DoD tout "Arsenal Plane"
 

Bill or Carter has been reading too much Dale Brown, or taking drugs......

Carter Touts ‘Arsenal Plane,’ Surrenders on A-10

"The new U.S. defense budget to be published Feb. 9 will include initial development of an “arsenal plane” that would operate in conjunction with Lockheed Martin F-22s and F-35s and “act as a very large magazine,” according to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

Based on “one of our oldest platforms,” the concept has been developed by the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), which Carter stood up in 2012 to accomplish “rapid innovation by building on what we have.”

Carter was speaking in Washington at an event where he previewed the fiscal 2017 budget, confirming that the $582.7 billion topline will conform to last fall’s bipartisan budget agreement but also saying that the new plan will be a “major inflection point” in terms of long-term re-equipment of the force.

Carter did not identify the “arsenal plane” platform. According to a source familiar with the studies, the SCO is looking at using either the B-52 or B-1B in that role. “It’s still conceptual and no program has been established. It’s indicative of the kinds of things they are thinking about that could give them an advantage in precision strike. It could end up being both bombers.”

The Pentagon will retain “more fourth-generation fighter/attack aircraft” under the new budget, Carter said. The plan includes a total surrender to those in Congress and the military who criticized the Air Force’s earlier plans, announced two years ago, to retire the entire force of A-10 Warthog close-air-support aircraft. A-10 retirement has been kicked out to 2022, and Carter referred to the aircraft’s “devastating” effect against Islamic State forces. Funding for that campaign will also include $1.8 billion for more than 45,000 replacement precision-guided bombs and laser-guided rockets.

Funding also will be included for development of other SCO initiatives, including the ImageNav optical scene-matching precision-guidance system for the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb and other weapons, intended to provide high precision if GPS is jammed or unavailable, and a “swarming autonomous vehicle” program based on commercial technology and 3D printing. In tests last year in Alaska, Carter said, the vehicles were successfully deployed from fighter aircraft at Mach 0.9. A third SCO project – adapting the hypervelocity projectile developed for the Navy’s railgun program to land- and sea-based powder guns – had a key test about a month ago, Carter said, with a firing from an Army M109 Paladin gun.

In accordance with Carter’s advice to Navy leadership late last year, the budget will reduce the number of Littoral Combat Ships and boost undersea and antisubmarine warfare, with nine Virginia-class submarines over the Future Years Defense Plan – more of them equipped with the Virginia Payload Module, increasing weapon capacity from 12 to 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles – and new funding for torpedoes and unmanned underwater vehicles.

Operationally, the fiscal 2017 budget more than quadruples funding for the European Reassurance Initiative, to $3.4 billion. “By the end of 2017, we will be able to rapidly field a highly capable combined-arms ground force” in Europe, Carter said."

http://www.megafortress.com/newsletter/mega32.jpg

Sounds like someone got hammered.

I doubt future plans of the Obama administration need to be taken seriously; eleven months and they're gone, leaving only a messy room and an unpleasant odor....

Hmmm ... the "Arsenal plane" reminds me of a conversation with a former Lightning sqn cdr in a MB office, where he advocated the "FC-130", stuffed with AMRAAM magazine [the rounds ejected from the rear door] patrolling the North Sea ... with top cover and tanker and AWACS, of course. That would have been around 1989, I guess. I wonder if we were being bugged?

It's not such a stupid idea in some scenarios, where payload might be significant.

MPN, some of us thought the Vulcan with a rotary launcher and Phoenix. It could fly high and sufficiently far forward to require a Backfire to go supersonic early.

Can't wait to see the 'Manchester Plane'.
Anyway, someone better take some Photoshop lessons...

Will the "Arsenal" jet be flown by Emirates? Just asking.

Or maybe this instead.

"The Eagle C2040 is designed to be a missileer, carrying up to sixteen AIM-120D AMRAAM radar-guided missiles into battle. That's twice as many as existing F-15Es can carry and six more than the current reigning champion in missiles, the Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flanker.

The upgrade also includes the Talon HATE advanced communications datalink, which allows the F-15 to exchange data with the F-22. Boeing almost certainly has in mind a scenario in which stealthy Raptors could fly ahead undetected, quietly identifying and targeting enemy aircraft for the heavily armed Eagles."

LINK


http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...2976745031.png

F-15 callsign: missile magnet and his wingman bullet catcher.

Lots of fun (and at times not so joking) chats about this concept in the 80's when envisioning AWACS accompanied by a Nimrod type "missileer".This to be largely crewed by women (to make up the new balance of aircrew sex ratios).

Knit one ,pearl one, press a button - " Oh look; it's gone!"
Knit one, pearl one , press a button etc.etc.

Unless I'm very much mistaken that photo is Dale Brown's fictional EB-52 Megafortress from the novel "Flight of the Old Dog". The exact same concept on the exact same platform - basically a flying battleship with pallets of AMRAAMS and various ASMs.

Someone owes someone some royalties......

Well spotted Fonsini. ;);)

Certainly was (ORAC did mention that in the opener), to be followed by the EB1 Vampire (if memory serves).

People need to tell me if I'm supposed to read the text as well as look at the pictures :}

iirc, didn't we look at something broadly similar towards the begining of the FOAS programme in the late 80's/early 90's?

i remember an artists impression of what looked rather like an A400M shoving TLAM's on pallets out the back, and them whizzing off to their targets...

Truth being as strange as fiction..... If a few decades later. I wonder if Dale Brown will get a royalty?

Pentagon "Arsenal Plane" Likely to be Modified B-52

Sort of........early 2000's too

I can't see how a transporter/subsonic heavy aircraft will be able to get close/fast enough for an effective probability of kill. Amraam range isn't all that impressive as it is, lauch it from a lumbering lump and even less so.
Meteor has been developed for good reason, energy and range, but even that benifits greatly from a decent launch velocity considering it uses ramjets in conjunction with a rocket motor.

B1B might be doable, it can at least manoeuvre and run away fairly quickly.

http://gripen4canada.********.co.uk/2014/08/meteor-vs-amraam-minor-upgrade-or.html

ORAC. Not a new idea by a long shot, though Dale Brown may have only beaten the USAF by a couple of years (or heard on the grapevine that a megafortress study was underway, like the one linked). http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a205248.pdf

The B-52s are already used like an arsenal plane. They loiter at high altitude over an area with a bay full of guided bombs, and deploy them on demand from ground forces.