Tags: B-21 Raider, B-52, Northrop Grumman, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Strategic Command
The Air Force Needs at Least 145 B-21 Raiders
March 25, 2025
By: Peter Suciu
The head of the United States Strategic Command doesn’t believe that 100 Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider long-range bombers will be enough, and forty-five more should be produced.
Speaking at the McAleese and Associates annual Defense Programs Conference earlier this month, General Anthony J. Cotton, head of the U.S. Strategic Command, called for the service to acquire 145 Raiders and said he believes more AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off Weapons are also required.
More Raiders Please, 100 Bombers Won’t Cut It
Current plans call for the United States Air Force to purchase 100 B-21s in the coming decade, replacing the service’s aging fleet of Rockwell B-1B Lancer and Northrop B-2 Spirit bombers. The Raider, the first new bomber developed in a generation, will also operate alongside the even older Cold War-era Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range bombers through the 2050s or later.
Cotton suggested that increasing the number of Raiders to 145 could allow the Air Force to address the growing threats to the global state.
“The production rate that was agreed upon was, I think, in [that] geopolitical environment. That’s a little different than the geopolitical environment we will face for decades. Hence, as a customer, I would love to see larger production rates,” Cotton said during the conference.
According to figures from National Defense, the per-cost bomber currently stands at around $692 million “based on a buy of 100 aircraft. An additional forty-five aircraft would come to about $31.1 billion.”
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/the-air-force-needs-at-least-145-b-21-raiders
