The Pentagon's New Toy
Everything about the new B-21 bomber is secret, including how much it costs, what it does, why we need it...
Another letter to the Pentagon
To: The people in that big five-sided building where they burn all our tax money.
From: The Palo Verde Alpaca Ranch and Chicken Farm.
Date: Alpacas don’t use calendars, and apparently neither do you.
Dear Dingleberries,
The alpacas have noticed that you, while waiting for you inevitable future employment as Lockheed Martin and/or Northrup Grumman “consultants,” have been spending our money like drunk teenagers raiding a GameStop with a stolen credit card. We can only assume you did not read our previous missive on the disaster that is the typical Air Force acquisition program.
The recent video of a nose wheel snapping off an F-35 during routine towing on an airfield has done little to increase our confidence in your ability to source a usable airframe. Given it’s the third1 reported instance of this same failure, we’re beginning to wonder if you’re paying attention to anything besides your Nintendo.
In between snacking on Doritos and Red Bull you’ve started another New Thing that will cost us piles of money while probably doing little more than grace the interiors of some pricey, climate controlled hangars.
The New Thing we’re writing to you about is the B-21 Super Double Secret Wonder Bomber, recently “unveiled” at some cutesy little ceremony in which no one asked any questions worth hearing the answers to.
Since you refuse to tell us anything useful about your latest project to guarantee lucrative industry jobs for “retiring” Pentagon staff, we’re going to take a look at our current, operational, Big Bomb Dropping Thingies and try to make some guesses about the scope of the disaster we are inevitably facing.
B-52 Stratofortress
The last bomber program that can claim to approach a reasonable balance of cost and capability, this plane is so big the image barely fit on our computer screen:
First operational in the 1950s, this design is now 70 years old and will be approaching a century before final retirement. These poor planes are so old they can actually be heard groaning when their wheels touch down.
With a cost of only about $110 million each in today’s dollars, you bought 742 ariframes to serve as our chief nuclear deterrent during the Cold War. But today our standard airborne nuclear weapon is the svelte (700 lbs.) B61 nuclear bomb.
Since almost any plane in the inventory that carries bombs can also carry a B61, we no longer needed hundreds of B-52s and currently have a mere 62 still hanging around.
But apparently these still work quite well given the Air Force keeps flying them. In fact, all the maintenance you’ve done on them means the remaining airframes have more service life left than the plane that was supposed to replace them.
B-1 Lancer (The Bone)
First operational in 1986 there were 240 initially planned when the program was started in the 1970s (and then cancelled due to cost overruns), but about 100 were actually built after Reagan restarted the program. (For you youngsters, Reagan was President from 1980 - 1988). This final number is surprisingly close to the original goal by today’s standards (an amazing 40% of planned production!)
The Air Force tells us they cost $317 million each but the last update to that was in 2016 so maybe $400 million today? We’ll just go with “a s***ton” for the estimate.
Interlude: we hate Wikipedia
Per the unpaid stenographers at Wikipedia the top speed of the B-1B is 721 knots at 40,000 feet and 608 knots at 200 feet (so essentially at sea level). They also list the top speed by Mach number, as Mach 1.25.
First point of order: the speed of sound varies with temperature and pressure but is around 667 knots. 721/667 is 1.08, not 1.25. Neither top speed claim is referenced so we have no idea why these numbers contradict each other.
We assume the Air Force knows the top speed of their own plane, which they list as “900-plus mph (Mach 1.2 at sea level).” The Air Force can handle basic math so 900 mph really is Mach 1.2, and Wikipedia at least managed to bracket the correct number. But the interesting part of the error in Wikipedia is the altitude.
There’s a big difference in top speed numbers for aircraft at sea level versus top speed at high altitude because air density matters a lot. Mach 1.2 at sea level is very fast - about the same as an F-15. So listing “top speed” of only Mach 1.25 (without a corresponding altitude) is almost certainly wrong.
This is why we never, ever, use Wikipedia as an authoritative source for anything except a gauge of the media bias in current events.
Back to the bomber, the Air Force has decided to start retiring them early to save money.
In February, the Air Force announced that it will begin retiring the B-1B Lancer from service by divesting 17 bombers from the fleet of 62. (Business Insider2)
It would be nice to keep these all operational, but like everything else in the inventory they’re all worn out.
Mechanically, the constant deployments and bombing missions have taken a toll on the Lancers. In 2017, the Air Force reported that only half of the 62 bombers were combat-ready. In 2019, Air Force Global Strike Command said only seven were fully mission-capable. (Business Insider)
B-2 Spirit
We assume the name “Spirit” was a typo and you meant “spirits” given that anyone asked to approve the budget for this thing likely needed a bit of liquoring up first.
You told us you needed up to 150, but in a process that’s become Standard Operating Procedure for procurement the expenses ran so out of control that we could only afford 21 - so in the future we’ll just divide by seven whenever you give us a target number.
Moreover, the Defense Department has a long history of underestimating how much its major aircraft acquisition programs will cost. In the 1980s, the B-2 bomber program overran its cost so badly that a mere 20 aircraft emerged from a $40 billion program intended to buy 135 to 150 aircraft. (Defense One3)
Interlude: Next Generation Bomber
B-21 Raider
Since your goal is about 100 airframes for the new flying thing that’s so expensive we can’t afford to fly it, we assume the final delivery will actually be about 14 planes. We strongly urge that you make this the number of prototypes so we can be done with the whole program prior to serial production.
And what are the specifications? The plane will have either two or four engines, it will carry either more than or less than 30,000 pounds of munitions (still not clear) and the Not To Exceed cost is listed as $652 million per plane.
