B-1B Lancers recently landed at RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom.

The bombers arrived on May 23rd, initiating their participation in the Bomber Task Force Europe 2023-3, a mission designed to support both U.S. European Command and NATO deterrence initiatives.

The arrival of two Texas-based supersonic bombers, part of the Dyess Air Force Base’s 7th Bomb Wing, marks the beginning of a carefully orchestrated bomber rotation within the European theatre.

Throughout the task force’s duration, these strategic bombers will be actively engaged in NATO’s Air Policing and Air Shielding missions across the Baltic Sea region.

A press release emphasised NATO’s current readiness, stating, “NATO is engaged, postured, and ready with credible forces to assure, deter and defend every inch of NATO territory in an increasingly complex security environment.”

The strategic importance of this forward-positioned bomber rotation is highlighted by the press release as it “[…] enables critical touchpoints with NATO Allies and partners to advance the ability to operate as a cohesive force.”

A total of four B-1B strategic bombers will be included in this iteration of the Bomber Task Force, with the remaining two aircraft completing their transit to RAF Fairford on May 25th.

What is the purpose of Bomber Task Force missions?

Bomber Task Force (BTF) missions serve several critical purposes. Primarily, they are intended to demonstrate the U.S. Air Force’s global strike capabilities and readiness to respond to any potential threat worldwide.
Demonstrate Deterrence: BTF missions exhibit the U.S.’s ability to project airpower at any time and in any area. The presence of these strategic bombers serves to deter potential adversaries, signaling the U.S.’s commitment to defend its interests and its allies.

Reassure Allies and Partners: The missions reaffirm the U.S.’s commitment to the security of its allies and partners. They provide assurance of the U.S.’s dedication to collective defense and strengthen international relationships.

Enhance Readiness and Training: BTF missions provide the U.S. Air Force with a unique opportunity to integrate and train with allies and partners, improve interoperability, and hone the skills necessary to conduct global operations. They are a critical component of maintaining a high state of readiness among the aircrews.

BTF missions are an integral part of the U.S.’s strategic deterrence strategy and its commitment to the collective defence of its allies and partners.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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79 COMMENTS

  1. I would really love to see the UK with a strategic bomber capability again, Small purchase of B21 or an enlarged son of Taranis UCAV style drone would do the job.

    Either is affordable for a modest budget increase, either would cement the UK as the most capable Airforce in Europe.

    • Jim, you do know that the forecast price of a B21 is currently in the region of $750 million a pop! That’s $6 Billion for 8, not what you might call a modest sum.
      Given if money was no object then 12-16 might fit the bill, but yes agree that we could do with something that can carry more, and further than both Typhoon and F35. Personally would have liked us to have produced something like a modern day Buccaneer without too much stealth to keep prices reasonable. But then Im not ‘Light Blue’, so wouldn’t really know.
      Unfortunately not much else around, so pretty slim pickings when it comes to options.

        • Ah yes, the TSR2. I actually though I was looking at the F111 when I first glanced at the photo top. Many will remember that we were due to get the F111 when TSR2 was cancelled but ended up getting botched hybrid Phantoms instead! And then the swing wing was reborn in Tornado allowing fast jets to loiter at low speed and then convert to supersonic mode. I presume the swing wing has largely been abandoned due to complexity or cost? Any RAF boffins give an opinion please?

      • The component you speak of is correct, cost would be considerable but the US would not sanction the sale of either B21 or refurbed B52. The concept of Britain having a deep-reach bombing capability makes good sense considering the military emphasis on moving away from Europe to the Far East. There is a good case to reduce our heavy land force amour in favor of more surface warships and aircraft. An enlarged Taranis drone could be manufactured in the UK and be free of US controls.

        • An enlarged Taranis drone would be my first choice although since AUKUS I do think the US would sell us B21 if we asked. They were ready to sell us F117 back in the day but we turned it down.

          That being said I don’t really see the point in manned strategic bombers, a big stealthy flying wing following a series of GPS coordinates to drop bombs or missiles seems like the perfect job for a drone.

