B-2 Spirit - the spearhead of America's preemptive strike

Stealth capabilities and a powerful arsenal help the B-2 bomber launch a preemptive strike against any enemy location.

US B-2 Spirit bomber. Photo: Wikipedia.

A White House official today interpreted President Donald Trump's statement that "only one thing will work with North Korea" as implying that Washington is considering military action against Pyongyang, raising concerns about the US launching a preemptive strike against North Korea.

Experts say that in case of a decision to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea, the US will deploy the B-2 Spirit bomber as the spearhead, because this is the Pentagon's most modern strategic bomber today, according to National Interest.

The B-2 Spirit was developed by the US in the late 1970s as a strategic bomber capable of penetrating Soviet air defenses and attacking targets with nuclear weapons. Very little information about this bomber appeared at that time, except that it was integrated with radar-invisible technology and had a shape very different from previous aircraft models.

The development of the B-2 bomber was kept secret, no one knew its true shape until its launch in 1988. The development cost increased from 35.7 to 42.8 billion USD, of which nearly 1 billion USD was spent on strengthening the wings to meet the low-altitude operation requirements of the US Air Force.

On October 22, 1988, the first B-2 rolled off the production line at the US Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. Nicknamed "Spirit", it resembled a boomerang with a sawtooth tail. The B-2 used a wing-to-body design without a vertical tail, and was powered by four General Electric F118-GE-100 turbofan engines hidden in the fuselage.

At the time of its introduction, the unit price of a B-2 was $515 million, equivalent to $1.06 billion today, making it the most expensive aircraft in history. The high cost, while the stealth technology has not been proven in practice, has made the US Congress worried about the proposal to buy 132 B-2s.

In addition, the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union improved, the risk of nuclear war between the two superpowers decreased, also causing the number of B-2 bombers produced to be cut to only 21.

Only 21 B-2s were built and put into service. Photo: USAF.

The B-2 bomber is 21m long, over 5m high, has a wingspan of 52m, a speed of 1,100km/h and a ceiling of over 15km. Each plane can fly 9,650km nonstop. This distance is significantly increased thanks to the ability to refuel in the air.

The B-2 is one of the first military aircraft to be made from new composite materials. 80% of the aircraft is made from composite materials such as fiberglass, carbon and carbon fiber, the rest is aluminum and titanium. The bomber's outer skin is also coated with radar-absorbing paint to increase stealth.

The B-2 is equipped with two internal weapon bays, capable of carrying 27 tons of bombs and missiles. Each B-2 can carry 16 nuclear bombs of various types, each with a maximum destructive power equivalent to 1.2 million tons of TNT. This bomber currently does not have nuclear cruise missiles, but is expected to integrate a new generation of long-range nuclear missiles in the future.

The need to penetrate enemy air defenses in the post-Cold War era led the US military to add a conventional strike role to the B-2, with 16 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), each weighing more than 900 kg. In addition, it can also carry AGM-154 JSOW glide bombs with a range of 80 km, AGM-158 JASSM and JSSM-ER missiles. When facing hardened targets, the B-2 can carry two 13.6-ton GBU-57A/B penetrator bombs.

B-2 aircraft conduct JDAM bombing exercise. Photo: WATM.

Since its inception, the B-2 has fought in Kosovo in 1999, Iraq in 2003, against Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, and Libya in 2011. However, this bomber has been banned from flying in some areas due to the risk of damage to its radar-absorbing paint in harsh weather conditions.

Most of the B-2 fleet is based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, where it takes 38 hours to fly to Iraq, with four to five refuelings in the air. The US also has some B-2s at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam and Fairford Air Force Base in the UK.

In the event that the US decides to strike first, eliminating the North Korean nuclear threat, B-2 bombers will almost certainly be deployed as the spearhead of the attack. They will use GBU-57A/B bombs to destroy North Korea's fortified underground tunnel system, neutralizing the leadership apparatus and the ability to order missile launches in response. The B-2s could also attack fortified underground nuclear weapons depots and facilities.

The stealth capability and diverse arsenal allow the B-2 to launch precision attacks in all weather conditions, at any location on Earth. This is considered the most powerful bomber, and is also the main weapon in the US's current global blitzkrieg attack, military expert Kyle Mizokami emphasized.

According to VNE