The U.S. Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration disclosed on Jul. 21 that the total number of B-21 stealth bombers to be procured will only be determined after the first aircraft is field in the 2020s.
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U.S. Air Force graphic
“We’re not making that decision right now because we don’t need to,” he says. “So we’ll determine what that needs to look like. We’re doing a lot of analysis right now to determine how many bombers we need for the force based on all the warplanes that will help educate and allow us to make a decision on the breadth of B-21s.”