          If we wanted to save some money it could even just be a stand off arsenal drone with limited stealth able to deploy storm shadow or FC/ASW in a contested environment or JDAM and Paveway III after SEAD/ DEAD missions completed.

          • Agree Jim, and in a rapidly joined-up world the following distribution of NATO forces could be as follows:- Heavy land warfare, USA, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, and their air and sea components. Specialised land forces, UK, France, USA, and to a lesser extent the others. Sea warfare, USA, UK, France. Air warfare, USA, UK, France and to a lesser extent the others. Deep reach in the Far East would see the UK contributing considerable assets in both sea and air with specialised land warfare support. If such a disposition was to be broadly adopted, the UK could concentrate its defence budget on increasing air drone airframes to offer deep bombing and surveillance and Tempest, Typhoon and F35s for immediate protection and interdiction. The RN would grow to around 30 combat hulls and the retention of QE Class carriers would be essential. The current Army plans would then make more sense with a modest MBT fleet and around 1500 supporting armour. All this is based on the premise that China will be the West’s greats test in the coming years.

          • Drones might just be the best answer going forward!

            “Trainee Royal Air Force pilots will have to wait up to a year to start flying lessons as commanders work to fix chronic problems with training that have prompted some recruits to quit, Sky News has learnt.”

            LINK

          • UK hosts inaugural AUKUS AI trial26 MAY 2023

            “The UK hosted the first AUKUS artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy trial in April to promote synergies between Australian, UK, and US AI-enabled assets.

            Held at Upavon in Wiltshire, the exercise involved collaboratively swarming the different AI platforms to detect and track military targets in real time in a representative environment, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced on 26 May.”

            LINK

          • Interesting that they hold it at Upavon. That place has a large grass runway/DZ.

          • Ah yes, there it is. Apparently Watchkeeper was to fly from there and Boscombe at one time, but unsure if it ever happened.

          • Keevil Airfield in Wiltshire carried out the testing.

            “Trials of the British Army’s Watchkeeper Remotely Piloted Air System from Keevil Airfield this summer have been so successful that the Ministry of Defence wants to create a permanent Danger Area around the Wiltshire airfield.”

            LINK

          • Interesting, I’d missed that they’d been there.
            Yes, makes more sense to me than disrupting operations at Boscombe and it has a runway too, where Upavon does not. Though Keevil is also used for Air landing training so assume the two would not be concurrent.

          • An interesting place it seems!

            Upavon or Netheravon airfield, Wiltshire. 1960’s — Film 7476

            LINK

          • Wow, never seen that! I cannot tell if it is Netheravon or Upavon, both are actually so close together.

          • thats is old hat isn’t…interstingly 2 or 3 years ago my son considered appyling to join as a pilot …His uni prof (a big wig in airforce) told him not to bother as the training was a mess and was only going to get worse – and most likely he would find it a nightmare to qualify….

        • ‘Reduce the heavy land force armour in favour of more surface ships and aircraft’, now there is a topic which would generate a plethora of responses. Not to mention filling up UKDJ servers/cloud storage.
          It’s a debate to be had in its own right, we might know more when the defence review paper is released in late June. Something to come back too.

          • If you consider the bloody shambles of Ajax, Warrior upgrade, and the small fleet of CH3, maybe it would be wiser to continue with the programmes such as Boxer, Ajax and CH3 as planned but call that the sum total for the Army and increase future spending on the RN and RAF? At some point, painful decisions will need to be made and with the British Army being declared substandard in terms of heavy armour by the Americans, the UK may be wise to place greater emphasis on the other two services? In truth, close monitoring of the Chinese in and around the SCS and the South Pacific will be ostensively air and sea assets anyway. A modestly equipped UK Army with concentrated efforts on rapid strike and specialised opps could prove to be a more realistic function going forward. However, if the Army is required to perform current NATO commitments it will field by 2030 modern amour to match its fellow members, but not in the numbers that landlocked Germany and France will field. But that makes eminent sense in my mind. The UK’s strength is in its ability to place specialised forces fast and efficiently anywhere around the globe, and we should tailor our needs accordingly.

