Claims

A handful of prototype B-1A aircraft were produced but none were able to fully meet the set requirements; the required redesign skyrocketed the per-unit price to $70 million by 1975, equivalent to over $413 million in today's dollars.

The B-1's nuclear capability was completely removed under the New START treaty with Russia starting in 1995, with Russian inspectors inspecting the aircraft every year to ensure compliance until 2023.

The B-1 Lancer is the last of the variable sweep wing (swing wing) designs in the U.S. arsenal, which allows the wings to extend laterally for efficient low-speed flight with a wingspan of 137 feet and collapse toward the fuselage for better fuel economy at higher speeds and altitudes, extending operational range.

It was eventually decided that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were able to better play the role of delivering nuclear payloads than any aircraft could, and the original B-1 program was largely shelved as a result.

The mechanical complexity of the variable sweep wing, weighing and length of 146 feet made the original B-1A design unstable and overly flexible in low-altitude flight, so a structural mode control system (SMCS) which automatically controls a series of vanes and lower rudders was installed to smooth out the flight.

The B-1 strikes reportedly hit 85 Iranian-backed proxy militia targets as payback for an attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that left three American soldiers killed in action.

The BEAST (B-1 Embracing Agile Scheduling Team) program is an upgraded program for the fleet of 45 B-1B Lancer supersonic bombers in the Air Force's inventory that extends the operational lifetime of the aircraft to 2040 and beyond.

The goal of the BEAST upgrade was to provide an upgrade package with emphasis on not disrupting operational capacity of the small fleet during the actual upgrade process, as typical overhauls on military vehicles can take months or years and require the platform to be totally out of operation for the entire duration.

Prior to the bombing runs, U.S. troops were under almost daily fire from drone and rocket attacks, reaching 170 strikes against them during a period of 4 months, and after a series of targeted air strikes the attacks against U.S. bases have since stopped.

The upgraded B-1s contain a technology overhaul that significantly increases the lethality of the bomber and give them the capabilities they need in the next war according to official reports.

The Lancer is one of three strategic bombers currently in use by the United States, the other two being the B-2 and B-52, and these aircraft and their payload capacity play a key role in National Security through their ability to maintain America's long-range quick reaction airpower capable of delivering bombs anywhere on Earth on a minute's notice.

The small fleet of only 45 B-1 aircraft and complexity of the design pose a problem in that taking even a handful of the Lancers off the flight line for repairs leaves a large gap in theater level air strike capabilities.

The B-1 has a long history with the U.S. Air Force going back to the 1950s, when in 1955 the Air Force expressed the need for an aircraft that combined the B-52's nuclear payload capacity with the ability to fly at a speed of at least Mach 2 to avoid Soviet interceptor aircraft and penetrate the heavily defended airspace along the border of the USSR.

Nixon reestablished the B-1 program in 1969 under the name B-1A, at which time the focus would be on delivering payloads other than strictly nuclear, so they could be used in a non-nuclear conventional fight.

In 1976, a defecting Soviet pilot disclosed details about the USSR's new interceptor, the MiG-31, which contained an advanced radar system designed to track targets like cruise missiles and low-level penetration aircraft like the B-1A, making it hard to justify the massive program costs which had risen to 100 million per aircraft.

Despite being in service, the B-1B did not see action in Desert Storm's famous air campaign and was first utilized in combat in Operation Desert Fox in 1998, an often-forgotten bombing campaign against Iraq targeting suspected WMD manufacturing facilities that lasted only 4 days.

Pure air forces in China and Russia have somewhat similar platforms: Russia supports the Tu-160 supersonic bomber and China fields the H-6, which is a licensed copy of the Russian Tu-16 bomber and is by far the oldest of the three countries' designs and will be completely replaced by their H-20 bomber.

Russia's Tu-160 is the newest, fastest, and largest of the strategic bomber designs but has a smaller payload capacity than the B-1B, was only produced sporadically in small numbers, and has been noticeably absent from the war in Ukraine.

Typical missile payloads for the B-1 are a mixture of subsonic AGM-86s for conventional ground targets, AGM-158 stealth missiles for high priority targets in contested airspaces, and AGM-158 Bs which have a range of over 620 miles for hard-to-reach targets.

To reach the equivalent cruise missile capacity of a B-1 sortie, it would take 15 of the latest F-15E fighters, as each can hold a maximum of two cruise missiles at once.

Though not a dedicated stealth aircraft like the B-2, the B-1 uses a series of serpentine air intake ducts which helps regulate air flow into the engines to control speed and helps deflect radar returns from compressor blades over the engines, and also has a cover with classified radar absorbing material to decrease overall return size.

The B-1's radar cross-section (RCS) is approximately 75 cubic meters compared to the B-2's 100 cubic meters, which is still tiny when compared to the F-15E's 25 square meters and F-16's 5 square meters.

Each B-1 is equipped with eight flare dispensers, each holding 12 MGU-23 ABs—some of the largest flares in the world, each weighing almost 32 pounds—as a passive countermeasure against infrared-guided missiles.

