For the past seven years, Roche noted, the Air Force has attempted to cut 18 B-52s from Minot Air Force base, N.D., and use the savings to help modernize the rest of the B-52 fleet.

"The Air Force believes that maintaining 76 B-52 aircraft meets the current force-structure requirement called for in today's national-security strategy, especially as we see it principally as a standoff, conventional cruise-missile carrier," Roche said.

"To keep the B-52 relevant in the near future, we need to modernize this aircraft," he said, citing the need for improvements in avionics, situational awareness, electronic countermeasures, the Link 16 datalink, advanced weapons integration into the internal bomb bay, global air-traffic management and advanced munitions capability.

"Continued aggressive modernization and investment will allow the B-52 to remain an effective long-range strike platform through 2040," Roche said.

The B-2 received a good report card for its performance in Kosovo, where "each B-2 destroyed multiple targets with an 83 percent hit rate, all while flying combat missions from Whiteman Air Force Base," Roche said.

20-Year-Old Design

"However, the 20-plus-year old B-2 design requires continued modernization to remain effective, including the latest secure UHF/VHF communications, in-flight datalink, in-flight replanning and advanced integration of follow-on hard target and other munitions."

As might be expected, the planned cutbacks ran immediately into flak on a variety of fronts. On Capitol Hill, a group of senators from states that would be hit by the B-1 reductions sent Rumsfeld a joint letter attacking the proposal. "The B-1 has the largest and most diverse weapons carrying capability of any aircraft in the Air Force inventory," said the senators. "At this time, we believe the decision to cut B-1B force structure by more than one third is premature at best."

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., was quick to defend the B-52s based in his state at Minot Air Force Base. Most B-52s are based at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., making Minot potentially vulnerable in any cutback. "Minot is one of just two B-52 bases in the nation, and experience tells us that our versatile, reliable B-52s are among the first aircraft to be deployed in conflicts around the globe," Conrad said. "It makes sense to keep our forces based in multiple locations. Further closings would put all our eggs in just a few baskets. That's a bad idea."

Attempting to placate the lawmakers, Roche assured them that the airbases in their states would receive new missions, with no net loss in personnel. In mid-October, for example, the Georgia delegation received word that the 116th Bomber Wing at Warner Robins Air Force Base, south of Macon, would be replaced with the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or JSTARS.

JSTARS uses a modified Boeing 707 aircraft to provide an airborne, stand-off range, surveillance and target acquisition radar and command and control center. It provides a picture of the conditions on the ground equivalent to that of the air situation provided by AWACS.

Meanwhile, interest is stirring concerning proposals to build additional B-2 bombers. In May, the B-2 manufacturer--Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corporation--submitted an unsolicited letter of offer to restart the production line.

Northrop proposed to build 40 new B-2s over the next 10 years--four per year--at a total cost of $29.5 billion, explained company spokesman Jim Hart. That would bring down the average cost per aircraft to $545 million in fiscal year 2000 dollars, Hart said.

Originally, the Air Force had intended to buy more than 100 B-2s, but it ended up ordering only 21. Because of all of the research and development expenses that went into the project, the average cost of each aircraft shot up to more than $1 billion.

Many Air Force leaders argued that the service should take advantage of this opportunity to expand the B-2 fleet. Retired Air Force Gen. Richard Hawley, former head of the Air Combat Command, told a Cato Institute forum, in Washington, D.C., that the service should add B-2s and retire its B-52s and B-1s.

"The bomber force ought to be one bomber," Hawley said. Now, he added, the Air Force has three platforms, which are becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to support.

The one bomber in the Air Force fleet should be the most survivable that is available, and for the next 15 to 20 years, that is the B-2, Hawley said.

"The bottom line is we don't need the B-52," he asserted. "We've got a hundred boats out there that can shoot cruise missiles. I say cede that mission to the Navy. They love it."

The B-1 "is an excellent airplane for today," Hawley said. "But it doesn't really have the reach of the B-52 or the B-2. Get rid of it."

Many in the Air Force and on Capitol Hill would like to see more B-2s, but their number does not include the Air Force secretary. "If we buy 40 more B-2s, I don't think we'll add one drop of swear to any enemy," Roche told the Washington Post. He noted that B-2s cannot fly at supersonic speeds, operate most safely at night, need climate-controlled hangars to protect their stealthy skins and are most effective against stationary targets.

Rather than buy more B-2s, Roche said that he would prefer to upgrade communications aboard F-15E fighter-bombers so that they can swoop in and hit mobile targets.

Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., a member of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, disagrees. Roche's position on the B-2 "is a terrible mistake," Dicks told the Defense Writers Group. "We ought to be buying at least another 10 or 20 of these tight now."

Another new bomber couldn't be ready until 2017 "or somewhere down the liner" at a cost of at least $40 billion "just to get it into production," Dicks said. Meanwhile, "for $3 or $4 billion, you can get this line reopened and build some more airplanes."

Air Force Heavy Bombers: How They Compare

Aircraft   B-1               B-2               B-52 (photo)

Number     93                21                94
Builder    Boeing            Northrop Grumman  Boeing
Wingspan   137 ft.           172 ft.           185 ft.
Speed      900-plus mph      High subsonic     650 mph
Range      Intercontinental  Intercontinental  8,800 miles
Unit Cost  $200 million      $1.3 billion      $74 million
Deployed   1985              1993              1955

Source: U.S. Air Force

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The Air Force's three long-range bombers carry a wide range of armaments. The B-2 and B-52 can deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons.

The B-1 does not have a nuclear capability, but it does have three internal weapons bays that can accommodate up to 84 Mk-82 general-purpose bombs or Mk-62 naval mines, 30 CBU cluster munitions or CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapons and up to 24 GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munition Global Positioning System-guided bombs or Mk-84 general-purpose bombs.

Each B-2 can carry a 40,000-pound payload of munitions, including up to 16 2,000-pound GPS-guided munitions or JDAMs.

The B-52 can deliver 70,000-pounds of mixed ordnance, including bombs, air-launched cruise missiles and Harpoon anti-ship and Have Nap missiles.