As budgets shrink but the need for high-end weapon systems remains constant, Pentagon officials often bring up the possibility of a “family of systems” approach to filling a given requirement — and the Long-Range Strike Bomber is one high-level program that has been associated with such a concept.
A family of systems has the advantage of using multiple platforms — often ones that already exist — or capabilities to meet a requirement as opposed to relying entirely on building an expensive new system from the ground up to meet that requirement. After all, officials say, it’s about the effect not the platform.
But when it comes to a high-end requirement like the need for long-range strike, not even a family-of-systems approach can spare the Air Force from spending top dollar on a premium platform. Diem Salmon, senior policy analyst for defense budgeting at Heritage Foundation, said while the recently released request for proposals keeps most details of LRSB a secret, what isn’t a secret is that the Air Force has limited options in replacing its aging bomber fleet — and it’s anybody’s guess just how a “family of systems” could help ease the Air Force’s burden.
“It’s hard to tell,” Salmon said. “The RFP came out, and nobody knows what’s in it. I’ve heard people say that it could be a family of systems. It’s all speculation at this point.”
Whether or not the Air Force opts for a family of systems approach to fill some of the LRSB requirement, one thing that is clear about the future requirements is that the service will need to procure a bomber that is similar in capability to its predecessors, the B-2 and B-52 — that’s not something that a family-of-systems concept could handle entirely. In other words, even if the Air Force can create a family-of-systems concept that could take some of the load of conventional strike, the service will still have to develop a platform that can fill the dual roles of nuclear and conventional strike. “That by itself is going to set a lot of the requirements,” Salmon said.
There are other challenges with using a family of systems to fill a bomber-type role, she noted.
“Part of the requirement for the bomber is range,” she said. “You’ll have to refuel at one point or another, so if you have a family of systems, I don’t really see how that could work unless you do multiple platforms — maybe a combination of [unmanned aircraft] with manned.”
The Air Force has probably already decided where it is going with the LRSB requirement and doesn’t expect to do much development, as suggested by the aggressive 10-year timetable to field LRSB, Salmon said.
“There was a [Congressional Research Service] report that came out that basically said that most of this is already designed,” she said. “The LRSB line triples in the next few years. If you look at that trajectory of spending, people are thinking that looks more like a production line than a development line, which has much slower ramp-ups. With production you see a big jump.
“Ten years is really ambitious, even for the Pentagon,” she added, noting that the Air Force is looking at a 15-year timeframe for the development of a sixth-generation fighter.