If all else fails, Lancers have the option of carrying the ALQ-50 TOAD decoy system which launches a toad radar decoy to redirect incoming radar-guided missiles to it rather than the aircraft itself, functioning like the countermeasure version of those big airplane signs you see on the beach.

Placing range parameters on strategic bombers is a mischaracterization of how they're actually used because strategic bombers are such high-priority assets they always have some level of midair refueling support, which effectively extends their range to anywhere on Earth using a network of KC-135 Stratotankers.

The B-1 is powered by four General Electric F101-102 afterburning turbofan engines, two on each side of the aircraft in parallel configuration, each capable of producing 30,000 pounds of force in full afterburner.

CONUS-to-CONUS (Continental U.S. to Continental U.S.) operations start and end at the Continental United States and can involve up to four midair refuelings over sometimes 30-plus hour missions, allowing bombers to remain stationed at their home bases even in the continental United States rather than forward deployed to areas with less logistical support.

To date, over 12,000 sorties have been flown by the B-1 platform, and these combat missions have had incredibly high success rates due to the advanced avionics and fire controls found in the aircraft.

Lancers utilize the AAQ-33 Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod which uses a combination of infrared scanning, laser designation, and data recording to identify and track targets for the onboard weapon system to lock on to, and can do this even through smoke and clouds at an altitude of 50,000 feet above the ground.

Fighters carrying air-to-ground ordnance are also heavily reliant on tanker support, but their shorter combat ranges often require combat sorties to originate closer to the target location and for fighter units to be forward deployed to international air bases.

One of the major goals of the BEAST program was to streamline the networking process and increase data storage capacity to take a significant portion of the information side of the B-1 and automate it.

The DoD plans to have the B-1 fill niche roles while the B-21 stealth bomber takes on the role of primary strategic bomber for the Air Force.

The Reagan-era B1 program called for 100 B1s to be constructed with a series of adjustments to the original B1A design, and after finally making it to production it was given the designation of B1B in 1986, three decades after it was originally drawn up.

Over the past 20 years of the global war on terror, the B1 airframe experienced considerable strain due to the fact that these were primarily low-level gravity bomb-centered missions with significant physical strain on the aircraft beyond what was intended originally, compared to less intense high-altitude passes.

A B-1 can engage the entire map, while an F-16 or F/A-18 can engage a single grid square, illustrating the strategic scope difference between fighters and strategic bombers.

A B-1 strategic bomber flew a 15,000 mile non-stop round trip from Dyess Air Force Base in Taylor County, Texas to Iraq and Syria on February 2nd, 2024, dropping over 125 precision-guided munitions during a 30-minute period, with total mission time of likely 24 to 30 hours.

The transition of using fighters for strikes to strategic bombers is a significant escalation in offensive posture for the U.S., as demonstrated when the United States and UK began air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen; the usage of the B-1s beginning in February 2024 was a sign of increased American focus in the region.

The Air Force is looking to use B-1s as non-traditional ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), which is generally a data-driven method of intelligence gathering rather than hardware-centric, utilizing the B-1's Link-16 jam-resistant data link and beyond-line-of-sight network connections to gather information from other platforms, process it, and transmit it as usable targeting data.

The submarine's current operational status is unknown.

It is not surprising that China's Navy would conceal the submarine sinking, according to a U.S. official.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the Associated Press show what appears to be a submarine docked at the Changwang Liu Shipyard on the Yangtze River before the incident.

China has been building up its naval fleet at a breakneck pace.

The 23rd Arsenal of Russia's main missile and artillery directorate, located near Oktabrsk Village in Russia's Tver region, was struck by Ukrainian intelligence on September 21st after receiving a large batch of anti-aircraft missiles from a base in Belarus.

The 23rd Arsenal received anti-aircraft missiles from the 1,562 separate anti-aircraft repair and technical base located near the Belarusian city of Asapoviсh, which represented the largest batch of ammunition from Belarus delivered to this Arsenal during 2024.

The missiles for anti-aircraft missile complexes were delivered to the military depot by rail in approximately 94 semi-wagons with missile weapons for air defense systems in containers, plus five cars with security, with each semi-wagon containing between 20 and 30 tons of cargo, and the approximate dispatch time was late July and early August.

During the attack on the 23rd Arsenal, the facility was almost completely destroyed, including both the warehouses and the railway infrastructure located on the territory.

Satellite imagery showed that China's newest nuclear-powered attack submarine of the Joe class sank alongside a pier while under construction, likely between May and June when satellite images showed cranes necessary to lift it off the bottom of the river.

Ukrainian intelligence struck another Arsenal near Tver in Russia's southern Kursk region that was one of the key arsenals in the logistic system of Russian troops, and at the moment of the attack there was an echelon delivering more than 2,000 tons of ammunition including from North Korea.

The submarine likely sank between May and June, as evidenced by satellite imagery showing cranes necessary to lift it off the river bottom, and a June 15th image appears to show the submarine either fully or partially submerged just under the river's surface with rescue equipment and cranes surrounding it to prevent oil or other leaks.

Fire and explosion had taken place in the areas of both military arsenals following the Ukrainian attacks.