Air Force says restoring nukes on some B-52s would cost $4.5 million

DAYTON, Ohio — The Air Power estimates it could price about $4.5 million to revive nuclear weapon capabilities on roughly 30 B-52 bombers, a calculation that follows proposals from Congress to evaluate shoring up the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal within the coming years.

The Home and Senate armed providers committees included the advice of their respective protection coverage payments for fiscal 2025. The bombers in query had beforehand been outfitted with the flexibility to hold nuclear weapons however had been transformed to traditional plane about 10 years in the past to adjust to a key U.S.-Russia arms management treaty referred to as New START.

That settlement, which units limits on each international locations’ nuclear arms capabilities, is ready to run out in 2026. Proponents of the advice say that severe negotiations with Russia aren’t possible and the U.S. wants to arrange for a future with out the identical restrictions.

Brian Knight, deputy senior materiel chief within the Air Power’s B-52 bomber program workplace, mentioned Tuesday the service is ready to fulfill the timelines proposed within the invoice, which requires the conversions to start inside a month after the treaty limits raise in 2026. The method is estimated to be accomplished by 2029.

“The work itself, I’m not going to get into the small print apart from to say, we all know the right way to do it and it’s comparatively simple,” he advised reporters throughout an Air Power Life Cycle Trade Day convention in Dayton, Ohio.

The Air Power operates a fleet of 76 B-52s, which have been in operation since 1976. The bomber was designed to hold nuclear and standard weapons, however in 2015, the service modified 30 plane to a conventional-only standing underneath New START.

Opponents of the coverage proposal — together with the Home Armed Companies Committee’s high Democrat Rep. Adam Smith of Washington — fear that planning now to extend the U.S. nuclear stockpile may complicate future treaty negotiations.

Smith mentioned in June, when the Home’s invoice handed, that the conversion course of may interrupt ongoing efforts to modernize the getting old B-52 fleet, which is on observe to get a slate of upgrades within the coming years to maintain it flying into the 2050s – and probably till 2060.

“The Division of Protection just isn’t inquisitive about doing this,” Smith mentioned. “They’re at the moment attempting to increase the lifetime of the B-52s out to 2050, which they suppose they will do. This is able to be one other expense to that.”

Knight mentioned the service may possible carry out the conversions throughout deliberate depot upkeep. Brig. Gen. Erik Quigley, the service’s program government for bombers, mentioned in the identical briefing this week that whereas the workload can be manageable, it could require some changes to this system’s depot schedule, which is normally set two years prematurely.

“It could simply take some planning to be sure that we received that into the circulate,” Quigley mentioned.