Flight of the Valkyrie

The Pod is that in that Ronald Reagan at the start of his presidency orders the USAF to restart the EB-70 Valkyrie program to replace the ageing B-52's.
The only condition that President Reagan placed on the USAF was that the aircraft had to be capable of both nuclear and convention roles.

So how does the B-70 look if it enters production in the second term of RR lets say 1987?

With the increases of material science and jet engine design between when the project was cancelled in 1961 and its renewal in 1980 what could be expected from this aircraft.

I'm thinking of a large B-70 with some inbuilt stealth like the B-1.

lets discuss.
 
The U.S. was already heavily committed to the B-1 by the time Reagan came into office. the only way Reagan would have even considered it, would have been if the Air Force came begging to him and by that time the Air Force had long ago decided they didn't want anything to do with the Valk.

The Air Force had already come to the conclusion that radar and SAM technology was going to move much faster than Manned Airframe Technology. The Valk would have been obsolete before the first one rolled off of a Reagan era assembly line.
 
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There wouldn't be much advancement in its capabilities. We'd taken a different approach to penetration, for very good reasons, and its advances weren't applicable to the Valkyrie. Also, in order for the Valkyrie to start coming off the production line that quickly, there really can't be much in the way of changes.

Conventional bombing isn't possible with a Valkyrie until GPS guided munitions become available. It flies too high for lasers and is too fast for the employment of electro-optically guided bombs.

Aside from the inability to make non-cosmetic changes due to time issues, early stealth capabilities and features are incompatible with the Valkyrie due to aerodynamics and heat.

Russians would be overjoyed however. They were seriously lacking in their capability to combat low altitude penetrations, but they were much better at hitting high altitude aircraft.
 
The XB-70 was simply not going to work because it was behind in 1961. By 1980 it was absolutely obsolete. The best way forward for bombers is heavy payloads, like the B-52. If you want supersonic speed bombers, the better idea would be the B-1A, which could do Mach 2+.

You could easily name the B-1A the Valkyrie, as it was to do the same job as the XB-70.
 
SA-5, MiG-25, MiG-31 would have a turkey shoot with the B-70. The Valkyrie was a doomed project from the start. It completely failed to anticipate the rate of Soviet advance in high altitude, high speed air defense. There was no way to upgrade that conceptually obsolete bird. If they built it, it would have been so expensive there wont be money for the B-52 upgrade, which actually had a good chance penetrating Soviet airspace where the B-70 had none.

Carter was right. The upgraded B-52 was the way to go. The B-1B was theoretically a sound idea but in retrospect, should have been canceled. It was too expensive and failed as an interim requirement. It was supposed to fill a niche until the B-2 became operational. In reality it's systems were so unreliable that when it was fixed the B-2 was ready.
 
^ The B-1B was an honest copout. I still hold to this day that the much faster B-1A would have better served the USAF. We do agree on the Valkyrie though, it was too late.
 
Speed is next to useless in a bomber. B-1A was less stealthy and not optimized for low level penetration compared with the B-1B. It was just like the Valkyrie except slower.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Actually the invention of Titanium would have made the B-70 viable. Remember the B 70 was all steel. The tremendous weight savings would have really increased its ceiling and range. Steady 2200 mph at 85000 ft would have been possible. As we found out later on the Mig 25- designed to counter the B 70- was nowhere near as potent as thought. Also with the scramjet version which was discussed the B 70 might have been able to maintain 100,000. Which would have put it beyond the capeability of any missile system. Even today there are few systems that can reach that altitude, and ECM is very sophisticated. Now for 1980's, as I recall there are no Soviet Systems that can reach above 75,000; which was where the Blackbird spent most of its time (it could top 100,000 as well)
 
Actually the invention of Titanium would have made the B-70 viable. Remember the B 70 was all steel. The tremendous weight savings would have really increased its ceiling and range.

