With our defense budget, sometimes it seems we don’t get an awfully lot of good stuff for it. Anything we do get ends up being paired down to not enough units as well. Been that way since the 80’s.
Ping
NGB?
It’s called the B-52..
just slap some bondo and super glue on ‘em and keep ‘em flying..
The Air Force in general, and ACC (and its predecessors) in particular have been run by fighter pilots since the end of the Viet Nam war. These guys are center-line thrust and air-supremacy fixated; penetration, strike and multi-engine platforms simply do not do it for them. Don’t even mention drones / UAVs in polite company. Like the French after the WWI, they are still fighting the last war. Or even, in this case, the one before that.
Frankly, I think most of the OSD civilians are, have been, and will be, full of it.
But — on this issue the OSD types are correct. Left to its own devices, the corporate AF will not, in this generation, expend budgetary assets on the development of a new, manned, weapons launching/delivery platform (bomber). Period. Full stop. The B52 is well past its sell-by date. And there are a pathetically few number of airworthy later generation platforms of this type. And they too, even considering upgrades, are all well out of date in technological terms.
Given the lead time for development of a major weapons system, it is significantly past time to do something about this. Or we will be caught short not too many years into the future. Most likely by the Chinese.