History UsefulNotes / SuperiorFirepowerBombers

* It features in ''[[Franchise/JamesBond Never Say Never Again]]''.

* And another in ''[[Film/{{Transformers}} Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]''

This one's [[LongRunner been around a while]] (1955 was when the first version entered service) and may stay around until about 2040. The aircraft has a massive range (about 10,000 miles ''without'' refuelling), a big carrying capacity and can fire stand-off cruise missiles. Far more widely known by a rather vulgar nickname that notes its size, weight, physical unattractiveness and the fact it is a very potent weapon. Remains the US's primary nuclear bomber (the B-1B no longer being able to carry nukes and the B-2 being limited in number). 94 B-52H bombers are left of the 744 built. Took a conventional role as far back as Vietnam (with an entire sub-type being converted for that role back then, because the thing couldn't carry enough bombs otherwise) and still used in that role today. All had tail-guns, but the remaining B-52H bombers have had these removed, as they're now not much use.

The successor to the B-29 in US service; it was probably the first truly intercontinental bomber. The jet engines of the era were still rather unreliable and fuel-thirsty, so it had six huge piston engines mounted in its wings, in a pusher configuration no less. The thing was huge; although it wasn't the heaviest, it was the largest combat aircraft ever constructed (the record for "heaviest combat plane" goes to the Tu-160 and there are larger transport aircraft). It carries what still qualifies as an enormous bombload (up to 86,000 pounds of ordnance). It dates back to the WWII era; the US was worried about the security of [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Airstrip One]]...err, the United Kingdom, and wanted a bomber that could reach targets in Europe from the North American mainland. (Admittedly, Sealion was a crapshoot at best, but that's another story.) There's just something about it, in terms of aesthetics it would fit nicely into ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' if the game wasn't set underwater. Anyway, it was slow, especially compared to jet bombers like the B-47, although that one was somewhat short-legged and had to be based relatively close to the Soviet Union in order to reach its targets there. Later, in order to give them a higher dash speed over a target and through the worst of the Soviet air defenses, they were fitted with four jet engines in two underwing pods (2 engines per pod), so later variants had a total of ten engines, resulting in a joke about "six turning and four burning."[[note]]The piston engines tended to catch on fire due to a design flaw (the engines were designed for a "tractor" configuration, and reversing it put the carburetors ahead of the engine, so they wouldn't be warmed by engine heat, making them tend to ice over at altitude), resulting in some less complementary jokes on the configuration -- "two turning, two burning, two smoking, two joking, and two unaccounted for."[[/note]] This was a truly huge airplane; if the Wright brothers started their historic first flight at one wingtip of a B-36, they would land short of the other wingtip. Its sheer size, coupled with it being constructed mostly out of magnesium, led to its FanNickname of "Magnesium Overcast". Detractors, particularly in the Navy which saw it as draining funding away from their aircraft carriers, gave it the rather less flattering nickname of "the Billion Dollar Blunder".

It was even planned at one point to be an honest-to-goodness AirborneAircraftCarrier, being used to launch and recover the tiny F-85 Goblin fighter. The Goblin, however, never made it into production, so the B-36 was never used in that role. It also carried a ridiculous amount of defensive armament (Website/TheOtherWiki lists ''[[MoreDakka sixteen]]'' [[MoreDakka cannons]]). Later, though, the cannons (except for the tail guns) were deleted along with other stuff in an effort (called the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Featherweight"]] program) to increase range and service altitude (afterwards, some of the Featherweighted B-36s were documented to reach heights of well over 50,000 feet--making them quite hard to intercept for a while, until fighter and SAM designs became advanced enough to allow for effective interception). An all-jet-powered, swept-wing derivative, the XB-60, lost the competition to the Boeing B-52.

Notable for its massive underfuselage weapons pod, the Hustler was capable of sustaining about Mach 2.2 for over an hour (setting a lot of records for the time) and was designed for a role in Europe. When improved Soviet air defences meant the thing had to fly low level (limiting the range still further), it became too expensive to upgrade and the things were taken out of service about 12 years after they'd arrived. Another noteworthy feature was its in-flight computer, nicknamed 'Sexy Sally'. The computer would give automated messages and warnings to the crew. You see, bomber crews back then were all-male, and research had found that a woman's voice was more likely to get a young man's attention during a stressful situation.

