# Why doesn't Israel/\[insert country\] have jet bombers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 13, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-israel-insert-country-have-jet-bombers/731131 "2015-09-13T19:27:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 90
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-israel-insert-country-have-jet-bombers/731131/90 "2015-09-22T17:11:12Z")
Leo, do you mind this tangent? I figured you might like it so I’m having it in this thread but if you don’t like it, just tell me and I’ll start another thread or ask a mod to haul my posts over. AIRCRAFT DESCRIPTION: Since the terms “low” and “high” are ambiguous, I should have made clear that when I said “low range”, I meant “typical combat range of jet fighters” so 500-1000km. By “high payload”, I meant something along the lines of the B-52’s payload; about 30 tons. To give a summary numerical description of the plane I have in mind: empty weight of 15-20 tons, combat range of 1000km while carrying a payload of 30 tons. 5 turbojets with a thrust of 200kN (dry) and 250kN (wet) each or 5 turbofans of 150kN (dry) and 200kN (wet). Any idea what military 100-200kN turbojets and turbofans cost? And yes, I realize that it would look something like this: [![](https://i.imgur.com/79aECB4.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/79aECB4.jpg) It may very well be a bad idea and many explanations provided so far have educated me and refined my cognitions for which I thank the contributors. > [@Ravenman](#): > > But if you’re looking at an aircraft that has gobs of cargo, it needs gobs of lift. If you’ve got gobs of lift, you’re getting range for free for airplanes. If you want lots of lift and little range, you’re probably looking at either: (a) a heavy lift helicopter, which can carry a lot compared to the size of the vehicle, or (b) just not putting as much fuel in an airplane. I can’t even conceive of an airplane that is designed to have short legs but can carry huge amounts of cargo. Lift comes from the interaction between lifting surfaces and speed, no? You can give the aircraft a thrust/weight ratio of 2 or more. That would give it high lift but low range\* because of its high speed. There are advantages to a fast airplane on a bombing mission as LSLGuy says: > [@US or British jets intercepting Russian bombers](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-or-british-jets-intercepting-russian-bombers/730732/14): > > Fighter interceptor tactics depend on the fighter being significantly faster than the bomber. A fighter with a Mach 0.9 cruise and M1.5 dash can readily defend a large area against M0.7 bombers. Have the bombers be able to cruise long-term at M1.5 and suddenly the fighters’ defensible area shrinks drastically. So now the defender needs 3 or 4x as many fighters and bases to defend the same perimeter. > > **[…]** > > Speed also complicates the attack problem for SAMs & AAA by shrinking the warning & engagement envelopes, but not to the same degree as it hits fighters. > > Speed also strains the defender’s C[sup]3[/sup] systems. (Made up numbers ahead) With an incoming Bull [Tupolev Tu-4 - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4), we’d have, say, 2 hours from first detection to weapons release. For a Bear, make it 45 minutes. For a Blackjack or Backfire it’s more like 20 minutes. To detect, track, fuse, decide, select counter forces, alert those forces and launch them all takes time. Bolded ellipsis mine. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Now, you could give it huge amounts of thrust so it would be really fast, and so that it would use all of its substantial fuel capacity on short flights. So it would be extremely effective as a short-range heavy bomber, but pretty useless for anything else. I disagree that it would be pretty useless for anything else. If it had a high thrust/weight ratio, would it not have good potential for anti-air, SEAD, and the more dangerous types of interdiction & EW? Being able to get within an envelope, launch its payload then get out quickly helps survivability. Presuming it’s loaded with few a tons of payload for anti-air, the plane would have a T/W of 4-5. It would indeed be bad at any task that required extended loiter. High loiter time tasks are best handled by turboprop planes with lots of lifting surfaces for their weight. About how long can multirole jet fighters loiter if they don’t have drop tanks or in-flight refueling? > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You can build 10 multirole aircraft or small, short-range strike aircraft for the cost of _one_ heavy bomber (F-15 unit cost: $30 million; B-1 unit cost: $280 million). That’s not necessarily because strategic bombers are expensive to build, but because you don’t build very many. The B-1 is of course a long range aircraft, but you could build something along similar lines that went a lot faster and sacrificed range. > > So you can have one B-1 that does one thing, or 10 F-15s that do everything. As a small, budget-constricted airforce, which do you choose? You make a good point regarding efficiency and short production run aircraft. I disagree with your basis for comparison though. According to these\*\*( [![](https://i.imgur.com/1MbYDIq.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/1MbYDIq.jpg) and [![](https://i.imgur.com/H3zEFhk.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/H3zEFhk.jpg) ) the B-1 is a semi-stealth aircraft which very much drives up its cost. A fairer comparison would be with either the F-35 (about 100M$) or the F-15SE with an average planned cost of 100M$ [McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_F-15SE_Silent_Eagle) From what I have heard though, including from LSLGuy, the cost of most systems is less in the initial acquisition than in the cost of running it which lies primarily in labor. Also, avionics probably vie for #1 position with stealth as the most expensive aspects of a war plane. The more planes, the more avionics sets. \*Provided you don’t use in-flight refueling. If you do, you have high payload, high speed and high range. Provided a military has in-flight refueling and can make some airspace sufficiently safe for the tanker, long range aircraft may not be that advantageous especially if that range comes at the cost of speed or payload. \*\*Whose sources I’ve lost which should be easy enough to find, sorry. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-doesnt-israel-insert-country-have-jet-bombers/731131)._