What is the point of strategic bombers in the age of ICBM's? What do they actually use them for?

another avenue of attack via low altitude cruise missiles (or albms). the more ways you attack, the harder it is to defend against.

>>64008252 (OP)
Show of force. Only 3 countries in the world have bombers

>>64008252 (OP)
us is lacking the money and industrial base to counter china's naval forces with their own buildup of naval forces. so existing air force has to do.

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R43049
>Stemming from the growing economic importance of the Asia-Pacific region, China’s growing military capabilities and its increasing assertiveness of claims to disputed maritime territories, U.S. concerns with freedom of navigation and the ability to project power in the region, and the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to raise the Asia-Pacific region’s priority in U.S. military planning.5
>Many analysts agree this rebalance has placed renewed emphasis on U.S. naval forces due to the maritime character of the Pacific theater of operations.
>However, budgetary pressures and potential defense cuts may reduce long-term naval procurement plans and planned naval force levels in the Pacific region.6
>Consequently, just as B-17 and B-29 bombers demonstrated the value of long-range airpower projection in the Pacific Theater during World War II, the U.S. Air Force may be planning on the current fleet of B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s to provide an essential complement to U.S. naval forces in the vast geographical expanses of the Asia-Pacific. 7

>>64008252 (OP)
drop fucktons of cheap guided ordnance on people without or with a broken ADS/airforce.
mostly thirdies, it's just a very effective way of doing CAS and hitting targets in lower threat environments, and there are plenty of those.

>>64008315
we didn't ask for your chink narrative, nobody cares.

>>64008332
>congress.gov
>chink narrative

>>64008255
Surely any serious country with an airforce and air defenses would shoot down your (non-stealth) bomber before you even launch your cruise missile? I guess my criticism is mostly of the B52

>>64008332
holy retard

>>64008332
Cope

>>64008252 (OP)
conventional strategic strikes
also certain percentage of targets in a nuclear war are dealt with conventional cruise missiles, the number of deployed conventional weapons is not limited by treaties so it allows you to hit several times more targets afrer air defense and C3 structure are damaged
russian SMF officers also hypothesised this could be used to conduct a counterforce first strike, 2000-something nuclear warheads aren't enough to have high confidence

Bombing the shit out of turdies like you

>>64008370
Do you know what a cruise missile is? It's fired from beyond the enemy's AA envelope. It's so that an aircrew can take off from CONUS, bomb anywhere on the planet, and return to home soil.

>>64008370
How many serious countries with air forces can you think of?

>>64008661
China, Russia

>>64008252 (OP)
cruise missiles. Hypersonic missiles. And perhaps long range air to air missiles

>>64008315
Lol, you retarded shill.
>muh chinese navy so strong
It’s small and shitty and your brand new carrier is ass too. It’s a fucking steam ship. Not only is it’s operational range complete ass, but you’ll be able to see it from 20 miles away from the smoke alone, no radar required. It’s already obsolete by 60 years.

Do we tell this guy?
>>64008692

>>64008665
>Russia
>serious Air Force
Lol.
Lmao.
Kek even.

>>64008370
The US has high SEAD capability and air supremacy. Without both of those, the B-52 is obsolete

>>64008252 (OP)
>in the age of ICBM
expensive af

and the way ICBMs are handled currently globally,
you can't just shoot them however you want
you gotta notice and warn everyone

also did I mention how expensive ICBMs are?

>What do they actually use them for?
mostly dropping cheap ordnance, like JDAMs, on countries without proper air defense
but also dropping nuclear cruise missiles or other funny air to surface missiles

again it's cheaper
and you can target a far bigger number of targets at once
splitting warhead are nice, but even nicer is if you can just fly 200km further and drop more bombs

add to that, that nuclear wars aren't just fought with nuclear weapons
you still got to take out hundreds / thousands of other targets conventionally

power projection is also a big argument
only
>USA
>Russia
>China
have strategic bombers after all

You need all 3 bombers, subs, and, icbm.

So the enemy had to spread their resources thin trying to tackle defending against all 3 rather than 1

>>64008252 (OP)
>ICBM
all those silos and trucks will be the first ones targeted in any full on war
literally was the major critique towards Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, that they'll get targeted and putting millions living nearby unnecessary at risk

>>64008867
>You need all 3 bombers, subs, and, icbm.
it's crazy that only the US, China, Russia and India have a full triad

and you could even argue India,
because most of their air part is unguided nuclear bombs, literally dumb bombs

>>64008867
>You need all 3 bombers, subs, and, icbm.
It's not a triforce dude. I agree with OP in terms of nuclear armament, bombers aren't very meaningful.

The original argument that it was a way to stay ahead of countermeasures in one field which would otherwise risk nullifying your nuclear capabilitues was sound. But bombers have pretty much been nullified right now.
>but by gawd they could attack the land based areas
Well, yeah, when nukes start flying people will notice, it's not subtle.

