Sat 03 December 2022:
The B-21 Raider, a high-tech strategic bomber that can carry a nuclear payload and be flown without a crew on board, has been unveiled by the United States.
The next-generation stealth bomber was unveiled on Friday at the Northrop Grumman plant in California in front of prominent US government representatives.
According to a Northrop Grumman representative, the US Air Force intends to purchase at least 100 B-21 aircraft, each of which costs $700 million.
The new bombers are being unveiled when geopolitical tensions between the US, Russia, and China are at an all-time high due to the conflict in Ukraine and Taiwan’s territorial integrity.
On Wednesday, Russian and Chinese strategic bombers conducted a joint eight-hour patrol over the western Pacific as a sign of their continuing military cooperation.
The mission to strengthen defense ties with Russia was described as “routine” by China’s Defense Ministry.
In order to compete with the B-21, Moscow and Beijing are both presently working on strategic stealth bombers, the nuclear-capable Tupolev PAK DA from Russia and the nuclear-capable Xian H-20 from China.
The B-21 is capable of flying without a pilot, but according to the US Air Force, there hasn’t been a decision to do so. Nevertheless, the aircraft is “provisioned for the possibility.”
Unveiled today, the B-21 Raider will be a dual-capable, penetrating-strike stealth bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear munitions. The B-21 will form the backbone of the future Air Force bomber force consisting of B-21s and B-52s.(U.S. Air Force photo) pic.twitter.com/X6KSU7sy6U
— U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) December 3, 2022
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a prepared statement at Friday’s event that, “The B-21 Raider is the first strategic bomber in more than three decades,”
Austin touted the aircraft’s range and superior design.
“No other long-range bomber can match its efficiency,” Austin said.
“Fifty years of advances in low-observable technology have gone into this aircraft,” he said.
“Even the most sophisticated air defence systems will struggle to detect the B-21 in the sky.”
The B-21 is part of the Pentagon’s efforts to modernize all three legs of its nuclear triad, which includes silo-launched nuclear ballistic missiles and submarine-launched warheads, as it shifts from the counterterrorism campaigns of recent decades to meet China’s rapid military modernization.
China is on track to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its gains in hypersonics, cyber warfare and space capabilities present “the most consequential and systemic challenge to U.S. national security and the free and open international system,” the Pentagon said this week in its annual China report.
“We needed a new bomber for the 21st Century that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia, ” said Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary when the Raider contract was announced in 2015.
The B-21, which carries a similar “flying wing” shape to its predecessor, will be capable of carrying conventional and nuclear weapons around the world using long-range and midair refuelling capabilities.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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