AF Reported Failing in Bid to Fix B-1 Defense Systems

The Air Force’s efforts to fix the B-1 bomber’s trouble-plagued electronic defense systems have yielded “disappointing” results, suggesting that the aircraft designed to penetrate a gantlet of Soviet air defense weapons may never perform as promised without major changes in its hardware, service officials have told lawmakers.

In a memo due to reach members of the House Armed Services Committee today, the committee’s chairman, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), reported that the Air Force may have to make costly and time-consuming changes to a major component of the intercontinental bomber just to reach the capability the plane was supposed to have had in 1986.

“What’s clear is that the bomber won’t be a match for the evolving threat it was supposed to handle over its useful lifetime,” Aspin wrote to colleagues after receiving a series of secret briefings from Air Force officials.

The Air Force, which has bought 100 of the planes at a cost of $30 billion, put the last of the B-1 bombers into its nuclear arsenal last April. The service has said the B-1, built to replace the nation’s aging fleet of B-52 bombers, will be able to penetrate Soviet airspace to deliver nuclear weapons “well into the 1990s,” when the Advanced Technology (or stealth) Bomber is to be deployed.

If Congress refuses to approve funds for the needed repairs, the Defense Department’s war planners may have to revise nuclear bombing routes into the Soviet Union, adopt schemes to use land-based missiles to destroy some Soviet targets and re-equip the B-1 to lob long-range cruise missiles from outside the Soviet air defense belt, Pentagon and congressional sources said.

Since the first of the new intercontinental bombers was deployed in June, 1985, the plane has suffered a series of setbacks, varying from fuel leaks to faults in the system that is supposed to permit the plane to hug the ground as it streaks into Soviet airspace. While the bomber’s electronic defense system has posed problems from the outset of the program, Air Force officials have insisted they could be corrected within the budget cap set by Congress.

In a series of secret briefings for Aspin, however, the Air Force has conceded that “there are limitations in the current system architecture” that will prevent it from equipping the warplane to counter all of the hostile threats it might encounter on a bombing run into the Soviet Union.

Powerful Jammers

Often called Electronic Countermeasures, or ECM, the B-1’s defensive system includes powerful jammers designed to block defending Soviet aircraft or ground-based air defense weapons from spotting and destroying the bomber.

The Air Force has won congressional approval to conduct a $600-million series of flight tests intended to gauge the deficiencies of the ECM system. But lawmakers have told the Pentagon it may not embark on specific repairs to the system without congressional approval of a plan.

In the first stage of the tests, called “Mod(ification) 1,” the Air Force has begun to assess the B-1’s performance against Soviet air defense weapons already deployed in 1986.

A later series of flight tests was to have measured the B-1’s ability to penetrate the more sophisticated air defense weapons that Moscow is expected to have fielded by 1991.

Changes in ECM System

But less than a year into those tests, Air Force officials have told Aspin they are not confident the aircraft’s defensive system could prevail against the full range of hostile forces it would encounter in the 1986 scenario without changes in the plane’s ECM system. A limitation in the ECM system “precludes” achievement of the plane’s full defensive capabilities against the 1991 scenario, they conceded.

“ECM has been the chief question mark in the B-1B’s future as a penetrating bomber. It looks like we have our answer,” Aspin wrote to colleagues. “The Air Force is now admitting that, because of a design flaw, it (the ECM) will never work as advertised.” One option the Air Force is studying would send the service back to the drawing board to design a completely new version of the B-1’s electronic defense system, built by the Eaton Corp.’s AIL Division in Deer Park, N.Y. The airframes were built in Palmdale by Rockwell International’s North American Aircraft Operations.

Rethinking Tactics

Some lawmakers have urged the Air Force to rethink the tactics of delivering nuclear weapons into the Soviet Union with the B-1, suggesting that the bomber should be equipped to launch long-range guided weapons such as cruise missiles from outside the reach of Soviet defenses. With the delivery of the stealth aircraft in the early- to mid-1990s, they argue, the United States will again have a penetrating bomber.

But the Air Force insists that the B-1 can still perform as promised, in spite of the disappointing test results in the Mod 1 program.

“The current round did verify that the most important ECM techniques do work, giving us a high degree of confidence that we can penetrate enemy defenses and accomplish our mission,” said Capt. Jay DeFrank, Air Force spokesman.

“The capability of B-1 to accomplish its mission and return is based on synergistic interaction of high speeds, low radar cross-section low-altitude flight and existing ECM, as well as other factors, including mission planning and defense suppression,” he added. “If any one of these falls down, you can compensate in other areas.”