This is the B-1B Lancer, the precise bomber that the United States deployed to the Pacific to contain Kim Jong-un.

The recent launch of an intercontinental missile by North Korea has triggered all the alarms in the Pacific theater of operations. The region is going through complex times that many analysts associate with the American elections and the Kim Jong-un’s desire to destabilize the American country, South Korea and Japan. In response, the Pentagon sent at least one B-1B Lancer bomber, an aircraft Spain lacks, to conduct training with the aforementioned countries.

“Combat aircraft from the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea carried out a trilateral escort flight for a US bomber operating in the Indo-Pacific on November 3,” according to a statement from the Indo-Pacific Command. Participants included two F-16 fighters and the B-1B Lancer from the Americans, four Mitsubishi F-2 fighters from the Japanese Self-Defense Force and others. of F-15K of the South Korean Air Force.

The exercise “is part of the continuity of the strong trilateral cooperation, which allows immediate response to regional security challenges in a critical security environment“, they explain from the command. “Our three nations maintain an absolute commitment to the shared vision of a secure, open and law-based Indo-Pacific region.”

From the South Korean News Agency Yonhap suggest that, during the exercise, the bomber attacked a simulated target in a demonstration of its “overwhelming” capabilitiesaccording to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JSC) of the Asian country. The number of bombers participating in the maneuvers was not revealed.

“This exercise was carried out in response to North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on October 31,” they explain from the JCS. “As part of a gradual increase in security cooperation between the three countries, we will strengthen coordination to deter threats from North Korea.”

The one recently executed is the second such exercise carried out so far this year by the three countries of the Pacific region. The previous one took place last June, when a B-1B deployed live ammunition to an unspecified location in South Korea.

The American bomber

The Rockwell The B-1B Lancer is the “backbone of the bomber force” long-range weapon,” as the Air Force itself describes it. “It can rapidly deliver massive quantities of precision and non-precision weapons against any adversary, anywhere in the world, at any time. »

The first version, called B-1A, was developed in the 1970s to replace the B-52 bomber, which at that time was already about twenty years late and will be one of the models that will celebrate its centenary in flight. Rockwell flight testing began in the middle of this decade. with speeds above 2,700 km/hcatapulting the aircraft into the supersonic category.

He the project was initially canceled in 1977before even going into production. However, flight testing continued for another 4 years, leaving a positive side to the program that Reagan took advantage of to save it.

In this new phase, with the full support of the White House and the Department of Defense, it was decided to introduce certain improvements to the platform which crystallized in the B-1B Lancer version which remains operational today today. Among the changes are the increased payload capacity, more advanced radar and reduced effective section to reduce the footprint of radars.

Additionally, the initially proposed 2,700 km/h was rejected and a slightly more conservative speed was proposed, while retaining its supersonic category. So, cruise was set at 1.2 times the speed of sound (1,481 km/h).

The first B-1B off the final assembly line took off in October 1984 and entered service with the Air Force two years later. The first years were marked by nuclear weapons deployment capability of an aircrafta capability that the United States removed in 1994 for this aircraft.

The plane It was first used during combat in Iraq during Operation Desert Fox in 1998. A year later, 6 B-1B units were used in Operation Allied Force (Yugoslavia), where they played a fundamental role in the deployment of weapons.

The B-1B is Classified as a heavy, multirole, long-range bomber. It has 4 turbofan engines from General Electric with afterburner which allow it maximum supersonic speed and almost unlimited autonomy thanks to its in-flight refueling capacity. Which explains why these planes left directly from American soil to carry out the attack in Syria and Iraq.

It measures 44.5 meters long by 41.8 meters wide with the wings extended and 24.1 meters with them retracted. This ability is essential since allows you to fly at low speed at the same time to execute attacks as accurately as possible and go into supersonic mode to leave the scene.

As for weapons, it can deploy any type of bomb that fits in its hold. According to the Air Force, can carry up to 34 tons inside with munitions as different as naval mines, cluster bombs or air-to-ground missiles. Each plane has 4 crew members.

The United States began with the removal of the B-1B Lancer’s nuclear capability in 1994although it was considered a heavy bomber equipped with this type of weapons until 2007. The conversion to a conventional bomber began in November of the same year and was completed in March 2011.

Another deployment

Thousands of kilometers from the imprecise location where the maneuvers took place in the Pacific, The United States is working in parallel on a second deployment to Qatar. On this occasion, the Pentagon decided to send a fleet of 6 B-52 bombers to the Middle East, the first time since 2019 that a plane of this model has landed in the region.

With the half a dozen B-52s also displaced an additional squadron of F-15E fighters Strike Eagles and other aerial refuelers. “These measures demonstrate the flexible nature of the United States’ global defense posture and the country’s ability to deploy anywhere in the world on short notice to address evolving national security threats,” he said. said Pentagon Press Secretary Patrick S. Ryder.

This aerial deployment is specially designed to compensate for the upcoming departure to its home port of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincolnas shown Air and Space Forces Magazineciting US officials.

The B-52 bombers were developed during the height of the early stages of the Cold War and alongside the necessity of a nuclear projection of the United States against the Soviet Union. It was the 1950s and the North American Air Force was embarking on a project to design a platform capable of serving as a mothership for these radioactive weapons.

The timing was key, because during this decade Jet engines marked a turning point in the aviation industry all over the world and the B-52 Stratofortress took advantage of it. The program manager was Boeing, which already had extensive experience in creating bombers like the B-29.

Finally, the Stratofortress entered service with the Air Force in 1955 and, since then, it has constituted one of the fundamental pillars of American nuclear strategic projection.

During its almost 70 years of activity, the bomber has received updates and Boeing was responsible for producing versions with more modern technologies. The Department of Defense, through a service life extension program, intends to decommission the last B-52 after more than a century has passed since its activation.

One of the most important renovations concerns the motorization. In 2021, Rolls-Royce won a $2.6 billion contract to 650 engines of the F130 model to modernize the bomber and a few months ago, ground tests began.

Specs-wise, this giant of the skies It is 48.5 meters long and has a wingspan of 56.4 and a height of 12.4 meters. The maximum take-off weight reaches 221 tonnes thanks to its 8 Pratt & Whitney engines.

It reaches 1,000 kilometers per hour although the estimated cruising speed is 800 km/h at a maximum altitude of 15,000 meters. He has a maximum range in combat mode of 14,000 kilometersalthough it is common for it to take off with less fuel to make maneuvering easier, then refill its tanks in the air.