B-2 crash shows the need for dispersion

This morning, a U.S. Air Force B-2 bomber crashed shortly after taking off from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. The two crew members safely ejected before the aircraft impacted the ground. It was the first aircraft loss for the B-2 program.

With today’s crash, the U.S. lost 4.8% (one of 21 B-2s) of its long range strike capacity against heavily defended targets. The Air Force’s B-52 and B-1 fleets are long range platforms, but it is questionable whether air operations planners would contemplate sending these aircraft into heavy air defense systems early in an air campaign (remember the loss rate of B-52s during Operation Linebacker II in December 1972).

The U.S. suffers from excessive concentration with respect to several of its most important power projection platforms. For long range strikes against heavily defended targets, the U.S. leans on its now 20 B-2 bombers. And although many of its ships have land attack cruise missile capability, the U.S. Navy relies on its eleven aircraft carriers for flexible and persistent strike operations.

There is a danger in having such important capabilities concentrated in so few platforms. As I discussed a few days ago in a post about the limitations of the F-22, such concentration creates an attractive target for the enemy and sometimes a single point of failure for the U.S.

Will future U.S. acquisition programs address the need for more dispersion? Networked and coordinated fleets of smaller but long endurance unmanned strike aircraft is one method of reducing the vulnerability of excessive concentration. Alas, the Navy seems to be taking a very cautious course with its UCAS-D project, while the Air Force has yet to show that it is serious about a new replacement bomber.

Training accidents are a normal feature of military air operations. When a B-2 crashes, it’s a $1.2 billion loss of equipment, but more importantly a 4.8% loss in a vital category of strike capacity. Hopefully that fact will be enough to focus some minds at the Pentagon on what the U.S. needs for the future.