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ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier
Registered Member
gelgoog said:
Looks like a huge compromise to stealth to make the intakes that small.
I think it looks kinda wonky from this angle but it will likely take years until we get proper pictures from different angles.

I think this will end up being an evolutionary dead end once variable engines come out. Those will allow an aircraft to be both supersonic and long ranged in the same airframe. But twin engine bomber has potential to be cheap if built in large enough numbers.
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What if the B-21 already has variable engines?
 
ZeEa5KPul

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
JamesRed said:
Austin: Let's talk about the B-21's range. No other long range bomber can match its efficiency.
Austin: Let's talk about the B-21's stealth.... Even the most sophisticated air defense systems will struggle to detect the B-21 in the sky.
Wondering about the range since he says efficiency not range. Also, for a presentation like this to an unsophisticated audience you might say invisible to enemy air defense, not struggle to detect. Maybe it was a bad angle, too dark or it will grow on me but from first impressions not iconic looking like the B-2.
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It looks like a shitty photoshop of a B-2 that a two-bit Youtube defense channel would use as a thumbnail.

Let me translate what Austin is saying:
1. The engines are efficient and tuned for long range flight, but the range is still fairly short because it's a small plane with a small fuel carrying capacity.
2. We need to be able to produce these in quantity at a price that won't turn the US into a Third World country, so a few corners had to be cut. It's not B-2 level stealth but c'est la vie.

All in all, it seems the B-21 is to the B-2 as the Virginia is to the Seawolf.
 
C

CrazyHorse

Junior Member
Registered Member
ZeEa5KPul said:
It looks like a shitty photoshop of a B-2 that a two-bit Youtube defense channel would use as a thumbnail.

Let me translate what Austin is saying:
1. The engines are efficient and tuned for long range flight, but the range is still fairly short because it's a small plane with a small fuel carrying capacity.
2. We need to be able to produce these in quantity at a price that won't turn the US into a Third World country, so a few corners had to be cut. It's not B-2 level stealth but c'est la vie.

All in all, it seems the B-21 is to the B-2 as the Virginia is to the Seawolf.
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I doubt it would be *less stealthy than the B-2, it is significantly newer, and designed with much more powerful supercomputers and made with more advanced materials. I don’t see why it would be worse in the stealth department.
 
BoraTas

BoraTas

Captain
Registered Member
I will say it, I am quite underwhelmed by the presentation.

1- We only saw the frontal aspect and there are no indications of the model's authenticity. It can very well be a wooden mockup. American commentators routinely derogate "wooden models" of other countries, sometimes even if the said models are actual working prototypes.

2- All that 6th gen crap. Fighter aircraft generation definitions are already a heavily self-contradicting mess of marketing terms. Calling a smallish strategic bomber a 6th gen aircraft is Youtube clickbait level terminology.

3- No capabilities were revealed. A lot of grandiose claims though. The aircraft is basically a smaller B-2 with probably better packaging and better avionics. Underwhelming considering the B-2 is 33+ years older than the B-21. I know, most developments in military aviation have been about avionics and munitions but this is not how you show leadership. If its RCS return is not something like -50 dBsm (0.00001 m^2) the B-21 is just a smaller B-2.
 
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