5 ms·

The bomber isn’t nuclear. The payload is. The good reason to make changes is the hard reality that your opponents won’t slow down to accomodate your old, inef

The bomber isn’t nuclear. The payload is. The good reason to make changes is the hard reality that your opponents won’t slow down to accomodate your old, inefficient, maintenance-heavy fleet of bombers. Even during peacetime the B-52 fleet is burning money, money that DOGE assures the voting public cannot be wasted on frivolous matters such as HIV prevention. It’s like the Ukraine war. Perfectly good tanks turned out to be useless sitting ducks in the face of $500 drones. Why change anything? Because the enemy did. Because the rest of the world did.

nradov 2y ago
Wow, you're really doubling down on the aggressive ignorance. Do you have any clue about what's involved in certifying a platform for the nuclear strike mission?
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Making such a plane, yes, I have a pretty decent clue. It's not that hard. It was done with early 1950s technology! Certifying, sadly... also yes. I work in government. Do you think the enemy cares whether you're properly certified or not? Similarly, do you think hackers care if your CISO has all of your security audit paperwork nicely rubber stamped? Do viruses care if your unpatched servers have been officially exempt from the update schedule? In war, only capability matters. Nothing else.
  - nradov 2y ago
    There's quite a bit of extra hardware needed on the aircraft for the nuclear mission. As well as testing for stuff like weapons separation. None of that is easy or cheap on converted civilian designs. You would know this if you had bothered to do some basic research instead of posting ignorant and irrelevant comments. Like many arrogant engineers who love to pontificate about topics outside your area of expertise, I'm sure you're convinced you're right and everyone else is an idiot. So I'll pass on any further replies and let you believe that you "won".
    - jiggawatts 2y ago
      Go do the research yourself please and link to articles that explain why carrying a cruise missile with nuclear warhead instead of a high explosive warhead adds $60M in annual maintenance costs to each active bomber.
seabird 2y ago
If your assessment of role of armor in Ukraine is that it's useless because of drone developments, you're just not playing with a full deck of cards. You can think what you want and I can't stop you, I just want to say that you shouldn't bring this up around people that do real engineering (especially in aerospace and defense) unless you want to look like an idiot.

nradov 2y ago

Wow, you're really doubling down on the aggressive ignorance. Do you have any clue about what's involved in certifying a platform for the nuclear strike mission?

jiggawatts 2y ago
Making such a plane, yes, I have a pretty decent clue. It's not that hard. It was done with early 1950s technology! Certifying, sadly... also yes. I work in government. Do you think the enemy cares whether you're properly certified or not? Similarly, do you think hackers care if your CISO has all of your security audit paperwork nicely rubber stamped? Do viruses care if your unpatched servers have been officially exempt from the update schedule? In war, only capability matters. Nothing else.
- nradov 2y ago
  There's quite a bit of extra hardware needed on the aircraft for the nuclear mission. As well as testing for stuff like weapons separation. None of that is easy or cheap on converted civilian designs. You would know this if you had bothered to do some basic research instead of posting ignorant and irrelevant comments. Like many arrogant engineers who love to pontificate about topics outside your area of expertise, I'm sure you're convinced you're right and everyone else is an idiot. So I'll pass on any further replies and let you believe that you "won".
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Go do the research yourself please and link to articles that explain why carrying a cruise missile with nuclear warhead instead of a high explosive warhead adds $60M in annual maintenance costs to each active bomber.

seabird 2y ago

If your assessment of role of armor in Ukraine is that it's useless because of drone developments, you're just not playing with a full deck of cards. You can think what you want and I can't stop you, I just want to say that you shouldn't bring this up around people that do real engineering (especially in aerospace and defense) unless you want to look like an idiot.