Narrowing the global-strike gap with an airborne aircraft carrier

Air & Space Power Journal,  Summer, 2005  by George D. Kramlinger

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Given the success of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) armed with the Hellfire missile, the Air Force is accelerating efforts to develop a UCAV that can perform a penetrating-strike sortie in a high-threat environment. The Boeing X-45A technology-demonstrator UCAV, which began flight-testing in 2002, has successfully released a prototype SDB and has flown tactical profiles with a second X-45A UCAV (fig. 1). (20) We expect the fighter-sized X-45C to fly in 2007 with a radius of 1,200 miles, a cruise speed of .80 Mach, a 40,000-foot operating altitude, and a 4,500-pound payload. (21) Boeing is now proposing an X-45D with the range, payload, and size of a bomber. (22) Without a cockpit and associated pilot, the UCAV is stealthier than its manned counterpart and better suited to loiter in hostile airspace, waiting to attack elusive, mobile targets. However, the bomber-sized vehicle will require fighter sweep, threat suppression, and jamming support to protect this very expensive investment. The fighter-sized UCAV will need a prohibitive commitment of tankers to operate over global range.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Larger loads of smaller munitions will enable each B-2 to strike more targets per sortie but will not address the need to strike an ever-growing number of HDBTs in the early stages of an access-denial scenario. The standard B-2 weapons load consists of 16 penetrating 2,000-pound GBU-32 JDAMs. Modifications currently tinder way will allow each B-2 to carry 80 500-pound GBU-38 JDAMs. (23) Proponents claim that by 2007 the B-2 could carry 324 of the 250-pound SDBs. However, over 10,000 underground military facilities exist in 70 countries worldwide, over 1,400 of which are used for strategic command and control (C2), WMDs, and ballistic-missile basing--targets critical in the opening stages of any future access-denial scenario. (24) Even with improved accuracy and better explosives in smaller weapons, Newton's second law force equals mass times acceleration--still applies, requiring large and accurate conventional weapons to defeat HDBTs. Fortunately, the B-2 can carry eight of the massive 5,000-pound GBU-37 bunker-buster bombs, and we have begun development of a 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator. (25) Adversaries will continue to dig more and tunnel deeper, thus preventing larger loads of smaller munitions from narrowing the global-strike gap.

Other Considerations

Stealth aircraft counter radar threats by deflecting and absorbing radar energy. Deflection is primarily a function of structural shape, and absorption depends upon skin coating. Fortunately, stealth aircraft can still survive in most high-threat areas with minimum external support, as evidenced by two lone F-117s delivering the opening blow against an underground bunker in heavily defended Baghdad during Iraqi Freedom. (26) On the other hand, the downing of an F-117 in hostile airspace during Allied Force demonstrates that stealth aircraft are not invincible. Deployment of mobile Russian S-300/400 radar-guided strategic SAM systems (SA-10, -12, and -20), also known as "double digit SAMs," effectively produces an impenetrable wall for nonstealthy aircraft and will likely evolve to threaten current stealth platforms. (27) With fuselage shape fixed, current stealth aircraft can make improvements only in skin coating against the ever-improving S-300/400 system. Consequently, ECM and the destruction of mobile air-defense components will become increasingly important enablers for the current family of stealth aircraft against an access-denial IADS.