A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, penetrators, fighter-bombers, and attack aircraft, which are used in air interdiction operations to attack enemy combatants and military equipment, strategic bombers are designed to fly into enemy territory to destroy strategic targets (e.g., infrastructure, logistics, military installations, factories, etc.). In addition to strategic bombing, strategic bombers can be used for tactical missions. There are currently only three countries that operate strategic bombers: the United States, Russia[1] and China.
The modern strategic bomber role appeared after strategic bombing was widely employed, and atomic bombs were first used in combat during World War II. Nuclear strike missions (i.e., delivering nuclear-armed missiles or bombs) can potentially be carried out by most modern fighter-bombers and strike fighters, even at intercontinental range, with the use of aerial refueling, so any nation possessing this combination of equipment and techniques theoretically has such capability. Primary delivery aircraft for a modern strategic bombing mission need not always necessarily be a heavy bomber type, and any modern aircraft capable of nuclear strikes at long range is equally able to carry out tactical missions with conventional weapons. An example is France's Mirage IV, a small strategic bomber replaced in service by the ASMP-equipped Mirage 2000N fighter-bomber and Rafale multirole fighter.
^Paul, T. V.; Wirtz, James J.; Fortmann, Michael. Balance of power: theory and practice in the 21st century, Stanford University Press, 2004, p. 332. ISBN 0-8047-5017-3
A strategicbomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target...
of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strategic bombing is done by heavy bombers primarily designed for long-range bombing missions against strategic targets...
strike force known officially as the V force or Bomber Command Main Force. The three models of strategicbomber, known collectively as the V class, were the...
time. In the second half of the 20th century, heavy bombers were largely superseded by strategicbombers, which were often even larger in size, had much longer...
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missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategicbombers with nuclear bombs and missiles. Countries build nuclear triads to...
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The Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) is a development and acquisition program to develop a long-range strategicbomber for the United States Air Force...
strategicbombers were much larger and had far greater performance and load-carrying ability than any of the World War II-era heavy or medium bombers...
torpedo bombers are included. Bomber List of bomber aircraft List of military aircraft of the United States Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, US heavy bomber under...
command and control of the strategicbomber and intercontinental ballistic missile components of the United States military's strategic nuclear forces from 1946...
America bomber) project was an initiative of the German Ministry of Aviation (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) to obtain a long-range strategicbomber for the...
heavy bomber models as ready for testing, Goering ordered a halt to all work on the four-engine strategicbomber program. However, in 1939 the Bomber B program...
be used at low power by a fighter-bomber in an interdiction strike or at high yield dropped by a strategicbomber against an enemy submarine pen. The...
Force's Strategic Air Command (SAC), with a three-star general headquartered at Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts commanding USAF strategicbombers and...
The Bomber Mafia were a close-knit group of American military men who believed that long-range heavy bomber aircraft in large numbers were able to win...
Poslannik (Russian: Посланник, lit. 'Envoy'), is a next-generation stealth strategicbomber being developed by Tupolev for the Long-Range Aviation branch of the...
recently relocated industry out of reach of existing bombers. Wever proposed using a strategicbomber to target those factories, hampering the Soviet ability...