Titanium is not a magical cure all. It is very hard to work with, quite expensive, and has its own limitations. A titanium Valkyrie would not have been affordable.

Steady 2200 mph at 85000 ft would have been possible. As we found out later on the Mig 25- designed to counter the B 70- was nowhere near as potent as thought.

"Not as potent" in the sense that the USAF was convinced it was essentially an F-108 capable of dogfighting with a Crusader.

Also with the scramjet version which was discussed the B 70 might have been able to maintain 100,000.

Would have required a complete redesign of the Valkyrie in order to be used at hypersonic speeds and we are only just now getting workable scramjets, and notably, only with missiles rather than with manned aircraft.

Now for 1980's, as I recall there are no Soviet Systems that can reach above 75,000; which was where the Blackbird spent most of its time (it could top 100,000 as well)

SR-71 maxed out around 85,000 feet and the SA-1, SA-2, SA-4, SA-5, SA-10, and SA-12 were all capable of interceptions in excess of 75,000 feet (though requiring a nuclear warhead for the SA-1).
 
The Valkyrie and Blackbird could both go higher than 100,000 feet with the use of tetraethyl-boron fuel boost. This shit like like nitro in a top fuel drag car in that it releases oxygen as it burns allowing combustion at altitudes where normaly isn't enough oxygen to sustain it. That said it wouldn't be overly difficult to build a SAM which could reach a Valkyrie, and/or use a nuke warhead.

As for the B1, I think a run of both the A and B would be awesome, covering the spectrum of capabilities needed from thr 70s through to today.
 
^ I think that, too. The B-52 is a very good, very solid bombtruck, but if a fighter get anywhere near it the bomber is burnt toast. I think the B-1A would have been best suited as a platform for firing cruise missiles, either nuclear ones for land attack or Harpoons for anti-ship defense. As the SALT and START treaties required reductions of strategic arms, one could easily see the AGM-86 retired in favor of a newer missile that the much faster B-1A could carry and deploy.

I can see two versions - the B-1AS and B-1AN. The B-1AS has technology to be able to make much lower altitude runs and has a longer range, but pays for it with a smaller payload, in essence a strategic weapon, like the Russian Tu-22M and Tu-160.

The B-1AS is a anti-ship weapon, designed to kill Russian fleets. This would use air-launched Harpoon missiles. One could conceivably have this B-1 also carry Tomahawks as an alternative, and be used for attacks on land targets or even close air support.

Mach 2+ speed has its advantages, namely in an attack situation you can get in, drop the bombs or shoot the missiles, and then get the hell out quickly before interceptors come looking for you.
 
I don't know why there's such a fetish for fast bombers. It's far easier to design longer range cruise missiles than making a bomber fly supersonic. It's also a lot easier to design faster, higher flying SAMs than bombers. Flying high and fast just makes it easier to get shot down. Worse yet, as a first strike weapon a high flying bomber entering into Soviet airspace would give the Soviets early warning to launch its ICBMs.

What was needed were low altitude ALCM carriers. That role was perfectly suited to the B-52s. The B-1B could do the job, but at much higher costs. It's one advantage was higher speed low altitude flying, but that required a very sophisticated and trouble prone terrain following radar. This meant in reality it couldn't fly any faster than a B-52 on the deck without crashing into something.

Even if you built a B-1 which combined B-1B's low altitude performance with B-1A's high altitude top speed, what does that accomplish? You still have to fly slow and low on the way in. Your only advantage is a high speed escape. But escape to what, rearm at the home base? In a nuclear war there would be no bases to go home to. The bombers would be lucky to get into the air before the airfield was nuked in the first place.