          • Sea/Air/Intelligence first, I have been calling for it for years.
            That is not to say I’d reduce the Army further than it is already, I still believe a minimum of 1 heavy division is required. The army needs CS/CSS, artillery, precision weaponry, ISTAR, and drones ahead of lots more Tanks and lots more personnel. I’d see the CH3 order upped slightly simply to keep the 3rd Armoured Regiment so an enduring deployment is possible.
            I’m not expecting much ground breaking in the DCP, much will have already been announced as they love re announcing things.
            Extra SHORAD, AD, MLRS are a given and have already been announced, FMF will be accelerated.

          • CS Combat Service.
            CSS Combat Service Support. The vital enablers of the army beyond the Infantry and RAC which the army keep cutting.
            ISTAR Intelligence Surveillance Targeting and Recon
            SHORAD Short range Air Defence.
            MLRS Multiple Launch Rocket System.
            FMF Future Mobile Fires.

            You’re welcome……😐

        • I think you will find like the astute and trident warheads and carrier builds the US will be happy to help to share the NATO taskings and take pressure off them. After all they offered the uk the f117 stealth bomber.

      • Yes, so your looking a 1% uplift in the defence budget to procure a fleet of 7 over a decade or so and continue to run and maintain them. That seems pretty modest to me.

        • With Taranis long ‘dead’ and more recently ‘Mosquito’ being cancelled, one does wonder if we are going to enter the AUSUS MQ28 ‘Ghost Bat’ programme as we have nothing else in the pipeline it would seem?
          Of course with Tempest still under early development, we might also be working towards something ourselves for use in the mid/late 30’s?
          There is also lots of speculation as to whether or not UAV’s such as the US RQ-180 actually exist, if so is that something we might be piggy-backing? The answer is probably a big fat NO, but you can never tell with the MOD.

          • I’m sure the RQ180 exists. Flying wing types fitting its reported description have been seen and photographed in the Philipines and over the US It is a long range recon platform though.

          • I’d say “was” at Area 51, possibly in the gigantic hanger built at the southern end and close to the runway.
            However, if it is now in operational service why have it at Groom? That is a testing site, with other types as yet undisclosed.
            Secret Drone/UAV/UCAV types that are in operational service are suggested to be at Tonopah, as one example.

          • I thought BAE were flashing what they could do for drones? For a while I thought they would try to mix taranis with magma but didn’t happen unfortunately, they might do something like that in years to come?

          • It’s funny you should mention Ghost Bat and it will be interesting to see if the UK has any interest in this programme.

            Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat in United States for testing26 MAY 2023

            “The Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat, which has been flying in Australia since 2021, is in the US for testing. The aircraft was displayed to reporters at Mid-America Airport outside St Louis, Missouri.

            Boeing declined to disclose the nature of testing, but Krystle Carr, Boeing’s director of autonomous collaborative platforms, said that testing would include internally funded Boeing testing and hinted at but declined to confirm other testing.”

            LINK

        • The operating costs alone would be enormous. Engineering support, training, basing, infrastructure. The purchase price is just the tip of the iceberg. These are the reasons only the US has the resources to operate strategic bombers with credible capability.

        • I wouldn’t really know, but imagine that if you threw enough cash at it then probably doable. I was thinking more along the lines of something less stealthy with a really good range and payload. Not something for 1st day knock the door in stuff, but more of a follow up action and good for both peer/non-peer missions.

          • Yes, Paveway I think. If you can rig a SU24 to deliver Storm Shadow then it must be possible. Why not ASMP or JASSM?

          • Indeed,like Vulcan in the Falklands Conflict where there’s a will there’s a way when you are at War,more possibilities open up..

