Surfing the net I ran across the Cruise Missile Carrier concept from the 70's based on wide body civil airliners.
While the option at the time was between using them or the B-2 in the nuclear deterrence role, the concept is valid in my opinion in the Air-Sea Battle of today.
G-2 mil stated on his blog the following...
B-747s can also dominate the world's oceans. A squadron of 12 B-747s loaded with anti-ship cruise missiles can be vectored toward a enemy fleet by satellites or submarines, while E-3 Sentry AWACS provide escort with long-range radar. The squadron can break into four flights and launch a total of 1064 cruise missiles at a naval fleet from four directions a thousand miles away.While he goes on to make some statements that I disagree with his basic premise seems sound. And valuable for a future war at sea. Taking the nuclear mission out of the equation and you have massive firepower that will have to be protected but could saturate targets at sea and land with cruise missiles outside the range of threat weapon systems.
If we were to develop high speed cruise missiles like our potential enemies then we could in essence have a Chinese carrier killer all in one airplane. Any idea of denying our forces entry into a particular region of the Pacific could be denied with a flight of F-22's with tankers escorting a couple of B-747 cruise missile carriers.
The Air Force would never rethink its thinking on the concept but it is a fascinating blast from the past.
well is it not possible to load anti-ship missiles (i.e. harpoon) onto a bomber we already have, i am thinking of like the B2 or B1 (B2 because of stealth, B1 due to speed) and can launch many missiles and leave, They could deploy the missiles and let the AWACS give guidance data to the missiles? just ideas.
ReplyDeleteyeah but in my vision i want these cruise missile carriers to be able to launch far outside of the screening force of fighters or anti-air weapons. quite honestly i'm thinking of LARGE cruise missiles...missiles with a range of about a thousand miles and hitting mach 3 and i'd love for each B-747 to carry 20 or 30 of them at least. i think the TLAMS have the range but not the speed so they're a no go unless we're willing to saturate and i mean saturate a target but that puts more B-747's in the air and ups the chances of mission failure...even if 50 or 60 tlams are launched then how many would make it through an integrated naval air defense based on a chinese AEGIS? i'd figure at least half shot down by air defenses or carrier air and another 10% spoofed by decoys etc...would approx 20-26 tlams actually hit the right target and carry a big enough warhead to get through? and since they're so slow we won't have the benefit of wreckage caused by being blown apart by CIWS doing the deed by pure speed spraying the deck with fuel and wreckage.
ReplyDeleteWe already have B-52's that can carry 20 cruise missiles and they're going to fly them till 2045. The B-1 can carry 24 internally. If we want to engage an enemy surface task force with land based air we just need the missile. The main thing however is that our SSN force is already overkill on enemy task forces.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem is that unless you are willing to launch you missiles blindly using old information for the enemy's position you want a bomber that can get within radar range of the target. The radar horizon for a bomber at 30,000 feet should be about 250 miles which is still outside the range of almost all current antiship missiles. So it looks to me like the best option is to use a stealth bomber from high altitude so it can find the target, attack and escape before the enemy even knows that they were found.
ReplyDeleteYou'r working from the position that direct attack is not/will not be more practical/cost effective. Cruise missiles are a niche weapon suitable for a limited target set.Whatever technologies you can think of to improve and make them suitable for broader use, would also make the direct attack weapons approach more effective/practical or reduce the standoff attack cost/benefit ratio even more.
ReplyDeleteThe reason this concept never seems to die is that it is bright-and-shiny attractive when first considered. The reason it never goes anywhere is because there's nothing under the gloss. We would need something to do the mission if and when extant B-52s ever retire, and perhaps a converted airliner airframe in smaller numbers would make economic sense as a replacement. But there is no way we could ever afford to run the bulk of a significant air campaign (Desert Storm could be considered a medium size campaign @ about 23,000 aimpoints of which about 15% required 2KLb class warheads) from a standoff distance.
I now return to the regularly scheduled hunting season...
B-1's can only carry 8 cruise missiles. They were suppose to be able to carry 24 but that was with the original and smaller AGM-86A. Because it was decided to give the -86B more range its size increased and the number the B-1 could carry went down. They could carry 10-12 more on external racks but those have never been fitted. By treaty I don't think they can use the external mounts for weapons.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, the life of AGM-86's will expire in 2020 I guess.
Scott Lowther did a post on this concept: http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=11470 Sounds nice but its a got a lot of moving parts. Like moving the rotary launchers carrying the missiles to the back end of the plane so the missile can be dropped one at a time. Why not use the tail, engines, wings with a purpose built fuselage?
ReplyDeleteCoulda had B-1s packing 24 ASALMS each. Those would be Mach 5+, 300 mile range dual-role (air-to-air/air-to-surface), nuclear-armed missiles. But ASALM was cancelled. And now LM is having to blow the dust off the design to build LRASM-B (it's even using stored ASALM engines left over from the 80's).
ReplyDelete"We already have B-52's that can carry 20 cruise missiles and they're going to fly them till 2045. The B-1 can carry 24 internally. "
ReplyDeleteNot true. The B-1A's rotary launcher was originally designed for the shorter AGM-86A and SRAM. AGM-86A never made it into service and was replaced by AGM-86B which is much longer. The only way the B-1B could carry them (even theoretically) would be to join the forward two bays together. (Which at one time was SOP but I don't know if it still is, or if they've been permanently changed.)
ASALM would've been a nice addition to the arsenal even without the nuclear warhead. Getting hit by something going mach 5 will do damage no matter what. The test aircraft was an A-7 IIRC so that means it could be potentially carried by just about anything.
ReplyDelete