World's largest plane could be 'easily' militarized, carry 4000 AMRAAMs

785 B61 gravity bombs. It has a payload capacity of 550,000 pounds.

>Sweet Jesus, why isn't the military ordering these fuckers?
It's really fragile compared to a B-52 and pretty fragile compared even to a commercial airliner. That's not an insult to it, but it was built to maximize payload capacity so weight was saved everywhere.

>785 B61 gravity bombs.

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Time for IRL Itano circus?

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who cares when mama and papa have cleared the AO of all threats.

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Still though, 550,000 lbs of payload is ridiculous. Even if you bulked it up and it ended up with only 350,000 lbs of payload that's still 5 times a B-52.

Honestly, it seems pretty risky investing that much in a single aircraft when the same job could be distributed to multiple smaller planes. It'd be a real waste to spend the money on that many AMRAAMs only to have the thing shot down before firing a shot.

Just like carriers that are at sea by themselves...
oh wait

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>actual real life arsenal bird

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TBQH the cruise missile role is more compelling. You could give it a fuckhuge fighter escort that could take massive losses defending it but if it was able to ripple off 170 cruise missiles over enemy territory that's a pretty serious victory.

But carriers provide a unique mission capability that only carriers can perform. In this case, itdoesn't make sense to concentrate a shit ton of A2A missiles on a single large aircraft when you can perform the same role with a number of smaller, infinitely more survivable platforms.

170 nuke-armed ALCMs.

MILITARIZE THE SPRUCE GOOSE

>1 PL-20
>there goes half our AMRAAMS

With the INF now gone, why can't that role be fulfilled by naval and ground-launched cruse missiles? Seems a lot more survivable.

You're mistaken to assume it would only carry the AMRAAMs. I think I buffet of missiles would be more reasonable, with relatively few AMRAAMs and a shitload of air to ground options. That makes more sense because for air to ground loiter time is a big fucking deal and this would have been a godsend in a lot of recent operations that had inadequate or delayed air support.

The article was just stating a hypothetical max load of armament in use.
Do you think the USAF is going to take on every other AF in the world? In one go?

I hadn't thought of that. I could totally imagine something like this orbiting over a battlefield in a permissive COIN environment like Afghanistan or our recent adventures in Africa. Still think it'd be way too vulnerable in any A2A role, though.

Who sincerely cares?

Go be autistic somewhere else.

>plane was made to account of a single rocket Cd
>suddenly you add a shit ton more on each possible way fucking up the aerodynamics of it

sure thing

I mean, the plane is designed to be able to maintain stability both with and without a rocket strapped to it, along with handling the dynamic load of rapidly dropping the thing. I'd imagine it's very flexible in regards to where you can put mass.

BRING BACK CARPET BOMBING

BIG PLANES FOR BIG GRAVES

NO SURVIVORS

isn't that basically what the B-1 "missile bus" concept was supposed to be, except on a much smaller and more practical scale?

>Have this far bitch floating out there missile boating in the sky
>Smaller insanely maneuverable aircraft ahead of it just spotting targets as this lets off missile after missile
I don't know if it's viable, but I love the sound of it. Hell, can we rearm it while it's in the air too?

Yeah, which much like this project, will never be used by the US military.

>Hell, can we rearm it while it's in the air too?
With what, the other half of the Air Force missile reserve?

It'd need longer range missiles that what we currently have to be viable. If it's in effective missile range out its targets, the targets can most likely shoot back. The only way something this vulnerable would survive is by outranging any potential threats.

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>With what, the other half of the Air Force missile reserve?
What I'm hearing is we need more missiles.

scaled up alhtk pods with b-1b-like rotary launchers inside

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Is that doable? I mean it's got a fuckton of available tonnage, even if it meant a heavier, new, missile design. That doesn't seem like an awful idea. F-35s could spot targets, this thing fires shit from long long range, and the "stealth" planes don't even have to open an internal bay and expose themselves.

Why not? Let’s give it a try, see what happens.

Considering it's designed to assist a rocket to space, I'd imagine the flight ceiling is quite a ways higher than most fighter craft. That gives it a rather large range boost over other aircraft with stuff like AIM120Ds that have glide modes.

Jesus, what’s with the negative vibes? We obviously build a fleet of flying missile factories to keep it fed.

It's only like 40,000 ft lad, the point is to reduce drag and let you pick the latitude you want to launch from so you can put more up for less.

And at a certain point you can't get much more out of missiles without increasing their size, the boosts of the AIM-120D over the earlier variants are mainly due to some changes in propellant and a better glide profile. The thing is still going to struggle past 70 nmi simply because it doesn't have enough energy coming in to make an intercept against a fighter at that distance.

We Ace Combat now. Seriously though, somebody actually got paid to make this idea. Maybe Jow Forums can replace RAND

This. Even if a new longer-range missile was developed, it'd still make much more sense to put it on more survivable platform like a B-1R or an F-15X

It's time to dance with the angels

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Let's strap napalm to it

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I wonder if we'll ever see something like this created. Or a comeback for airships/dirigibles. The Hindenburg disaster just seems like it created a dead end on that tech tree forever, though.

based and ricepilled

It needs to be nuclear powered snd have a solid state laser mounted on it. And then have it permanantly loitering around shithole or gun grabber countries zapping every enemy who resists.

literally just the arsenal bird

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test

>Still think it'd be way too vulnerable in any A2A role
No shit

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Really? Wtf why are there so few?
We should have hundreds of thousands of such missile.