      • Perhaps once Mad Vlad pops off a few tactical nukes in UKR, or slimeball ChiComs seize Taiwan, HMG Treasury may reconsider/reorder priorities. 🤔 Of course, by that time it could be all over, w/ the exception of the beer…😉🍻

        • I hate to say it, but, I think UK PLC is fast approaching the point of having to reconsider/actually invest in the MOD. It can’t all be done through capability cuts – new investment is needed, after all, there is no point to the NHS, Welfare,Education etc if you can’t feed/keep a population healthy and warm. That comes from defence, like it or not.
          By the time the Gov get it the beer is likely to be stale!

          • Unfortunately we still seem to be acting like we are playing in a post Cold War “end of history” . It would have been like the “no war for a decade planning of the 1920s..but still being enacted in the late 1930s…The fact we are at a point where a general war could start at any time in the next decade and is getting to the point that evidence suggests a general war is now likely within a decade seems to have past HNG by..they are still taking about sunset capabilities and procurement focuses on the late 2030s…when in fact they should be doing everything to strengthen capabilities in the now..this is vitally important as the best way to prevent a general war is to have deterrent through strength and will in place now…showing weakness now while saying you will have increased capacity in a decade does not only reduce your deterrent in the present but actually forces your geopolitical opponent to act…is china really going to hang around while Aus and the UK make sure they have 20+ SSNs between to help the US force the Taiwanese strait if it all kicks off.especially since the UK as the U.S.s key international ally ( from a global military player point of view) his sunsetted and gapped so many capabilities that its probably at a 500 year nadir in power…but making statements about how it will have a full carrier wing, more escorts and more SSNs in the late 2030s…it’s a profoundly dangerous game.

          • If you want peace, prepare for war.
            Our idiot political class have probably never heard of that, nor the bulk of the general populance who care not a jot about defence.

          • To be honest I could have forgive that attitude in the 1990s…by the later 2000s it was coming to the point the west should have been thinking this is not going as we expected…after 2010 they should have been seriously preserving capability and showing deterrent and resolve as both Russia and china were testing and Brazil and India were making it clear they were not going to be supportive friends of the west rather suspicious neutral at best…by 2014 it should have been clear we were heading for potential war in Europe within a decade and war in the pacific within a decade or two and that Russian and China were still geopolitical enemies of the west and were never going to consider a rapprochement and the only way to prevent war was significant re-armament.

      • Yes agree we don’t necessarily need or could afforded a first day strategic bomber like the B21 but we could really do with some form of long range strike, especially maritime strike. We do need a platform with legs.Quite frankly as long as you give it long range strike missiles and pair it with a long range asset that can act as the sensor platform ( drone) to provide targeting and kill chain it can stay out the way ans so could even be based on a civilian airframe ( after all that seems to be the way forward at the moment with maritime surveillance/ASW and AEW.

          • Flying a 737 out and dumping off a couple of legacy harpoons is probably not exactly what you’re looking for for maritime strike against a near peer enemy.

          • If you look at what the US are lining up to put on the P8 they are going to be turning it into a long angle strike platform, slam ER, AGM 88 ER, AGM158c…so it will become a very nasty maritime strike asset as it’s got a lot of hard points. The problem is we have tiny numbers and the are very expensive…but a stripped down version without the ASW, that would be a very cheap long range strike asset.

          • Laundry time pal, hurry up the Brit squaddies pants and socks wont wash themselves.

          • Unfortunately there are to few and they are to expensive and must do their ASW role….but what we should consider is seeing if we can get some basil stripes down versions without all the ASW hardware…..

    • The problem is that the UK wouldn’t afford the munitions to fill them, nice capabilities though but I’d rather have more typhoons or F35s as they’re more useful day to day. Could you imagine the treasury if the UK filled all 6 b21 and sent them on a bombing mission

    • Modest budget increase for strategic nuclear bombers. You will be talking several tens of billions for one squadron plus manpower plus training. What are we cutting to pay for it?

    • Those planes have constantly been at war for the last 20 plus years. The Bone has been very heavily used. They’re very tired.

