The Pentagon unveiled a new nuclear bomber nearly invisible to the enemy on Friday after years of secret development and as part of its response to the military might of China and Russia.
The B-21
Raider
is the first US-developed bomber in more than 30 years.
Almost all aspects of the program are classified, but the plane was unveiled late Friday at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California in a highly controlled ceremony that began with a flyby of the three bombers in service: the B-52
Stratofortress
, the B-1
Lancer
, and the B-2
Spirit
.
The hangar doors were then slowly opened and the B-21 was partially towed out of the building.
The B-21 during the act on December 2. Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP
The bomber is part of the Pentagon's strategy to modernize its nuclear trident (which also includes ballistic missiles launched from silos and warheads in submarines) in its turn of the fight against terrorism that has focused the last decades on standing up to rapid military modernization from China and the Russian threat.
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China aims to have 1,500 nuclear weapons by 2035, and its achievements in hypersonic weapons, cyber warfare and space capabilities present "the most significant systemic challenge to the national security of the United States," the Pentagon reported this week.
“We need a 21st-century bomber that will allow us to deal with much more complicated threats, like the ones we fear one day from China or Russia,” Deborah Lee James, secretary of the Air Force, said when the
Raider
contract was announced in 2015.
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Although the
Raider
may look like the B-2 on the outside, it's very different on the inside, according to Kathy Warden, director of the company that makes it, Northrop Grumman.
"The way it operates internally is extremely advanced compared to the B-2, because the technology has come a long way in terms of computing power that we can now incorporate into the software," she added.
Other changes are the materials used in the coatings to make it harder to detect, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
“Fifty years of advances in technology have gone into this aircraft,” he said, “even the most sophisticated air defense systems will have a hard time spotting a B-21 in the sky.”
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Other advances are likely to include new ways to control electronic emissions, so the bomber can evade adversary radars and disguise itself as another object, and the use of new propulsion technologies, several defense analysts said.
"It's incredibly hard to see," Warden said, "you'll hear it but you won't really see it."
There are six
Raider
bombers already in production, and the Air Force plans to build 100 that can deploy nuclear weapons or conventional bombs and be used with or without crew.
The cost of the bombers is not known.
The Air Force had pegged the price at an average of $550 million each in 2010—about $753 million today—but it's unclear how much is actually being spent.
The total will depend on how many bombers the Pentagon buys.
