Non-nuclear use seen for B-52H bombers - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Non-nuclear use seen for B-52H bombers

The Air Force will be able to keep a number of B-52H bombers flying as conventional weapons-only aircraft under the New START treaty with Russia, defense officials told Congress last week.

U.S. authorities would have to certify the denuclearized bombers as fully capable of flying conventional weapons before presentation to the Russians, said Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler, who leads U.S. Strategic Command. Kehler testified May 4 before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We haven’t gotten to the complete end of that string yet about approvals to represent it that way with the Russians — that’s pending,” Kehler said. “We believe we have a good way to do that that still allows them to be capable for conventional missions.”

James Miller, principal undersecretary of defense for policy, who was also testifying, added the Defense Department had not settled on how the B-52s would be converted before being presented to Russia for “exhibition.”

A total of 40 B-52s and 20 B-2 stealth bombers will be kept for the nuclear role as part of the treaty’s limitation of 700 delivery vehicles per side, according to Miller’s testimony.

Also ICBMs

The Air Force will keep 420 out of 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, but the payload would be reduced to a single warhead per missile.

The Minuteman is capable of carrying three warheads.

The Navy will fill out the rest of the nuclear triad with its fleet of 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, which will carry “no more than 240 Trident II D5 [submarine-launched ballistic missiles] at any time,” Miller testified.

Miller said that both Russia and the U.S. had already conducted some steps required by the treaty. The two nations have exchanged nuclear weapons databases.

The U.S. has exhibited the B-2 and B-1 bombers to the Russians, and the Russians have exhibited the RS-24, also known as the SS-27, road-mobile ICBM to the U.S., Kehler said.

The U.S. has also inspected a Russian SS-19 ICBM site, he added.