A stealth bomber under development by Northrop Grumman that looks like the company's B-2, but simpler and sleeker on the outside.

That's right. As if arming them with nuclear weapons wasn't bad enough, they came up with a bunch of screwy proposals. They'd have had to carry a lot of shielding and seat the crew as far away as possible from the reactor, for obvious reasons. And it would probably be best if the crew didn't have too many children, for similarly obvious reasons. As insane as it may sound, it did offer some range and performance advantages; in the end, though, the concept was rendered obsolete by, among other things, ICBM technology. A modified NB-36 actually flew with a reactor onboard, although this was just a small 1MW model and the idea was to test the effects of radiation on aircraft systems and crew. There was a proposed B-36 derivative, the Convair X-6, which would have been a bona fide nuclear flier. Eek.

An air-launched Tomahawk in many respects (though not to be confused with the ''actual'' air-launched Tomahawk which was tested but never went into service), capable of sustained low-level flying at subsonic speeds and a range of over 1,500 imperial miles. 5 or 150KT W80-1 warhead and pretty accurate, it's the main air-launched bomber weapon of the US today- carried by B-52s. The B-version is nuclear-equipped. Surplus of those have been converted into conventional missiles and used in several US conflicts.

The XB-70 also has an interesting legacy in the LensmanArmsRace it touched off. The Soviet heard about it and developed the [=MiG-25=], basically a missile-armed, Mach 3-capable pair of jet engines with huge wings to keep it from falling out of the sky, as a counter. They also decided that big, long-range, supersonic bombers sounded pretty cool and developed one of their own, the Tu-160 Blackjack (it is the biggest combat aircraft ever built and exceeds every other American bomber in [[LightningBruiser both payload and speed]].) The Americans, misinterpreting the [=MiG-25=] as an air superiority fighter, developed the F-15 as a counter. The Soviets then trotted out the Su-27 to deal with the F-15, the Americans trotted out the F-22 to deal with the Su-27... and the USSR collapsed. As it stands, America and the F-22 have won,though Russia and China are each coming up with their own equivalents in the form of the Sukhoi PAK FA and the Shenyang J-31, respectively. We should leave it at that, because the F-22 causes enough Flame Wars as it is.

It was even planned at one point to be an honest-to-goodness AirborneAircraftCarrier, being used to launch and recover the tiny F-85 Goblin fighter. The Goblin, however, never made it into production, so the B-36 was never used in that role. It also carried a ridiculous amount of defensive armament (Wiki/TheOtherWiki lists ''[[MoreDakka sixteen]]'' [[MoreDakka cannons]]). Later, though, the cannons (except for the tail guns) were deleted along with other stuff in an effort (called the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Featherweight"]] program) to increase range and service altitude (afterwards, some of the Featherweighted B-36s were documented to reach heights of well over 50,000 feet--making them quite hard to intercept for a while, until fighter and SAM designs became advanced enough to allow for effective interception). An all-jet-powered, swept-wing derivative, the XB-60, lost the competition to the Boeing B-52.

A North American offering. The US was worried about how well their bomber force could survive in the face of Soviet air defenses; for a while, their answer was to fly higher and faster, and the XB-70 was the ultimate expression of this trend: a high-altitude Mach 3+ jet bomber which could generate lift by ''riding its own sonic shockwaves''. In the late 1950s it was believed that improvements in [=SAMs=] and air defense technologies would overtake what was manageable and practical for a manned aircraft, putting the viability of the B-70 in question. The B-70 program was put on hold in 1958/59 while a thorough evaluation of this issue was conducted. This showed that the promised advances in surface-to-air missiles were not taking place and were unlikely to be attained any time soon. In fact, even today surface to air missiles have not reached the level of performance predicted in 1957 and the B-70 would still be beyond their effective reach. It was also claimed that the Valkyrie had radar and thermal signatures that were abnormally large. This also was incorrect; the B-70 did have a very large radar cross sections from the side but nose-on it had only 40 percent of the RCS of a B-52 and this could be cut still further by using radar absorbing materials already being used on the SR-71 and A-12. Nor was the production B-70 likely to be that costly; USAF figures for a 350 aircraft fleet with 60 reconnaissance RS-70s was about $18 million per aircraft. This was twice the cost of a B-52H or 50 percent more than a B-58A. What really killed the B-70 was the need for funds to develop a multi-role combat aircraft that eventually became the F-111. The two XB-70s that were built were very valuable research aircraft, and very much deserving of their [[AwesomeMcCoolname moniker]]. (Although, in context as a nuclear bomber, "Valkyrie" (from the Old Norse ''valkyrja'', "chooser of the slain") as a nickname was also [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast petrifyingly literal]].)