>>64008370
>air defense

Forgive me if I'm wrong but don't modern strategic bombers like the B-52 operate at heights way above what typical air defense can reach?

>>64009207
>but don't modern strategic bombers like the B-52 operate at heights way above what typical air defense can reach?
absolutely not

it's way easier to make a rocket fly high than it is to get an airplane up more

typical flight height of
>B-52 10-13km, B2 / B21 10-15km
>Tu-160 10-16km, Xi'an H-20 10-14km (speculated)
and the defense
>IRIS-T SLM 20km max height
>Patriot 24km max height
so comfortably higher

B-52 are great because they are
>relatively cheap to fly (like half the cost per hour of a B-2)
>big capacity
and the US really only flies them into regions without or with destroyed air defense

>>64009187
They also offer first strike conventional munitions anywhere in the world, dumb fuck. And they can go on more than a single mission before destroying itself.

>>64009187
>But bombers have pretty much been nullified right now.

I would argue that only applies to big dumb targets like the B-52, but the USAF dabbing on Iran demonstrates the power of stealth bombers since there's no practical reason those couldn't have been nukes getting dropped beyond political considerations. Stealth bombers are the first strike weapon of choice, which is important if you are going to try and catch enemy nukes on the ground vs how detectable ICBM and even SLBMs are.

Big bombers like OP is asking about are largely for dumping off cruise missiles in a hot conflict and JDAMs on people who can't fight back for cheap.

>>64008665
anon... come on now

>>64008252 (OP)
Bombers are reusable unlike ICBMs an only count as a single missile for the purposes of arms limitation treaties. They can be used for conventional strike in a non-nuclear war too. Nuclear bombs are also the cheapest and most numerous to build and store, which means they are a viable threat for a low intensity "cleanup" once most of the expensive high end arsenal is exhausted. You don't need to use an ICBM just to nuke an unprotected city after all.

>>64008370
Crusie missiles strat bombers carry outrange the combat radius of most fighters, let alone SAMs.

>>64008252 (OP)
Long range standoff conventional missiles, which has the range of several countries. Much more efficient than launching from ground or sea.

they aren't that useful for WW3 day one, but are for WW3 day two

>>64008252 (OP)
Tomahawks with 750Kt to 5Mt payloads.

>>64009158
>that they'll get targeted and putting millions living nearby unnecessary at risk
Look up where the remaining silos are. Having them targeted would massively REDUCE casualties during a war.

>>64009158
> all those silos and trucks will be the first ones targeted in any full on war
That’s LITERALLY the point, and exactly why the US, Russia, China, etc keep them around

>>64008370
they launch the missiles long before any intercept can occur. and the cruise missiles themselves are programmable to fly waypoints, so they can come from multiple directions along one vector. said cruise missiles also carry strategic warheads.

russian bears do the same mission as the b-52s.

>>64008840
>>Russia
>have strategic bombers
Kek

>>64011329
yes
they have around 50 each of bears and blackjacks, and around 40 tu-160s.

>>64011363
No they dont you absolute retard

>>64011363
They have only 18 blackjacks left, for now

>>64011363
>blackjacks
TU-160s are blackjacks you fucking idiot

>>64011409
yeah, they do
not all will be operational

half of all us carriers aren't currently deployable; they still exist and will be deployable

>>64011416
rude
backfire

>>64011329
Russia operates
>Tu-95 (shittier B-52 alternative)
>Tu-22
>Tu-160
with the Tu-160 arguably be the most capable one (also with a "newer" version which currently? gets delivered)

United Aircraft Corporation (owning Tupolev, Suchoi, Ilyushin and basically all other Russian aerospace companies)
is actually one of the few less shittier, decently working companies in Russia
they have a pretty sold pipeline from their top universities (aka Moscow State)
and it is one of their few export "successes"

I always wondered how they keep out the ravaging corruption there
like you'd find in literally all other Russian state owned businesses
maybe something about the company being run by engineers instead of state goons

>>64008252 (OP)
Because the B-52H can carry 20 JASSMs and fire them rapidly at a standoff distance. A fleet of them can mass delete Chinese surface ships operating in the SCS and the US government deems them cost-effective.

>>64008833
It's not, the B-52H has substantial ECM countermeasures and can attack from standoff.
LRASM/JASSM spammu from beyond the range of the TEMU Chang-20, and that's enough to keep the ships at port.

