Stealth B-2s Would Carry 2,000 A-Arms

Gen. Larry D. Welch, Air Force chief of staff, has disclosed that the planned new fleet of stealth bombers will be able to carry a total of 2,000 nuclear warheads, making a retaliatory force so potent, he said, it would further deter anyone from attacking the United States.

The Air Force’s top general confirmed at a meeting with editors and reporters Monday that the cost of the stealth bomber has climbed above projections but argued that the fleet will be worth its cost. “What you’re buying is deterrence,” he said. “I can’t put a value on deterrence.”

The Air Force had hoped to buy 132 stealth bombers from the Northrop Corp. for $36.6 billion in fiscal 1981 dollars. Allowing for inflation since 1981, the cost of the stealth fleet in fiscal 1989 dollars has jumped to at least $59.5 billion, or $450 million for each bomber, not counting the cost of hangars, which will be built partly to protect the highly sophisticated, easily marred skin of the bomber.

Still Debating Crew Size

Of the 132 flying wing bombers to be bought from Northrop, 120 will be given the mission of carrying the 2,000 nuclear warheads, or about 16 nuclear weapons on each plane. Welch said the Air Force is still debating the crew size, with two or three aviators the preferred options.

“The combination of the B-1 and the stealth bomber gives the Soviets a tremendous (defensive) problem,” Welch said, because the designs of both bombers include special features that make their detection by radar more difficult. The B-1B has some of these features but the stealth incorporates many more, including a flying wing shape, and radar absorbing surfaces.

Neither aircraft will be totally invisible to radar but will be harder to detect, especially at long distances, which planners say cuts the time available to defenders to fire anti-aircraft missiles if they do detect the bombers at close range.

Seek Out Gaps in Radar

“It would take an incredible density of radars” for the Soviets to detect the B-1B and Stealth B-2, Welch said. Attacking bombers fly toward gaps in radar coverage, which are meticulously plotted and updated as part of intelligence gathering. It would take a “massive air defense investment” for the Soviets to “increase their effectiveness” against the stealth bomber but “they can’t solve the problem,” Welch said.