Entire B-2 Spirit bomber fleet grounded after an emergency landing and fire last month.

 

File photo of a B-2 Spirit doing a flyover at an NFL game. AP.

The entire B-2 Spirit bomber fleet has been grounded after an emergency landing and fire last month. AP. One of the bombers had a malfunction in flight and was forced to land and it caught fire afterwards. The shutdown is significant as the B-2 Spirit is part of the nuclear deterrence triad. With the fleet grounded the only the B-52 bomber is capable of launching nuclear attacks from the air. The US would still have missile and submarine based nuclear weapons. The US only has 20 surviving B-2 Spirits. The plane's replacement, the B-21 Raider, has been announced and revealed but have not even taken a test flight. 

My Comment:

More evidence that NATO is not ready for a war with Russia or China. Yesterday I wrote about how Germany has a massive headache because its new IFV, the Puma, is not capable of combat due to breakdowns. Now we find out that our most important bomber is now out of service and we don't know for how long. 

The B-2 bomber would be critical in any conventional war against Russia or China. The B-2 are hard to hit with anti-air radar and they would be needed to launch attacks far beyond enemy lines. The B-1 and B-52 bombers obviously don't have that capability and we really don't have anything in our fleet that could really try it, unless they want to un-mothball the obsolete and probably ineffective F-117 Nighthawk. 

But in a nuclear war? It would be absolutely critical. Without B-2's one third of our nuclear weapons triad is basically out of service. The B-52 is not capable of surviving a raid on enemy territory and the B-1 would have to be modified to be able to use nuclear weapons again. We would obviously have our submarines and ICBM's but it would still put at us at an advantage. 

My guess is that if a war were to happen we would probably have to use the B-2's regardless of the risk. Without more information it's hard to tell how exactly serious the problem with the B-2's is, but I am thinking in any major conflict with Russia we would be in such dire straits we would have to use the B-2's anyways. Better they have a malfunction and crash than be destroyed on the ground by a nuclear strike. 

What is strange to me is that they are announcing this via the media which makes me wonder if this isn't actual disinformation. Obviously there are advantages to having the Russians or Chinese think that our fleet is down when it actually is ready. I don't think that is what is happening here but I did think it is worth it to point out. I don't think they would bother faking a forced landing and fire just to mess with the Russians. 

Again, I would hope that the lack of readiness in NATO forces would cause some people to reconsider their undeclared war with Russia. If the conflict were to spiral out of control I don't think we would do well. Our troops are not ready and our equipment is not ready for a major conflict. And we have depleted our stocks of weapons and ammo which would be a real problem in a longer conflict. Unfortunately, I still don't see much in the way of diplomacy.