Air Force

The Defense Department (DOD) is required to assess the effectiveness of the B-52H and B-1B bombers in conventional missions and to report on its ability to flight-test these bombers against a variety of current and future threats. GAO found that DOD's plan offers little insight into how the key issues involving the B-1B will be addressed. According to the plan, the effectiveness of heavy bombers in conventional warfare will depend on mission planning and the ability of the bombers to deploy, perform long-duration sorties, penetrate air defenses, and employ conventional weapons. Pentagon officials made a conscious decision to not include all the detail necessary to address the key issues raised in the plan about the B-1B. They view the plan as a top-level guidance document in which more detail would have been inappropriate. GAO believes that of the key issues identified in the plan, deployability is particularly critical. Resolving this issue would allow more-informed decisions on upgrading the B-1B bomber and defining future conventional roles of the B-52 and the B-2 aircraft. The plan concludes that although DOD can design realistic flight tests to determine the survivability and the operational effectiveness of proposed modifications to the B-1B and the B-52H aircraft, the design will not duplicate all known threats. DOD attributes this limitation to the lack of advanced threat air defense systems in the test resources inventory and to the vast number of possible threat postures and configurations.

GAO found that: (1) the DOD evaluation plan does not address key issues regarding the B-1B aircraft's operational effectiveness; (2) the plan's key operational evaluation factors include mission planning and the ability of heavy bombers to deploy, perform long duration sorties, penetrate air defenses, and employ conventional weapons; (3) DOD officials purposely decided not to answer the key issues raised in the plan about the B-1B and believe the plan should be used as a guide; (4) deployability is the key issue in the DOD plan and its resolution will provide for more informed decisions on upgrading the B-1B bomber and defining the future conventional roles of the B-52 and B-2 aircraft; and (5) although DOD is capable of designing realistic flight tests to determine the survivability and operational effectiveness of proposed B-1B and B-52H aircraft modifications, flight tests cannot duplicate all known threat systems because of the lack of advanced threat air defense systems in the test resource inventory and the large amount of possible threat postures and configurations.