Do we look stupid? I guess most of us are alpacas so maybe that question doesn’t have quite have the impact it would, if we were all human. But still, the idea that you think that we think that labeling a cost number “Not To Exceed” means it won’t be exceeded is ludicrous. The only thing we can be absolutely certain of is this cost will be exceeded.
Key Facts
We simply could not resist commenting on this. Northrup Grumman has provided us a list of “key facts” about the B-21 on a page titled, unsurprisingly, Here are 10 key facts about the Northrop Grumman’s B-21 Raider.
The alpacas translated each one, and as you’ve probably already guessed there are no facts among the key facts.
1. Sixth Generation.
We’ve been doing stealth for 30 years and five generations, so this is the sixth. The plane will be super critical for something important, in places that are super dangerous.
2. Stealth.
It will be super-duper stealthy. Not sure why this wasn’t considered part of item 1.
3. Backbone of the Fleet.
Since the Air Force is dumping most of the other planes, this new bomber will be most of the fleet. They have “advanced sensors and weapons” and can carry nukes.
4. A Digital Bomber.
WTF? Something about how being “digital” means lower production risk (?) and modern sustainment (?) practices.
5. Cloud Technology.
All the data is in a cloud so Google can totally f*** with the new bomber. Some idiot also thinks “cloud-based digital infrastructure” will be better. We have no idea why, but it will be “more sustainable.”
6. Open Architecture.
The software can be updated so the plane can have capabilities added, like in-flight laundry service. Also, it will be able to meet “the evolving threat” for decades. We have no idea what “threat” they’re talking about.
7. A National Team.
They employ people in enough different Congressional districts to ensure the program isn’t cancelled. This is actually normal practice nowadays and it’s a big reason why the F-35 is an un-cancellable disaster.
8. Sustainment.
More blah blah blah about sustainment. It’s like someone just learned this is a word.
9. Global Reach.
The new bomber is super important for the future of our strategic something or other. It seems like we’ve covered this one already, and we’re just getting redundant.
10. Raider.
An actual combat pilot named Doolittle back in WWII led a raid that included just 16 planes but “changed the course of World War II.” So we’re using the name Raider to make sure everyone associates the new plane with one that worked. (The planes flown in the Doolittle raid were B-25 Mitchell bombers, also named for someone worth more than every current high ranking officer in the Pentagon.)
Most of these planes seem not to work
In reviewing these planes we were surprised (although we shouldn’t have been) by how much time they spend in maintenance.
The more complicated the plane, the less ready it is to fly. About 60 percent of the B-52 fleet has been fully ready to fly at any one time over the past five years, John Tirpak recently reported in Air Force Magazine. And while 60 percent is a D- in most schools, it sure beats the Fs earned by the B-1 (40 percent) and B-2 (35 percent). (Pogo4)
You guys barely even fly the B-2 and they’re still in constant maintenance. Do you disassemble and count every nut and bolt between flights?
Extrapolating from here, of the 14 B-21 bombers we’re now expecting to be the final number, and with a mission ready rate of less than 35%, we anticipate having four available for use at any one time.
This will at least make it easy to keep track of them.
Program Review
Since you refuse to tell us peons anything useful about the B-21 program (besides the types of promises that you’ve never kept in the past), we’ll use existing planes to try and figure out what this exciting new program will actually deliver.
B-52 Stratofortress
At $110 million each we built 742 of them (so a total spend of $82 billion today) over a ten year period, and in return had an big fleet of useful airplanes, some of which will be still be flying long after we’re all dead.
It’s an impressive sum, but not surprising given their importance (back in the 50s and 60s) as a nuclear deterrent in the age before small, cheap nukes.
B-1B Lancer
At $400 million each for 100 planes this one cost us $40 billion dollars - which sounds like a big improvement until we notice that these planes don’t do seven and a half times as much as their predecessors.
This is a price increase of 4x from the previous plane and a reduction in planned build from 240 to 100. They’re all worn out now, though, so maybe we should have just built some more new B-52s.
B-2 Spirit
This time our $40 billion only bought us 21 planes. They require special hangers and cost a fortune to maintain. But they’re great for fly-overs at sporting events so we’re really getting some value from these.
This time the price increase is 5x from the previous design and the planned build went from an ambiguous 130-150 down to a disappointing 21.
B-21 Raider
The only thing being raided here is the defense budget. The price per plane seems to increase in predictable increments:
B-52: $110 million
B1-B: $400 million
B-2: $2 billion
These are inflation adjusted dollars - A B-2 cost us almost 20 times as much as a B-52.
For the New Hotness you’ve already suggested $700 million each for 100 planes, which is a $70 billion dollar expenditure. So our estimate of cost per plane is somewhere between $5 billion ($70 billion divided by 14 planes) and $10 billion (the cost of the previous thing times 5).
Whether the total cost is $70 billion or $140 billion, in the end, will depend on the size of the ball sacks on our Congress members so we’re not optimistic about the smaller number. The saddest part of this analysis is that it’s still many times cheaper than the F-35 program. Please make these so the wheels don’t fall off, though.
We assume this thing will be built from gold-plated diamonds and decorated with rare artworks in order to hit what’s starting to look like a minimum expected cost rather than a maximum.
No wonder one of the secrets in this program is the cost of the plane.
2018: https://theaviationist.com/2018/08/22/f-35a-nose-gear-collapses-after-parking-following-emergency-landing-at-eglin-air-force-base/
2020: https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2020/06/08/f-35-landing-gear-collapses-after-landing-at-hill/
Update! 15 Dec 2022: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/15/f-35-ejection-video/
https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-retiring-b1b-bombers-keeping-one-for-testing-2021-4
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/05/B-21-stealth-bomber-stealthy-price-tag/148372/
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2018/02/bombers-away-oops-and-back-again