The Stealth Bomber. It's not impossible to detect on radar, just extremely, extremely hard.[[note]]Reputedly, it has a radar cross-section comparable to an eagle...as in the bird, not the F-15.[[/note]] It was originally developed to drop nukes on the USSR (much the same as the preceding B-52 and B-1), with stealth technology being utilized because the older bombers were deemed to be too vulnerable to Soviet air defenses. The B-2 is still nuclear-capable and crews still train for the nuclear mission, but so far it has only been used in a conventional role. The B-2 did not become operational until after the Cold War ended, where its first combat use was in Kosovo. Since then it's been used in various conflicts, and it is notable for having flown the longest-distance bombing raids in history, usually from the continental U.S. to its target on the other side of the globe. 132 aircraft were originally planned, but with the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar this was cut down to only 21, which contributed to a very expensive per-unit cost of $2.1 billion dollars per airframe (due to the same developmental costs being spread over fewer aircraft). One B-2 was destroyed in a crash, so the fleet now stands at 20 aircraft, most of them based at Whiteman AFB. Because of the small size of the fleet and the high value of the aircraft, B-2s are individually named, more like ships than planes. The formula is ''Spirit of *US State*'', e.g. the B-2 that crashed was the ''Spirit of Kansas.''

The successor to the B-29 in US service; it was probably the first truly intercontinental bomber. The jet engines of the era were still rather unreliable and fuel-thirsty, so it had six huge piston engines mounted in its wings, in a pusher configuration no less. The thing was huge; although it wasn't the heaviest, it was the largest combat aircraft ever constructed (the record for "heaviest combat plane" goes to the Tu-160 and there are larger transport aircraft). It carries what still qualifies as an enormous bombload (up to 86,000 pounds of ordnance). It dates back to the WWII era; the US was worried about the security of [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Airstrip One]]...err, the United Kingdom, and wanted a bomber that could reach targets in Europe from the North American mainland. (Admittedly, Sealion was a crapshoot at best, but that's another story.) There's just something about it, in terms of aesthetics it would fit nicely into ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' if the game wasn't set underwater. Anyway, it was slow, especially compared to jet bombers like the B-47, although that one was somewhat short-legged and had to be based relatively close to the Soviet Union in order to reach its targets there. Later, in order to give them a higher dash speed over a target and through the worst of the Soviet air defenses, they were fitted with four jet engines in two underwing pods (2 engines per pod), so later variants had a total of ten engines, resulting in a joke about "six turning and four burning."[[note]]The piston engines tended to catch on fire due to a design flaw (the engines were designed for a "tractor" configuration, and reversing it put the carburetors ahead of the engine, so they wouldn't be warmed by engine heat, making them tend to ice over at altitude), resulting in some less complementary jokes on the configuration -- "two turning, two burning, two smoking, two joking, and two unaccounted for."[[/note]] This was a truly huge airplane; if the Wright brothers started their historic first flight at one wingtip of a B-36, they would land short of the other wingtip. Its sheer size, coupled with it being constructed mostly out of magnesium, led to its FanNickname of "Magnesium Overcast". Detractors, particularly in the Navy which saw it as draining funding away from their aircraft carriers, gave it the rather less flattering nickname of "the Billion Dollar Blunder". It was even planned at one point to be an honest-to-goodness AirborneAircraftCarrier, being used to launch and recover the tiny F-85 Goblin fighter. The Goblin, however, never made it into production, so the B-36 was never used in that role. It also carried a ridiculous amount of defensive armament (Wiki/TheOtherWiki lists ''[[MoreDakka sixteen]]'' [[MoreDakka cannons]]). Later, though, the cannons (except for the tail guns) were deleted along with other stuff in an effort (called the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Featherweight"]] program) to increase range and service altitude (afterwards, some of the Featherweighted B-36s were documented to reach heights of well over 50,000 feet--making them quite hard to intercept for a while, until fighter and SAM designs became advanced enough to allow for effective interception). An all-jet-powered, swept-wing derivative, the XB-60, lost the competition to the Boeing B-52.

