America's New Bomber

The U.S. Air Force's analysis of alternatives (AOA) for a new long-range strike (LRS) bomber awaits formal approval by the Pentagon's acquisition chief, while the service's prompt global strike (PGS) concept's AOA is about to be published, Air Force Brig. Gen. Andrew Dichter said April 19.

"This thing is hung up largely because of the complexity of the discussions of global strike," Dichter said about the new bomber, slated for 2018. "Do we want to just make this very specific and we need to develop that bomber, or do we want to take it holistically?"

The fiscal 2007 budget request includes almost $2 billion for a "new-start" LRS bomber, which is the second phase of the service's three-phase LRS strategy, Dichter said.

Most observers agree that fleet delivery will require $15 billion - $50 billion, he added, and that the bomber will sport low-observable stealth technology. But debate continues over speed, number of engines, payload capacity, whether it should feature just munitions or the full suite of AESA radar and air-to-air missiles, and range with or without refueling. Regardless, a milestone decision is expected in early 2007, the general said.

[...]

The PGS AOA - which envisions weapon delivery within 60 minutes - will review conventional versions of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), manned and unmanned bombers and various launch vehicles, all of which will feature a new common aero vehicle (CAV) that will provide more precise strike delivery of conventional warheads than ICBMs, said Dichter, deputy director in the directorate of operational capability requirements.

The "most promising" CAV is the Falcon hypersonic technology vehicle being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Dichter told the Precision Strike Association's (PSA) annual programs review in Arlington, Va. Other launch vehicles under consideration include reusable, expendable and autonomous variants.

From here. Emphasis added there.

I do believe that we can rule out ballistic missiles for the precision strike. It would cause far too many nations to panic and should be relatively interceptable by the time that this goes into operation. Note the sixty minutes bit though. If its really possible in 12 years to deliver that...it's a pretty profound difference in capability with respect to any other nation.