    • I don’t really see the possible use for these. Also considering globalfirepower ranks the attack fleet of UK at 25th-something in the world. Rather improve the current assets seems like a better idea

    • It was only a tech demonstrator and never destined to be a program. The tech should be rolled in to Tempest and GCAP which is nominally slated to have some form of loyal wing man attached.

      That being said if you wanted something really stealthy to fly deep in to enemy territory and drop a couple of Paveway IV on something Taranis seems good to go. Even just a small fleet procured almost as prototype/ testing fleet would have been worth while for a few hundred million.

      The MOD is shorter on ambition than it is on cash.

      • Yes, I can see it now. A secret, small, unacknowledged RAF Sqn, based at some remote RAF base ( I have a few in mind ) with 6 Taranis as a “Silver Bullet” 😛
        The F117 filled that role for some years.

        • Considering how many remote bases we gave around the world could be a real winner, global strike for a small cost.

    • Taranis now has become part of a joint Anglo-French project for a European UCAV. However, that was before Brexit and second France as a partner. From my understanding the joint partnership should have developed into the FCAS.

  4. 2x B1B’s flew over my house yesterday at around 2000 feet height so quite low. Impressive if noisy aircraft.

  6. its good to see the US showing it’s NATO commitment and deterrent as the only think stopping a general war is a very fragile belief that NATO and the west still has a will to fight…unfortunately the west has been Remiss in ensuring the deterrent triad is in place…1) you have to have overwhelming capability to harm your potential enemy and destroy them 2) your enemy has to know you have that capability 3) your enemy has to know you have the will to use that capability. We the west have been degrading 3 for so long that despite the overmatch our enemies really do see the west as weak.

    As for the question of should the UK have strategic bombers.. I think from a global deterrent point of view a carrier full of 5 generation strike aircraft is better…but I do think what we have as an island and maritime nation is a gap in our long range maritime strike..so for me a long range strike aircraft is needed ( 2000nm range) the thing is this does not need to be a first day penetrating an IADS exquisite ability..it needs to be something that can carry lots of long range strike missiles across the maritime environment staying away from harm..using a long range drone as a sensor platform for targeting and kill chain. Something built around a civilian platform would work..as that’s what are new AEW and ASW platforms are built around so why not have the same thing but more basic and built for long range strike.

    • One lesson learnt from Russian aggression against Ukraine is that the “Star War” doctrine was not a bad idea. The current systems taking down the Russian missiles and drones, is a validation of the concept. Consequently, in future NATO will go on the offence against a nuclear power with minimum risk of nuclear retaliation.

      • I would not say that, in reality protecting against intercontinental range ballistic missiles is still essential a futile a actively…the U.S. have sunk around 40 billion into its GMD and for that its has around 40 interceptors ( which are essentially three stage orbital boosters). The really is even when they have the final 200 on line ( sometime in the never as these things are ) it will on,y be able to handle a few 10s of war heads…the next batch of improved ground based interceptors is going to cost around 17-20 billion for 31 ( 21 operational and 10 test)…

        Also it’s success rate is rubbish out of 17 tests only 9 simulated ICBMs were intercepted and these were single re-entry vehicles without penetration aids with a planned launch..the simple fact at present the whole 40billion affair is in reality. Only able to stop one or two ICBMs with single re-entry vehicles..basically a North Korea event….you’d never getting a system that could come close to stopping even a single ballistic missile subs payload.That is why the Only deterrent to nuclear war is a continuous at sea ballistic missile submarine base deterrent…as its unstoppable and cannot be realistically counter forced.

  7. If you think about it and looking at all the weapons the US are sticking on it…you could look at at stripped down P8 airframe…you could remove a lot of the coat by mot having all the ASW equipment fitted…and just use it cart around a large number of strike missiles of various types a very long way on a really cheap to run and maintain platform….infact I’m not sure why the U.S. are not doing this…it would make a stupid cheap long range heavy strike asset.

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