The only way to guarantee some bombers will get off the ground is to have a portion of them in the air 24/7 in peace time. Do you have any idea how expensive it would be to do this with super sophisticated bombers like the B-70 and B-1? If the USAF bought these white elephants there would be no money for B-52 upgrades and therefore few bombers in the air when the nukes come. It would just be a fleet of very expensive supersonic bombers burning on the ground.
 
littel note

XB-70 is build by North American Aviation begin 1960

1967 march, North American Aviation merged with Rockwell-Standard.
called then North American Rockwell until

1973 they change name to Rockwell International

with other words
the B-1 is build by North American Aircraft Operations !
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Speed stopped being a bit of magic when the reliable SAM came into being, along with extremely long range radars. The SR-71 was able to survive thanks to its extremely high speed that made pursuit curves near impossible for manned platforms, but mostly because it was an Intel platform (i.e. no a immediate threat) and by the time the third generation SAM that could reach out and touch it became operational the Blackbird no longer was venturing into the REALLY high threat environments over Moscow and other Soviet high value locations.

The circumstances that would have confronted the B-70 would have been very different had the aircraft ever been built. The Soviets built a brutally fast fighter just to counter the CONCEPT of the B-70. There were no technical reasons that SAM systems couldn't reach to 100k, there was simply a dearth of targets. Nuclear armed USAF bombers would have altered that reality.

Manned strategic bombers are only really useful as a threat, since they are the only saber in the nuclear triad that you can rattle, and have been of minor value since the solid fueled SLBM came into service. SAC never dreamed that it would get more than a third of the bombers off the ground in the case of an actual attack. That was why Fail Safe patrols existed, those were as likely as not going to be the only birds that survived to make an attack run. The threat, however, was very useful, since the USSR's effort to actually defend the entire perimeter of the massive Soviet Union, was a huge factor in bankrupting the USSR while the very thought of rebuilding that system to defend against the new stealth designs was enough to drive Gorby to the table.

The B-70 was a 1950 idea, being looked at in 1960 that would have been exposed to 1980 weapons. BAD plan.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Cal are you familiar with the real capabilities of the Mig 25? It would not have been able to get to the B 70 with any weaponry. Even the recon versions would have been hard pressed to get close. Not to mention its short range really would have been a problem. In the early 60's air to air missiles and surface to air missile were not as reliable and as good at breaking through ECM. Why do you think the B 52 was reckoned to be able to survive if the B 70 could not?
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Cal are you familiar with the real capabilities of the Mig 25? It would not have been able to get to the B 70 with any weaponry. Even the recon versions would have been hard pressed to get close. Not to mention its short range really would have been a problem. In the early 60's air to air missiles and surface to air missile were not as reliable and as good at breaking through ECM. Why do you think the B 52 was reckoned to be able to survive if the B 70 could not?

The Foxbat was built in response to the mere rumor of the B-70. While the version that went into production wasn't capable of dealing with the B-70 , assuming it had worked as designed, there is also littel doubt that the real answer to high altitude penetration bombers was and is SAM networks, with the supersonic interceptor being a second choice that is really only useful for the USSR, which had thousands of miles of nothing to cross before the very high value targets were in danger (assuming the U.S. doesn't decide to try to enter across Europe and expose the Continent to nuclear warhead effects from Soviet SAMs).

The B-52, in 1960 was expected to have a less than 50% survival rate, dropping to around zero by the mid-late 70's (one reason for the ALCM as a stand-off weapon). All that gave the Buff any hope at all was that the USSR would be effectively destroyed well before they entered their airspace by ICBM warheads and the B-52 would be mostly bouncing the rubble (and laying in BIG bombs on suspected Politburo shelters).

As I noted in my initial post, the bomber portion of the Triad is mostly for saber rattling ( I doubt that even the B-2 would have high levels of success getting BACK from a strike deep into Russia). The media can easily show the bombers launching, the Soviets (now Russia/PRC/enemy de jur) can see them on their radar and observe the bases emptying by satellite. That is an immensely useful sign that the limit is being approached, something that an ICBM or SLBM is incapable of providing.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Actually I think the B2 would have few problems getting back since the defensive system would be even further degraded.
 
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