America's New Lethal B-21 Stealth Bomber: Just a 'Mini-Me' B-2?

Andrew Davies

Security,

You decide. 

Last year I wrote a series for The Strategist on the US Air Forces’ (USAF) new bomber program. (Parts one, two and three.) I was skeptical of the possibility of producing a state-of-the-art long range bomber for anything like the proposed unit cost of US$550 million (2010 dollars). The historical trend (see part 2) suggested a significantly higher price. But I also observed that bomber costs ‘hit the wall’ with the B-2 and that new approaches are needed.

We haven’t learned much about the new bomber in the intervening 15 months. We know it will be the B-21 (‘21’ signifying the century rather than a sequential bomber designation). We don’t know much more about costs. But we got to see what it (allegedly) looks like.

It looks quite a bit like its billion dollar predecessor from Northrop Grumman, the B-2. That got me thinking whether the new bomber might be simply a smaller and more affordable B-2. For reasons explained below, that might be about right.