Comments by "VisibilityFoggy" (@VisibilityFoggy) on "B-21 Raider - The Next Stealth Bomber" video.

 David Lee - Nothing escapes? I wouldn't be surprised if Israel has flown an F-35i right over one just to experiment.
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They're stretching it into the 2050s-2060s at this point, and they actually just grabbed a B-52H out of the boneyard to restore it and add it to the fleet to replace one that had an accident. I believe it's going to an ANG wing. They have plenty of them sitting around and Boeing is still supporting upgrades. What an amazing platform!
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@sisyphusvasilias3943 - The S-500 is an ABM platform, not a SAM platform. It is roughly equivalent to the US's THAAD platform.
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Does anyone know of any new developments in the rumor that the B-21 will carry at least some air-to-air missiles for self-defense? Personally, I thought that was an extremely important nugget that got leaked. I'm imagining an AIM-260 that could take out something along the lines of a MiG-31 and keep interceptors at bay long enough to carry out the strike mission.
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The question is whether the copycat models would be up to snuff in combat. China is an authoritarian state that does not trust nor place much value on its own people. The impetus to make aircraft as survivable as the U.S. just doesn't exist. It's a quantity over quality doctrine that translates extremely poorly to the battlefield, if history is any guide.
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@fakecubed - It was also extremely poor planning to cancel the AH-66 Comanche armed scout/attack helicopter.
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@stupidburp - The B-1B cannot carry nukes due to treaty obligations. In exchange, Russia removed the air-to-air refueling capability from the Tu-22M (and successor variants).
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@stupidburp - Right, but then the Russians would rearm the Tu-22M (including the newer, more modern variant) with air to air refueling. It would be an annoyance to have them testing our airspace, which is exactly what they would do, if for nothing else but to be a destabilizing nuisance, which is about all Russia can muster these days.
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@fakecubed - Penetrating counter-air would be a sixth-gen platform. Some argue it's interchangeable with the US Navy's F/A-XX program and others believe the USAF and USN will chart different courses on it (no pun intended). Right now, as it currently stands, the F-35 can't even carry the HARM missile internally and the Raptor can't carry it at all. So any SEAD missions would have to be completed by the new F-15EX, F/A-18, the Growler, the Eurofighter or the F-16. In theory, a modern SEAD mission might resemble the Israeli raid on the Osirak reactor – a combo of F-15s and F-16s, all these decades later.
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My guess is that they tapped Angela's phone because they wanted to know what she was saying. ;)
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@sisyphusvasilias3943 - Such are the times in which we live. There isn't a lot of love lost between the US and Germany. Sure, we love their Beamers and Benzes in America, but their horrifically small contributions toward their own defense is a disgrace. Then, of course, is the madness of their immigration policies. I see Germany getting its own version of Trump sometime in the not-too-distant future.
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For who? The US? America could certainly buy it, but that is more for protection against lightly-armed insurgents firing short-range rockets. The US doesn't really face that sort of threat anywhere. That said, David's Sling (a/k/a Patriot PAAC-4), The Barak-8 and mobile SAM tech would fill gaps in areas where the US is lacking protection. It would be interesting to see a truck-mounted system that could handle something like Aegis Ashore and the SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, which are truly excellent.
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