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Notes -
B-21 could very easily turn out to be the B-17* of the next world war.
Thermal imagers are getting very cheap right now (iirc 1024x768 IR sensors for $10k). Between stealth planes being detectable on long wavelength radar with notable imprecision, anything but stealth planes not showing there, and fighter jets all having FLIR that can detect other fighter planes at up to 50 kilometers and tell a 500kw decoy from a plane with 10 MW engine, it's quite possible that B-21 won't be able to do missions into actually contested airspace at all.
*it was 'sold' as a
It could do neither. Unescorted missions had ~5-10% loss rates.
IR sensors are absolutely fantastic, until, say, it rains. Very good to have, not reliable in the way radar is (radar has its own problems, of course).
Yes, the B-21 probably won't be able to do missions into actually contested airspace. The question is if it can get to within a couple hundred miles (LRASM; longer with in-development hypersonics) of the contested airspace and release its weapons. Stealth has never been absolute; the Russians and whoever have always been able to detect our B-2s and F-117s and F-22s, the question has always been about whether the stealth gives strike packages the extra edge they need to get within weapons-release range and get out.
The Russians have arguably the best integrated air-defense systems in the world (in Ukraine they scored a 90+ mile kill against a target flying <50 feet off the ground) and very impressive long-range air-to-air missiles fired from the world's fastest acknowledged aircraft with a radar antenna the size of a dinner table (100+ mile kill recorded) and the Ukrainians are still successfully running airstrikes against them using non-stealthy aircraft designed by the Soviets in the 1970s. I think the bomber will get through, the question is just if it's going to be effective. And unlike, say, a tank battalion, it only takes a single missile to render a ship combat ineffective. So I think the B-21 will probably be an effective weapon in the sense of being able to reach weapons release point (at least vs. China in a Taiwan scenario – albeit with some limitations) the real question in my mind is the relative effectiveness of US anti-ship missiles and Chinese anti-missile defenses.
(Source for Russian SAM/interceptor performance, see pages 20 - 21.)
I have seen one video of Russia doing a bombing run with gravity bombs and zero videos of Ukraine doing so.
I haven't even seen any complaints from Russia about anything but Storm Shadow.
Single missile?
Every ship in the Chinese navy has at least one point defense Gatling cannon and most no doubt have short range air defense missiles similar to e.g. Pantsir, that unlike the US ones do not cost a million dollars each.
A single missile, unless it's hypersonic, low flying and evading probably doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting near.
Bombs show up on radar, show up on IR, cannot maneuver. And are slow - glide bombs go maybe 100 m/s in the end.
Hypersonics glow in IR, and highly likely if you fill their path with metal fragments you are going to get a spectacular light show.
Not saying you can't attack ships, but you probably need a whole salvo and maybe a little luck and/or EW to secure a chance to hit.
Sorry for the delay; I was out.
Both Ukraine and Russia are using glide bombs. If you poke around a bit, you can see videos of them both using unguided rockets in the CAS role.
Yes, and if Storm Shadow can penetrate layered Russian air defenses we ought to imagine LRASM can do the same. (Recall that a B-1 can carry 2-3 dozen LRASMs, so a squadron of them might literally be able to overwhelm a Chinese carrier battle group even if they launch and hit with every air-defense missile; the B-21 seems fairly small, maybe it carries 6ish?)
Perhaps I was too ambiguous; what I meant was it only takes a single missile to hit to render a ship non-combat effective. I agree that it will likely take salvos to hit reliably, although it is worth noting that it did not take large ones in the Falklands War, and that Ukraine appears to have sunk a Soviet cruiser (the Moskva) with a very small salvo of two subsonic missiles (if you trust the Ukrainian claims.) The Moskva had the S-300 – not exactly a slouch of an air-defense system – plus shorter-ranged anti-air missiles and CIWS. I can think of a lot of reasons why the Chinese ships might perform better than the Moskva but I think our priors ought to be that missile salvos will be effective, because they have been in the past and are now.
Anyway, if the LRASM (stealthy) or future hypersonic weapons give Chinese ships the same trouble that the Storm Shadow gave the Russian air-defense crews using similar missiles, I think the B-21 will be plenty scary.
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