USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) Outreach Journal CUWS Outreach Journal 1193 25 November 2015 Feature Item: “US Bomber Force: Sized to Sustain an Asymmetric Advantage for America”. Authored by Lt Gen Michael R. “Mike” Moeller, USAF (Ret.); published by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies; 18 November 2015; 26 pages. https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AFA/def574d3-a429-454b-a3e8- e5073c93ca6b/UploadedImages/MI_Bomber_Force_Structure_Paper_Final.pdf?utm_source=hootsu ite As it has in the past, America’s bomber force provides far more than just long-range precision strike. Currently, geographic combatant commanders’ operational plans rely heavily on the bombers to perform a wide variety of missions in both permissive and heavily defended environments. The aircraft must be capable of providing precision attack, interdiction, close air support, armed overwatch, defense suppression, shows of force, anti-ship operations and minelaying, maritime surveillance, and, as always, nuclear deterrence, to name just some of their mission sets. Despite this importance, the number of bombers in the Air Force’s inventory has dwindled over time from thousands in the 1950s and 1960s to less than 100 combat-coded (i.e., available for operational missions) B-1B, B-2A, and B-52H aircraft in the current force. This decrease is due to a number of factors including changes in the strategic environment, shifts in operational approach, and resource constraints. Yet, analysis since the end of the Cold War has been remarkably consistent in establishing or validating the requirement for the Air Force to maintain 150 to 200 combat-ready bombers. This paper asserts that a modernized and capable Air Force bomber force of 150 to 200 aircraft is required to maintain America’s asymmetric advantage in long-range precision strike over any potential future adversary. The aging-out of the B-1 and B-52 fleets, combined with the increasingly sophisticated threat environment, drives the nation to make an immediate investment to procure a minimum of 100 new longrange strike bombers. In the long-term, to maintain the bomber force’s viability, the Defense Department should consider funding additional advanced bombers beyond those 100 aircraft before the last B-1s and B-52s retire by 2045. U.S. Counter-WMD 1. Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) Begins to Take Shape 2. Nakatani: Japan Needs Better Missile Defense against North Korea U.S. Arms Control 1. Russia’s Tu-95 Bomber Upgraded to Carry New Nuclear-Tipped Missiles 2. Russia Develops New Tactical Missiles for Iskander-M System 3. Deputy FM: Russia's INF Claims to US "Not an Excuse, it is a Real Concern"Russian, US 4. Diplomats Discuss Arms Control, Non-Proliferation of WMDs Issue No.1193, 25 November 2015 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies| Maxwell AFB, Alabama https://cuws.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama Homeland Security/The Americas 1. China Again Tests Nuclear Hypersonic Missile Asia/Pacific 1. North Korean Leader's Top Aide Working on Farm as Punishment: State Spy Agency 2. Nuclear Envoys of S. Korea, China Hold Talks on N. Korea 3. N. Korean Leader Executes about 100 Officials: Think Tank Europe/Russia 1. Putin’s Three-Tiered, Multi-Billion-Ruble 'War Room' Revealed 2. Chemical, Bacterial Attacks 'Among Risks to Consider' - French Defense Minister 3. Former Labour Defence Secretary Des Browne Questions Whether Trident Is an Effective Deterrent 4. Poll: Northern Ireland should Host Trident Nuclear Weapons, Says DUP MP - Do You Agree? 5. Putin: Russia Will Move S-300 Air Defense Systems to its Base in Syria Middle East 1. Iranian Dy FM, IAEA Chief to Confer in Vienna 2. AEOI Publishes Document on Redesigning Arak Reactor (+Full Text) 3. Israel Has 115 Nuclear Weapons, Says US Think Tank 4. The Hunt for Red Mercury: Isis Tricked into Chasing after Mythical Nuclear Bomb Substance 5. World Powers to Help Iran Redesign Reactor as Part of Nuclear Deal 6. Russia Resumes Nuclear Trade with Iran as Sanctions Lifted 7. Global Watchdog Slams Ongoing Chemical Arms Use in Syria 8. AEOI Chief: Iran to Export 9 Tons of Enriched Uranium to Russia, Import 140 Tons of Ore 9. Ayat. Khamenei: Iran Supports Whoever Confronts Bullying Powers 10. Iran’s Air Defense Launches New Command Center India/Pakistan 1. India Test-Fires Indigenously Developed Interceptor Missile 2. India Testfires Ballistic Missile, as Nuclear Club Eyes its ‘Inclusion’ Commentary 1. Get Ready, China: This Is Why Australia Needs Nuclear Weapons 2. The Pakistani Nuclear Deal that Wasn’t 3. (Ab)Normal Nuclear Pakistan 4. Time to Talk Straight 5. Pakistan’s Full Spectrum Deterrence 6. It’s Official: There Will Be No Iranian ICBM in 2015 Return to Top Issue No.1193, 25 November 2015 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies| Maxwell AFB, Alabama https://cuws.