>>64008327
Yet they didn't stop the Taliban from taking Kabul, despite the fact that they were destroying any vehicle coming from the main road towards the capital

>>64008252 (OP)
An ICBM might be cheaper than a strategic bomber but mk82s is much chaper than an ICBM and B-52s can drop hundreds of these all day, all night (unlike, say, 8 in F-15 or 4 (or even less) in smaller light attack planes

>>64011796
>yet they didn't stop the taliban from
waiting for the americans to leave
you're an insecure thirdie and you lose every pitched battles, so you clamor over situations where the US literally leaves because of internal politics. and then pretend in your head a fantasy version of events where the taliban win pitched battles.
it's VERY embarrassing behaviour, you should stop doing it.

>>64011425
This isn’t the same and you know it. I can be reasonable and say that yes, some of those are just out on rotation for routine maintenance. But you also know that a not insignificant number are out without there being significant reinvestment that is nowhere on the horizon

>>64008370
Russia managed to launch cruise missiles from their aged up bombers but it was way inside Russian airspace so no need to worry about Ukraine shooting them down. Oh nevermind they did so when they were parked.

>>64008252 (OP)
Well, why do you think Ukraine planned and executed an elaborate mission to destroy a large portion of Russia's strategic bomber fleet if they weren't valuable assets in a war?

>>64008370
The biggest advantage of the bomber leg of the nuclear triad is that they can be called back, unlike ICBMs and SLBMs. They can also deliver the largest, most powerful nuclear weapons for hitting exceptionally hard targets. In a full scale nuclear exchange, B52s would be glassing targets like it was designed to do over 70 years ago.

>>64008252 (OP)
Mass deployment of drone swarms
Imagine one of these flies overhead and a cloud of drones comes out

>>64013836
incel rage

>>64013863
Do you think Ukraine is in a position of wasting resources in pointless fits of incel rage?

>>64013882
yes

>>64013888
Guess the war is going better for them than anyone really thought then

>>64013893
incel squabbles can't be called wars

>>64013896
A conflict with more than a million dead is an incel squabble?

>>64013898
yes

>>64013901
Oh ok then, carry on

>>64008252 (OP)
to bomb and flex on thirdies, what else?

>>64013952
America is a third world country.

>>64011796
We actually made a deal with the Taliban not to attack them, and they agreed not to attack us. We made a political decision to leave Afghanistan. Of course you can say we did lose because war is politics, but it's not a question of B-52 bombers being effective or not at blowing shit up or not.

>>64008252 (OP)
To bomb peasants who can not shoot them and who do not have icmb

>>64009158
The silos were built all over bumfuck nowhere precisely to sponge up most of Russias warheads so they couldn't use them on anything near people.

>>64008252 (OP)
>The age of ICBMs
So forty years ago?

>>64008252 (OP)
In contested airspace the B-52 can lob cruise missiles from out side enemy engagement range. Once air superiority is established it can switch to drop dozens of jadam with basically unlimited loiter time.

>>64008252 (OP)
It's a missile truck. Even GBUs can be launched from 15 miles away.

>>64011329
Number of tu-95 used in each attack is somewhat smaller than before, but they still do have and use them every time a large attack is carried out.

>>64008252 (OP)
Second strike. While the missiles are dropping, they only hit pre-programmed targets. And considering that both sides would have suffered massive losses during the first exchange, the bombers are there to fuck shit up afterwards. Also, they are flexible in target acquisition contrary to the missiles, which can have only a handful of pre-programmed targets.

>>64015915
>The silos were built all over bumfuck nowhere
>precisely to sponge up most of Russias warheads
>so they couldn't use them on anything near people
that's a wrong comparison

the silos shouldn't be sponges in any way!
there are more than enough nukes for everyone anyway

if there weren't any silos
there's wouldn't be any targets
with the most likely outcome of NOTHING being targeted

the problem here
>every nation on earth would deem nuclear armed ICBM Silos a valid targets and accept casualties of people living nearby
>(almost) no nation would let nuking a city slide
the "mental" / consequences barrier of launching an attach on a city in far, far higher

bombing cities usually ends up in a full on war
bombing silos might let you get away without (major) repercussions

>>64015915
Please. They don't give a fuck about John Doe. They put them there because the extra distance hopefully results in more failures of incoming warheads and more time to potentially intercept. Back then it meant firing a nuke at a nuke but the idea for interceptor missiles is not new, it just took 6 decades to get it to work reliably.
Also back then recon flights over middle America was damn near impossible for the Soviets, so the exact locations were only obtainable through person to person spying.

>>64013952
then most of the world is 4-6th world
Who would be first world? atlantis, wakanda?

>>64016103
This also brings up the space race. Main reason was satellite recon. Secondary was national pride.

>>64016074
> there's wouldn't be any targets
Except, you know,
Military bases
Air fields
Command and control centers
Early warning radars
Air defense complexes
Cities
Headquarters
Financial centers
Manufacturing centers
Cities
Ports, both naval and civilian
Railway hubs
And of course, cities