A U.S. Air Force B-1B has successfully used laser guided JDAM bombs against moving naval targets. These tests involved the B-1B using its Sniper targeting pod to put the laser beam on the target. The JDAMs homed on the laser light reflecting off the moving target ships. This is the latest of many air force heavy bombers that have served as maritime patrol and anti-ship aircraft. ... In the last few decades, the B-52 has been active in this area. For example, for the last few years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been using B-52s to check out suspicious merchant ships approaching North America, often when the ships are still about 2,000 kilometers from the coast. The B-52s use their targeting pods to take pictures of the ship, and transmit those back to DHS. A B-52 can do this while taking part in a training exercise. B-52s have a lot of jobs to do over the oceans.
This is largely because maritime reconnaissance has been revolutionized with the introduction, and combining, of lightweight search radars and targeting pods. With the targeting pod, you can stay high (6,500 meters/20,000 feet) and far away (over twenty kilometers) and still get a close look. Thus a B-52 with a targeting pod is an excellent naval reconnaissance aircraft, as is the more recent B-1B.
B-52s and B-1Bs also practice dropping naval mines. This is something the air force has been doing since World War II, and with great success.
We've also used long-range anti-ship cruise missiles on our heavy bombers. We're working on longer range versions.
This land-based anti-ship capability will help us penetrate Chinese area denial forces that will try to defeat or delay the operation of American naval forces in the western Pacific. Just having the long-range weapons on the planes will help directly strike Chinese naval and shore-based assets.
The ability to lay mines from the air is welcome. Just their ability to do so will force the Chinese to be more careful (or simply accept the casualties from running through a mine field to get to the objective). Mines are under-appreciated weapons.
The long range of the planes will also expand the number of air bases that the Chinese will need to target to keep the bombers from attacking their forces. Remember, these are intercontinental bombers, and with aerial refueling could carry out missions (as long as they aren't time sensitive) even from the continental United States.
Since the planes can stand off outside of air defense missile range, if the Chinese want to intercept the bombers they'll need to push their carriers away from support from land-based air power and put them at risk from both our land- and sea-based air power plus Navy missiles (and increasingly, long-range guns).
So just one capability spreads out Chinese assets trying to hurt our capability, adds our capabilities, adds to our ability to survive their attacks, helps our forces penetrate their defenses, and puts their forces at additional risk to counter us.
That's a lot of bang for the buck--even without the nukes they were built to carry.
And don't forget another platform we have. If we could put anti-ship cruise missiles on these that receive targeting data from other assets, the Chinese will face more uncertainty. They might actually need to run past our SSGNs to get within range of our approaching fleet and so face the prospect of missile attack 360 degrees.
When I speak of the Chinese gaining the ability to threaten our assets in the western Pacific, I don't mean to imply that China will win those battles (if they take place, of course--I don't assume war). We have assets, too. And a much better trained and experienced Navy and Air Force. In many ways my biggest worry is that we think our carriers are invulnerable Death Stars rather than just one of many tools to achieve naval and air objectives during war. I worry that the psychological impact of losing one or two carriers will be far greater than the material impact on our Navy.
Our Navy has the assets (with the Air Force helping it has even more) to win control of the western Pacific even if all our big deck carriers go down in the first hour of war. And we keep adding more. My hope is that our naval war games assume that our carriers are sunk or put out of action so we learn how to fight and win without them. And if our carrier defenses work better than Chinese attack systems? So much the better for us.
