The United States is boosting the presence of strategic bombers and missiles in Japan and South Korea.
Four B-1-B Lancers, the most powerful bomber in the US arsenal, have on April 15th been deployed to Japan for the first time.
Reports suggest the US may for the first time, also soon directly deploy a squadron of its own F-35s to an American superbase in South Korea. Experts say these moves are meant to send a message to China and Russia, raising fears of military escalation.
I’m reminded of how the Vietnamese utterly wrecked the US bomber force and how the paper tiger folded after less than 10 days.
That was in the 1970s, over half a century ago, and under completely different military doctrines and a different battle space. The US sent in 200 B-52 bombers during that 10 day period to conduct stand in bombings (flying directly over the targets), and between 16-34 were shot down by North Vietnam, the vast majority by S-75 (NATO name: SA-2) Surface to Air Missile (SAM) systems.
Since then, air defence systems have gotten more advanced than the S-75, and bombing doctrine has changed as result. Four US B-1 bombers are not going to be conducting stand in bombings over North Korea, China or Russia, just as Russian Tu-160 bombers are not conducting stand in bombings over Ukraine.
The value of these aircraft to a modern air force is their massive payload capacity of stand off weapons, mainly cruise missiles, for stand off strikes carried out far away from enemy air defence systems and territory. We see this with the Russian Tu-95M and Tu-160 bombers against Ukraine, they launch Kh-101 cruise missiles targeted at Ukraine from the Caspian sea, or from within Russia itself. A single B-1 can carry 24 JASSM or LRASM stealth subsonic cruise missiles in it’s internal weapons bays (the most of any aircraft in the USAF), and a further 12 externally if the external hardpoints are fitted (most B-1s don’t have these fitted anymore). Most fighter aircraft can only carry a handful of these, an F-35 can carry 2 on external hardpoints, an F-15E can carry a maximum of 5. JASSM-ER and LRASM cruise missiles themselves have a range of around 1000km/600mi. So if B-1s were to fire JASSMs at land targets, or LRASMs at ships, they would do so from well outside of the opponent’s ground based air defence range, and with their own fighter escorts and electronic warfare aircraft to prevent interception of the bomber by opposing fighter aircraft.
The challenge for air defence networks (including ground based air defence and fighter aircraft, and AWACS aircraft) in a modern war won’t be to shoot down the bombers themselves, but to detect and intercept the cruise missiles before they hit their targets. As we’ve seen in the war in Ukraine, this is a difficult task to accomplish, cruise missile interception rates for Russian missiles range from 25-66%, depending on the type of cruise missile fired and how difficult it is to detect. The Kh-69, Russia’s stealthiest cruise missile, was jumbled up in the data with the less stealthy Kh-59 at a 25% interception rate. So intercepting these weapons is difficult. Four B-1s is a maximum total volley of 96 JASSMs at ground targets, or 96 LRASMs at ships, per sortie. Even if a sizeable amount of these cruise missiles are intercepted, those that slip through can still do a ton of damage, these are precision guided weapons, and it’s unrealistic to be able to intercept all of them.
I’d there data for how well US systems perform? Do they use them against Russian targets?
If you want data on how NATO stealth/low observable cruise missiles fair against the Russian air defence network during wartime, you can look at Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG (British/French cruise missile) strikes against Russia by Ukraine. There have been a number of successful strikes. Russia intercepts some, but there still have been some notable strikes. It’s not realistic to intercept all. The US has not given JASSMs or LRASMs to Ukraine.
The main problem the Ukrainians have with their cruise missile attacks is not the effectiveness of the missiles themselves, but getting their aircraft in position to launch an attack, due to the superiority of the Russian Air Force vs the Ukrainian Air Force, long range Russian ground based air defences like the S-400 and S-300V4, and the reduced range of the export variant Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG (290km/180mi). Also because Ukrainian Su-24 aircraft can only carry 2 cruise missiles each, the amount of missiles fired in each attack is not that large.
The USA will not have those issues, they have strategic bombers capable of launching dozens of missiles at a time which Ukraine do not, the JASSM or LRASM has a range of 1000km and US escort fighters (F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters with AIM-120s, F-18Es with air launched SM-6s, EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft) will be able to get the bombers within 1000km of frontline targets. That’s why I compared a potential US bomber attack to current Russian bomber attacks on Ukraine, thry are much more alike than Ukrainian attacks on Russia. I don’t think there are many differences between Russian systems and US systems that would effect the outcome that much.
I dont think the fights we see now look anything like what a fight between the US and China would. One of, if not the most, important asset in modern warfare is your satellites. Nobody has yet fought that can hit eachothers space based assets. With China and the US they both can. So it will turn into a space war pretty quick imo. Youll have battles on the surface too yes but above every surface battle will be a space based battle. Just like how in WW2 you saw massive air battles above ground battles. No longer is only air superiority needed but space superiority too. Satellite based missile defence systems are the best way to detect and destroy these missiles and satellite guidance systems are how they navigate. WW3s gonna be in space 100%.
I was talking about a hypothetical bomber attack, not WW3. As seen in Ukraine, there’s a long way up the escalation ladder before that point is reached and we start hitting mutual destruction options like taking out satellites. Russia could absolutely take out NATO satellites that provide information for Ukraine right now, but they haven’t done so and most likely won’t.
Buckle up.
I thought that the USA liked Russia now?