The only nuclear launch vehicle to have actually been used to drop nuclear bombs in combat- the ''Enola Gay'' and ''Bockscar'' were B-29s. Directly copied by the Soviets as the Tu-4 [[ReportingNames "Bull"]], after a bunch of them had to land in the USSR during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. As the Soviets were neutral at that time vis Japan (not entering until the very end), they confiscated the aircraft.

The successor to the B-29 in US service; it was probably the first truly intercontinental bomber. The jet engines of the era were still rather unreliable and fuel-thirsty, so it had six huge piston engines mounted in its wings, in a pusher configuration no less. The thing was huge; although it wasn't the heaviest, it was the largest combat aircraft ever constructed (the record for "heaviest combat plane" goes to the Tu-160 and there are larger transport aircraft). It carries what still qualifies as an enormous bombload (up to 86,000 pounds of ordnance). It dates back to the WWII era; the US was worried about the security of [[Literature/NineteenEightyFour Airstrip One]]...err, the United Kingdom, and wanted a bomber that could reach targets in Europe from the North American mainland. (Admittedly, Sealion was a crapshoot at best, but that's another story.) There's just something about it, in terms of aesthetics it would fit nicely into ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' if the game wasn't set underwater. Anyway, it was slow, especially compared to jet bombers like the B-47, although that one was somewhat short-legged and had to be based relatively close to the Soviet Union in order to reach its targets there. Later, in order to give them a higher dash speed over a target and through the worst of the Soviet air defenses, they were fitted with four jet engines in two underwing pods (2 engines per pod), so later variants had a total of ten engines, resulting in a joke about "six turning and four burning."[[note]]The piston engines tended to catch on fire due to a design flaw (the engines were designed for a "tractor" configuration, and reversing it put the carburetors ahead of the engine, so they wouldn't be warmed by engine heat, making them tend to ice over at altitude), resulting in some less complementary jokes on the configuration -- "two turning, two burning, two smoking, two joking, and two unaccounted for."[[/note]] Its sheer size, coupled with it being constructed mostly out of magnesium, led to its FanNickname of "Magnesium Overcast". Detractors, particularly in the Navy which saw it as draining funding away from their aircraft carriers, gave it the rather less flattering nickname of "the Billion Dollar Blunder". It was even planned at one point to be an honest-to-goodness AirborneAircraftCarrier, being used to launch and recover the tiny F-85 Goblin fighter. The Goblin, however, never made it into production, so the B-36 was never used in that role. It also carried a ridiculous amount of defensive armament (Wiki/TheOtherWiki lists ''[[MoreDakka sixteen]]'' [[MoreDakka cannons]]). Later, though, the cannons (except for the tail guns) were deleted along with other stuff in an effort (called the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Featherweight"]] program) to increase range and service altitude (afterwards, some of the Featherweighted B-36s were documented to reach heights of well over 50,000 feet--making them quite hard to intercept for a while, until fighter and SAM designs became advanced enough to allow for effective interception). An all-jet-powered, swept-wing derivative, the XB-60, lost the competition to the Boeing B-52.

The Stealth Bomber. It's not impossible to detect on radar, just extremely, extremely hard.[[note]]Reputedly, it has a radar cross-section comparable to an eagle...as in the bird, not the F-15.[[/note]] It was originally developed to drop nukes on the USSR (much the same as the preceding B-52 and B-1), with stealth technology being utilized because the older bombers were deemed to be too vulnerable to Soviet air defenses. The B-2 is still nuclear-capable and crews still train for the nuclear mission, but so far it has only been used in a conventional role. The B-2 did not become operational until after the Cold War ended, where its first combat use was in Kosovo. Since then it's been used in various conflicts, and it is notable for having flown the longest-distance bombing raids in history, usually from the continental U.S. to its target on the other side of the globe. 132 aircraft were originally planned, but with the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar this was cut down to only 21, which contributed to a very expensive per-unit cost of $2.1 billion dollars per airframe (due to the same developmental costs being spread over fewer aircraft). One B-2 was destroyed in a crash, so the fleet now stands at 20 aircraft, most of them based at Whiteman AFB.