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) Outreach Journal Defense Update – Qadima, Israel Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) Begins to Take Shape November 22, 2015 The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Raytheon have completed the first Program Planning Review on the future Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) concept, a key step toward defining critical aspects of its design. This milestone ensures that the development plan is aligned with the MDA’s expectations, and on track for an upcoming Concept Review in December. Each MOKV will steer itself to a target and destroy it. Multiple MOKVs will be loaded on a launch missile such as the Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI). Each interceptor will be equipped with an advanced sensor, as well as divert, attitude-control and communications technologies, to enable each MOKV to home in on an individual target. Based on illustrations released by the company, each interceptor missile will carry a single bus mounting six MOKVs, each utilising its own sensor and diverting thrusters, thus enabling a single interceptor to engage multiple targets – whether real warheads or decoys – with a high probability of success. The design work on Raytheon’s MOKV concept is being conducted as part of Raytheon’s Advanced Missile Systems product line, which already has an impressive arsenal of missile-interception systems, some already operational and others, such as the MOKV, still in various stages of development. The Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) missile, a three-stage GBI solid rocket booster, currently carries a single Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), capable of intercepting a single ballistic missile target. In case a threat missile is identified, the EKV can be launched into space. Once outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, operating at the edge of space at hypersonic speeds, the EKV’s job will begin. The EKV will seek out the target using multi-color sensors, a cutting-edge on-board computer, and a rocket motor used only for steering in space. It will hone in on its target with pinpoint precision and destroy it by the sheer kinetic forces resulting from the impact. This is the third generation of EKV that Raytheon is developing for the GBI. The first prototype was launched in 1998. The program evolved with several variants, undergoing 10 test flights that suffered quite a few failures until two successful flights, in 2013 and 2014, paved the way for further development and optimization. Currently being upgraded with the CE-II KEV variant, the fleet of GBIs is fully operational at Ft. Greely, Alaska. Since the original GBI and EKV vehicles suffered a large number of failures, the GBI/EKV system was considered unreliable. As a result, the Army has chosen to employ a ‘less-than-optimal shot doctrine,’ allocating more interceptors to each target missile, thus diminishing the number of attacking missiles it could intercept with the fleet of 44 GBIs planned to be on alert by 2017. The version currently under development is CE-II Block 1, designed to incorporate many improvements implementing lessons learned from past test failures. The first flight test of this missile is expected in 2016. If successful, it will be followed by operational deployment beginning the following year (installed on the next 10 GBI interceptors scheduled for delivery by the end of 2017). The reliability problems encountered with the EKV have lead the MDA to seek an alternative in the Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV – sometime referred to as EKV CE-III), a modified design that leverages mature, proven components to simplify design and improve reliability. The RKV will Issue No.1193, 25 November 2015 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies| Maxwell AFB, Alabama https://cuws.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama also have improved target acquisition and discrimination capabilities and will provide for on- demand communications between the RKV and the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) fire control system. The development of this kill vehicle is slated to begin in 2016, and the MDA plans to award the RKV production contract by 2018, leading to initial deployment in 2020. Under the more ambitious Common Kill Vehicle (CKV) program, the MDA is seeking to develop new technologies that will improve its exoatmospheric intercept capabilities. The agency had planned to develop a Multi-Kill Vehicle (MKV) as early as 2004, but abandoned the program in 2009 in favor of ‘ascent-phase-intercept’ capabilities considered with forward deployed weapons such as the AEGIS- BMD. MOKV, considered as part of that CKV, will therefore revive this plan, with a delay of more than a decade. The definition phase of an operational MOKV concept was launched in August 2015.