Air Force maps path to 100 new B-21 bombers

The B-52 will be armed with long-range, nuclear cruise missiles… the B-2 will elude the most modern air defenses and the B-1B bomber will fire hypersonic weapons -- if the Air Force's plan for the next several decades comes to fruition. Air Force weapons developers are immersed in an intricate plan to bring the service's bomber fleet into future decades -- by adding weapons, avionics and networking technologies to current aircraft and moving quickly to bring new B-21 bombers to the force. The current thinking is centered upon methods of compensating for what service leaders identify as a "bomber deficit," and therefore finding ways to maximize the performance of the aircraft it has in the inventory. "There are only 156 allied bombers and they all belong to us. We are working on the growth of a requirement for long-range strike," Gen. Timothy Ray, Commander of Global Strike Command, told reporters at the Air Force Association Air, Space and Cyber Conference in September.