>go dance with the angels! every five fucking minutes
the voice acting in that game was so atrocious they should have just found some excuse to make the character deaf or extremely anti social

Exactly. And we would need to buuld a fleet of them and fly them over gun grabber enclaves for some 'calibration testing'. And the funny part is it would probably have the legal status of a laser pointer in terms of private civilian ownership.

When you can't own nukes but you could own a death star. Fucking NFA.

the problem is the CoG of the plane is behind the cockpit to counteract the massive weight of the rocket
plus its a single rocket not a barrage of them under the wings fucking up fluid dynamics

/dab on you

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Okay Ching chong

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Memes aside, large targets like this, ships, tankers, and AWACS are basically what the J20 is designed to kill.

Yeah, I'm sure they never thought of that before

It’s only a matter of time, picture it Jow Forums, the US military of 2035.
>The Air Force’s great twin fuselage designs have been perfected for combat, hosting hundreds of missiles, hundreds of cluster bombs, and all the napalm they can carry; with the assistance of in flight fueling and sleeping areas for a larger crew the birds only need to come down once a week.
>The Army is using teslescoping ammunition and has power armor with ADS; their combat drones are top of the line.
>The Navy is using railguns and lasers on everything from destroyers to small attack boats, they are unchallenged on the world’s oceans.
>The Coast Guard has a vast number of stealth ships patrolling hidden from the view of any who try to come to port with bad intentions. >The Space Force is finishing up trials for it’s first starship design, and has high hopes for using the new crafts to replace the defensive satellites that are in orbit.
>The Marines have even been taught to stop eating crayons.

The future is beautiful

Fuck I screwed up the formatting, that’s what I get for phoneposting.

Then one s300 takes it down

Missiles are expensive user. Jets even more so. You'd be surprised how little jets we actually have in the military. There's something like a little over 100 F-22s, 1600 AMRAAMs goes a long way.

Not only that, but missiles are constantly evolving, creating huge stockpiles isn't a good idea, especially since we aren't at war. The moment hell breaks loose, however, you can bet your goddamn ass we'll kick production into high gear so the stockpile doesnt run out

Build an escalator that doesn't double as a meat grinder and then we'll talk about planes.

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once rail guns come on line we needs our nuclear BBs with carbon nano-trube armour and twelve railguns in four turrets, like a Montana Class with the aesthetics of a Zumwalt. Since SSBNs have taken the states' names, the first two ships will be Juneau and Indianapolis, just to spit in the face of fate.

>Those missile numbers
This make my peepee the big peepee

Please I can only get so erect.

What was the plane flying next to the stratolaunch during its maiden flight?

100 f22s, yes. But drones? How many of those do you think are being used?

Give it AESA radars of multiple wavelengths & frequencies in all directions and 600 Link-16 nodes.

Mega-AWACS is born.

What it really needs is onboard LOx stores so it can climb even higher by vaporizing oxygen when atmospheric oxygen runs low

There are thousands of F-35s slated for production.

That's a big doubt user. In the modern day and age of air forces, i highly doubt there would be thousands of them. They aren't as cheap and easy to produce as a old prop fighter.

This_pleases_Itano.macross

youtube.com/watch?v=BzXfVgYCxWI

Operation Linebacker I/II but all B-52s are replaced with Stratolaunchers.

>36 daisycutters

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I actually think they could. With the Navy's help, of course.

everyday we get one step closer to it...

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Something that size couldnt be made stealthy. And couldnt dodge super SAMs for shit. Its why airstrikes are predominantly done with high end fighter bombers now.

That however, is much more dangerous.

Were in howls moving castle now

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>>The Marines have even been taught to stop eating crayons.
Let's not get crazy here. Some things just aren't feasible user.

how so ?

i bet you could put tons of missiles on a cargo airplane but that is a horrible strategy, firgther aircraft are designed that way for a reason.
using it for bombing is the same thing, you're better off with 8 B-52 than 1 of these. they could bomb 7 different targets at the same time while that thing can't bomb 7 different locations and no location is that big that it requires 1 giant payload of insane bombs in a single run, meaning you need to have that thing flying again and again, making it slower and easier to shoot down cos you put all of your egges in 1 basket. gigantism always fails because of reality. you also need to maintain and account for many other aspect.
i.e tiger 4 was the most armored and powerful tank in WW2, but it was a hell to maintain and very few were made in comparison to ally tanks. in order to replace an engine part or transmission you had to send it by train back to germany to a Porsche factory, having to spend 1 hours of maintenance for every hour of operation. The Sherman took 1 hour of maintenance for every 10 hours of operations and you could fix it in the field. that's what wins wars. not giant nazi railguns that you gotta keep a crew of 1000 to operate it and needs to have it's barrel replaced every 120 rounds.
Those giant stuff rarely see action and they get destroyed by superior weapons (same for giant battleships that did very little during WW2 unlike aircraft carriers which were much more capable than 1 giant ship)

Reason 8 will suprise you!

but they didnt because you know the paper doesnt even exist

Thats a right fuckin skookum choocher if ever seent it.

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hi boeing

hi

Ooh it could have taken out both towers at once

>Ooh it could have taken out both towers at once

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I don't care how stealthy or maneuverable this thing is when it has 20 AMRAAMs headed to it.

Thats not your MiG-21, Pajeet.

>gigantism always fails
DELET THIS

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