B-52 Gets First Full IT Upgrade Since 1961

An anonymous reader writes in with good news for everyone who wants to hold a LAN party in a Stratofortress. "The US Air Force's 10th Flight Test Squadron recently took delivery of the first B-52H Stratofortress to complete a refit through the Combat Network Communications Technology (CONECT) program. It's an effort to bring the Cold War era heavy bomber into the 21st century way of warfare—or at least up to the 1990s, technology-wise. While the aircraft received piecemeal upgrades over the past 50 years of flying, CONECT is the first major information technology overhaul for the Air Force's B-52H fleet since the airplanes started entering service in 1961."

Re:I wonder

[o'reor]

Tell that to the russian engineers at Tupolev. The Tu-95 "Bear" [wikipedia.org], the soviet counterpart of Boeing's B-52, was first flown in 1952, and is still in active service 62 years later. Pretty damn fast too for a turboprop bomber.

Re:I wonder

[charlesr44403]

The B-52 goes back just as far as the Bear - it's the current H series that came out in 1961.

Re:I wonder

[evilviper]

Still being used purely for counterinsurgency operations.

Only true, today, because that's the only kind of wars the US is fighting at this time. But B-52s absolutely are used in other roles than counterinsurgency.

"B-52s also played a role in Operation Iraqi Freedom," long before the insurgency even began.

"B-52 strikes were an important part of Operation Desert Storm," in which the US did not face a notable insurgency.

"B-52 had the highest mission capable rate of the three types of heavy bombers operated by the USAF in 2001."

Re:I wonder

[evilviper]

Today's stealth fighters, early warning radar systems, satellite tracking, and advanced anti-air missile systems on land or water makes this plane nothing more than a slow moving target.

Which is why a few stealth fighters and bombers go in first, take out ALL the air defenses, THEN the B-52s go in there and carpet-bomb the hell out of the rest of the place. The B-52 is fairly slow, but that fills a role than the military badly NEEDS at times.

Even if they were able to release all it's ordinance it would still be a one shot weapon.

Circular logic. If they release all their weapons, then they won't have anymore. If they release one or a few at a time (which is what they do in Afghanistan), then they've got a long-long time in the air, able to fire a few more at any time, lingering over targets longer than just about any other aircraft.

They would be better served to take all the money spent on an outdated weapons platform and build a few more B-2's if they are really hard up for more strategic bombers.

Demonstrating that you know nothing about the subject. B-2s don't have the linger time, maneuverability, survivability, as much payload capacity, and operating costs are several times higher. If the B-52 is to be replaced with anything, it'll be the non-stealth B-1s.