The United States Air Force should consider shifting its balance of its strike forces from fighters to long-range bombers. At the end of the Cold War, the Air Force’s combat aircraft inventory included 411 bombers. Today, it has a total of 158 B-1, B-52, and B-2 bombers, of which only 96 are designated as Primary…
By Mark GunzingerWASHINGTON: President Trump was pretty excited when he announced that the central Chinese bank ordered the cessation of all financial business with North Korea. Dean Cheng, the Heritage Foundation’s expert on China and its military, is much less excited. Cheng’s much more skeptical that this latest Chinese move will make any long-term difference in the…
By Colin ClarkAFA: In what may be a hint of things to come, the head of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office says his office is keeping a close eye on the B-21 bomber’s stealth costs. While he didn’t indicate there were any cost overruns or scheduler problems, the fact that RCO Director Randall Walden mentioned this…
By Colin ClarkRelatively few Americans know many details about how a war between North Korean, the US, South Korean and United Nations force would look. One of them is Rob Givens, who served as the deputy assistant chief of staff for operations of U.S. Forces Korea and as special assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of…
By Rob GivensUPDATED: We Run Op-Ed; Pentagon Announces LRSO Contract The Pentagon just awarded the third major contract in the modernization of the nuclear triad. First came the B-21 bomber. Then the Columbia-class submarine, to replace the Ohio class boomers. Two days ago they awarded Boeing and Northrop Grumman contracts to begin work on the new version…
By Mark GunzingerCAPITOL HILL: Stealth was sold as something close to magic when it first appeared. And, as usually happens when extraordinary claims are made, the blowback was intense. Skeptics pointed to its vulnerability to large-scale, land-based radars, to the fact it wasn’t invisible to the naked eye, to the costs and difficulties of maintaining the expensive…
By Colin ClarkParis Air Show attendees take note. The Navy needs more new strike fighters to cope with falling readiness rates. Will they be Super Hornets, F-35s or Block III Super Hornets? What mix does the US Navy need as it grapples with boosting the size of the fleet to 355 ships? And what about the MQ-25…
By Jerry HendrixCAPITOL HILL: The Air Force’s troubled KC-46 fuel tanker will probably be delayed “a couple of months” more, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told the Senate this morning. An Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense that this means they expect contractor Boeing to miss the December deadline to deliver…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.WASHINGTON: Congressional supporters can heave a sigh of relief with word from Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein that the ugly and effective A-10 will keep flying through 2021. But Goldfein seemed to make pretty clear that the plane will probably be retired after that because Close Air Support missions can be carried out by…
By Colin ClarkWASHINGTON: A little Pentagon contract announcement offers the latest indication of the course of the secretive B-21 program. The announcement last Tuesday of a $36 million modification to an existing contract is the key. It’s for a new 45,900 square foot “coatings facility” at Northrop Grumman’s facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, CA.…
By Colin ClarkOn January 19, the Air Force struck Libya to halt terrorist activity using B-2 stealth bombers. This was not the first strike against Libya. A mix of U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy fighters conducted strikes 30 years ago against Libya in response to terrorist acts in Europe. A comparison of the two raids illustrates the…
By David Deptula
CORRECTED: Minuteman Was First Solid-Fueled ICBM; Jon Wolfsthal’s name The first solid-fueled InterContinental Ballistic Missile, Minuteman 1, was deployed some 55 years ago on the same day that President Kennedy announced that Soviet missiles were being deployed in Cuba. At the end of the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy credited the newly deployed Minuteman ICBM as his “ace…
By Peter Huessy