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The GBU-28 is a bunker buster bomb carried by B-2s. Israel has bought hundreds to use and fly in (w/ fighters) against Iran's nuclear and hardened facilities.
Israel has no B-2 bombers. It doesn't require a heavy bomber.
"The B-52 contributed to Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 (Afghanistan/Southwest Asia), providing the ability to loiter high above the battlefield and provide Close Air Support (CAS) through the use of precision guided munitions, a mission which previously would have been restricted to fighter and ground attack aircraft.[195] In late 2001, ten B-52s dropped a third of the bomb tonnage in Afghanistan.[196] B-52s also played a role in Operation Iraqi Freedom, which commenced on 20 March 2003 (Iraq/Southwest Asia). On the night of 21 March 2003, B-52Hs launched at least one hundred AGM-86C CALCMs at targets within Iraq.
A certain percentage of that activity falls under "smoke 'em if you got 'em." Everybody wants a piece of the action, and that happens a lot in the military when there's a war going on somewhere.
Maybe the people that make it are union and they have to be paid more so it's an expensive bomber.
The Air Force was very clever with the B-2 program. The Air Force made sure it had components built in every state of the union. No senator could vote against it with hurting his own constituents. That was deliberately planned.
So you can deliver twice the payload for a very small fraction of the price.
Don't forget the price to build the warships to linger within firing range, the increase in warships needed to store the increase of tomahawks needed in a region, etc.
Like I said, a large capacity bomber that is relatively low cost to other air planes is needed to replace the 60 year old fleet of b52's
An aegis class destroyer can carry 56 tomahawk cruise missiles, delivery 56k pounds of ordinance at the cost of 78 million dollars. A B52 can carry 70,000 pounds of guided ordinance at the cost of less than 1 million dollars.
The destroyer and the carrier group it supports is good for other purposes, though. The US needs more destroyers today than it needs more bombers.
Hello? The idiot in chief has spent the past 5 months trying to provoke nuclear powers Russia and China. O restarted the Cold War.
The irony is, with all the financial and political power now concentrated in NYC and DC, it would only take 2 nukes to destroy the system.
The vulnerability of concentrated power is concentrated power.
LOL. Power in the US is less concentrated than almost any other nation. First, as you mentioned, it takes knocking out two cities (and a single nuke won't do that with either city, btw). Most countries have their financial and political centers in one city.
Interestingly, the great benefit of the Y2K scare was proven on 9/11. Nuking either DC or NYC will cause a lot of pain, but those functions can be reconstituted elsewhere very quickly, with the most critical components already existing in redundancy.
More than that, despite right wing kvetching over growing federal power, it's still the states that maintain order and discipline in the US. Nuking DC won't cause national chaos.
You're funny. Yes I did live through the Cold War. I recall the Cuban missile crisis when another idiot Democrat almost got us all blown to smithereens. A few years later the Soviets had nuke laden subs parked off our shores.
You missed two, both occurring during Republican administrations:
I was in intel school during the Yom Kippur war, so all I remember about that was how nervous my instructors were. Ten years later, browsing the SAC history library, I read the details and got nervous myself.
But I was very much involved in Able Archer 83. For four days, SAC was planning furiously for real nuclear war just in case the Soviets did not stand down.
I think the answer most likely is that since the introduction of the ICBM the Air Force has been fighting touth and nail to preserve a role for the manned penetrating bomber. The idea of a stand-off system that does not go into harms way just raises their hair. For the Air Force point of view its too much like the US Navy and its fleet of submarines. Which the USAF views as a bigger threat to their mission than either the Russians or Chinese.
True, but the times, they are a'changin' whether the Pilots' Protective Association likes it or not.
JFK likely stopped nuclear Armageddon. His advisors wanted to invade Cuba.
You should read up on NATO vs Soviets Cold War doctrine. NATO's war plan was to use tactical nukes to stop the superior Soviet tank columns.
Oh, and Tomahawk cruise missiles can have nuclear warheads. Thus, even a lowly destroyer can kill thousands. And aircraft supercarriers can launch fighters with low-yield nukes.
JFK started the crisis. After his failed invasion of Cuba (The Bay of Pigs), and while Kennedy was planning Operation Mongoose, Khrushchev negotiated with Castro to place the missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to another US backed (or led) coup in Cuba. After Khrushchev handed Kennedy's ass to him on a platter (again) Kennedy agreed (publicly) to announce that he would never again try to overthrow Castro. In secret Kennedy also agreed to remove Jupiter missiles in Turkey.
Anyways, Khrushchev, and Castro, ultimately won that whole debacle and the rest is history.
There's been a whole lot of revision of that crisis to make it seem as if Kennedy saved the world. It makes no sense seeing as how Kennedy caused the whole debacle in the first place. Leave it to the pseudo-Federal government to cause a crisis and then take credit for saving everyone from the self inflicted wound.
LOL. Power in the US is less concentrated than almost any other nation. First, as you mentioned, it takes knocking out two cities (and a single nuke won't do that with either city, btw). Most countries have their financial and political centers in one city.
Interestingly, the great benefit of the Y2K scare was proven on 9/11. Nuking either DC or NYC will cause a lot of pain, but those functions can be reconstituted elsewhere very quickly, with the most critical components already existing in redundancy.
More than that, despite right wing kvetching over growing federal power, it's still the states that maintain order and discipline in the US. Nuking DC won't cause national chaos.
The welfare class would disagree.
As would the banking class.
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