Northrop Grumman turned up at an Air Force virtual exercise in late September with a new weapon: the high energy laser (HEL) bomber. Based on a B-2, the notional bomber design combined the stealth bomber's massive internal payload with a HEL that could shoot down incoming double-digit surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), rendering the jet invulnerable to missile attack.

The project leader is Robert Smerke, principal investigator for operations and simulation analysis for the company's Integrated Systems sector. Smerke acknowledges that the key laser technology doesn't exist yet, but says that the study was more than just an exercise in PowerPoint physics.

First, Smerke's team talked to operators - B-2 crews at the 509th Bomb Wing, other bomber crews, special operations teams, fighter pilots and many others - to find out what they could do with a HEL-armed bomber, before they defined the aircraft and weapons used in the simulation.

Also, apart from the HEL, the technology installed on the simulated bomber was off-the-shelf, under development or simply modified: the SDB II Small Diameter Bomb, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) adapted for air launch were among them. The bomber wasn't necessarily a modified B-2, but that technology was used as a baseline.

As for the laser, Smerke says, Northrop Grumman was looking at systems that have a serious chance of working "and don't weigh 7,000 pounds". The crews, he says, "will give up a couple of JDAMs" for a defensive capability  Smerke's team modeled with two lasers. The nearer-term liquid-cycle concept provided unlimited shots over the mission, but needed to shut down and dump heat after a certain number of firings; beyond 2020, solid-state technology was assessed to allow continuous fire. Neither used expendable chemical fuel, but drew electrical power from the engines. (Smerke does not mention specifics, but DARPA's laser programs described here, here and here are an indication of where technology might be headed.)

The study does reflect the fact that, if an airborne defensive HEL is ever practical, it will fit on a large bomber before it fits on a fighter. It's also worth remembering that defending a 600 mph target is not like protecting a land target or a ship. It's enough to make the incoming weapon miss by a few dozen yards, in most cases, and (unlike a ship target) the bomber won't be hit by an uncontrolled but intact weapon. Punch a hole in a SAM's radome, and the supersonic airflow through the hole will blow the radome off and the missile will become unstable and miss.

There's another point about lasers, too:  they make tactical maneuver irrelevant because they engage at equal speed and effectiveness over the entire field of regard, which is a complete sphere in the case of a flying wing with upper and lower turrets. A B-2 can't pull 9g or perform a vertical scissors. And it does not matter.

In operational terms, the HEL allowed the bomber to use an array of offensive weapons. In one scenario, an aircraft carrier appeared on the scene. The HEL bomber launched an ATACMS with a 500-pound warhead, a Mach 2.5 weapon with a 190-mile range at air launch. "All that did", says Smerke, "was piss off a nest full of hornets." The carrier commander in the wargame promptly readied a fighter sortie. The next ATACMS carried 13 BAT (Brilliant Anti-armor Technology) submunitions which targeted every jet on the deck. "There was no more flying that day," Smerke comments.

Fitted with JSF's datalink, the HEL bomber cooperated with the stealthy fighter. The laser covered the fighter against missile threats, and the fighter's AMRAAMs defended the bomber against hostile fighters.

The spookily labeled Coffin In The Sky (CITS) concept was a result of Northrop Grumman's engineers talking to SOF operators. The bomber would carry up to 12 modified Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM) weapons, each fitted with a pressurized life-support container for one person. After launch, the missiles would fly deep into hostile territory, pop the containers open and release the operators for a HAHO (high altitude, high opening) parachute descent.

Not everything in the HEL bomber's panoply of weapons will become reality - there is no doubt about that. But some of the concepts are already included in Northrop Grumman's ideas for the Next Generation Bomber, says Charles Boccadoro, director of future strike sytems. "Every concept that we put into the the request for information (RFI) had some self-protection in it. An AIM-120D is pretty lethal and it makes the fighter guys think."

pic credit: Northrop Grumman