Following the U.S. Air Pressure’s launch of an unprecedented deep penetration bomber strike towards Iranian nuclear websites in June 2025, which was carried out by B-2 strategic bombers based mostly at Whiteman Air Pressure Base in Missouri, questions have been raised relating to the service’s capacity to stage extra prolonged campaigns of equally long-range strikes. Operation Midnight Hammer employed 125 plane, together with a number of refuelling tankers, and 4 sort of fighter together with the F-35, F-22, F-16 and F-15, which supplied escort help and reportedly helped suppress Iranian air defences to permit the B-2s to function extra safely in hostile airspace. Though the operation was thought-about profitable, albeit with little certainty relating to the precise state of the focused nuclear websites, it additionally served to focus on the extreme limitations of American lengthy vary strike capabilities past the launching of restricted single assaults like that on June 21-22.
Highlighting prevailing considerations, deputy commander of Air Pressure International Strike Command and Air Forces Strategic-Air at U.S. Strategic Command Lieutenant Basic Jason Armagost warned that right classes wanted to be discovered not solely relating to the required dimension of the intercontinental vary stealth bomber fleet, but in addition the dimensions of the tanker fleet. “The very first thing I fear about when one thing like a Midnight Hammer begins to take form is what does the tanker drive trying like, what’s the place of it, and the way will we posture on the planet to really do that… It’s not a straightforward factor,” he acknowledged. Chief of Weapons and Ways at Air Forces Central Main Claire Randolph, who was one of many planners for the operations, equally noticed: “I fear so much in regards to the tankers… I believe—as a result of it’s not attractive, it’s not a weapon, and it’s not a fighter and it’s not a bomber—the tankers are sometimes actually disregarded on this dialog.”
Whereas the Air Pressure presently fields underneath 20 B-2 bombers, which have notoriously excessive upkeep wants and low availability charges, it’s anticipated to acquire 100-200 B-21 subsequent technology stealth bombers. That is anticipated to permit for a extra sustained marketing campaign of intercontinental vary strikes, the place in contrast it was probably that the Air Pressure would have been unable to launch additional sustained stealth bomber assaults on Iran after the B-2 bombers returned from their single sortie on June 22. Nonetheless, the B-21 is a considerably lighter plane that not solely carries considerably much less ordinance, however can be far shorter ranged, and thus extra reliant on tanker help to extent its vary to succeed in additional targets.
Operation Midnight Hammer additional highlighted challenges stemming from limitations of obtainable munitions within the Air Pressure,with Main Randolph warning future operations will probably want munitions that may penetrate deeper to destroy services buried additional underground than the B-2’s GBU-57. Seven B-2s dropped 14 GBU-57 bombs on June 22, that are the most important bombs on the planet, andcan reportedly penetrate 60 metres underground in the course of the assault. Public information counsel as few as 20 of those bombs have been bought, with the necessity for a number of bombs to strike significantly properly hardened targets elevating questions relating to the Air Pressure’s operational flexibility. The numerous risk that these bombs have additionally been used to strike Ansurullah Coalition forces in Yemen in 2024 could have left the arsenal additional depleted. The potential for the Air Pressure growing a successor to the GBU-57 that’s considerably lighter to be carried by the B-21, and procuring it in a lot larger numbers, thus stays vital.
Important questions stay relating to the extent to which the B-21 program will be capable to revolutionise the intercontinental vary strike capabilities of the U.S. Air Pressure, with main points with the KC-46 tanker program, and questions relating to a doable stealth tanker program, elevating the chance that the brand new bombers will lack the help wanted to launch giant scale operations towards faraway targets. Additional questions have involved the viability of stealth penetration strikes utilizing very excessive worth plane just like the B-2 and B-21, with main advances in radar and missile applied sciences, significantly in China, having vital potential to outpace advances in stealth applied sciences, thus stopping bombers from working in hostile airspace with an inexpensive degree of survivability. Because the U.S. Armed Forces transition from the post-Chilly Conflict period into providers optimised for a brand new period of nice energy competitors, the prices of adapting are anticipated to be great, with the affordability of considerably increasing the tanker and bomber fleets and the arsenal of penetrative bombs being in severe query at a time of close to unprecedented pressure on Air Pressure budgets.
