Anyone fancy a B-1B gunship?

[c.smith10]

So apparently Boeing have been granted a patent to turn the Bone into a gunship! Would make a great WIF using revells 1/48 kit!

http://amp.timeinc.net/thedrive/the-war-zone/20782/boeings-been-granted-a-patent-for-turning-the-b-1b-into-a-gunship-bristling-with-cannons?source=dam&__twitter_impression=true

[bootneck]

I can't see how that would be any use.  Gunships need to be slow;  to identify, target and fire on a specific target. The B-1's speed, and area covered in a short time, would cause quite a bit of collateral damage from the start of burst to end of firing.  Those days of the shoot up the whole area and never mind the consequences should be a thing of the past.

 

Mike

[qn30jEkPz7]

It does seem a waste of time on two counts a: magnificently stupid and b: an impossible patent to enforce 

[XV107]

15 hours ago, LostCosmonauts said:

an impossible patent to enforce 

 

With only one user of the B-1B, I suspect Boeing might notice if the USAF's aircraft suddenly sprouted a system violating the patent, and conversations involving lawyers would ensue...

 

I can only assume that this is some sort of idea for supporting SOF in a reasonably permissive environment [a term which always makes me think that the enemy's defences will be commanded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, with Timothy Leary as a SAM battery commander...] with the B-1 racing to the rescue using its high dash speed before putting the wings fully forward and setting up the standard orbit (albeit rather quicker) for a gunship with the ability to get out of the way of incoming SAMs in a way an AC-130 can't if the need arose.

 

But... you'd have thought that unless there was a cost imperative - no destroying $10,000 Hilux Technicals with a $500,000 missile - that stuffing the bays full of GBU-44 and AGM-176, or even Brimstone - would be the answer. On top of that, the effort to put a directed energy weapon onto the AC-130 would suggest that putting one of those into the bays would be a more obvious proposition. All rather odd at first glance...

[qn30jEkPz7]

5 hours ago, XV107 said:

 

With only one user of the B-1B, I suspect Boeing might notice if the USAF's aircraft suddenly sprouted a system violating the patent, and conversations involving lawyers would ensue...

 

I can only assume that this is some sort of idea for supporting SOF in a reasonably permissive environment [a term which always makes me think that the enemy's defences will be commanded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, with Timothy Leary as a SAM battery commander...] with the B-1 racing to the rescue using its high dash speed before putting the wings fully forward and setting up the standard orbit (albeit rather quicker) for a gunship with the ability to get out of the way of incoming SAMs in a way an AC-130 can't if the need arose.

 

But... you'd have thought that unless there was a cost imperative - no destroying $10,000 Hilux Technicals with a $500,000 missile - that stuffing the bays full of GBU-44 and AGM-176, or even Brimstone - would be the answer. On top of that, the effort to put a directed energy weapon onto the AC-130 would suggest that putting one of those into the bays would be a more obvious proposition. All rather odd at first glance...

Neither the patent nor the claims specify the B-1, that’s just the plane chosen to illustrate the patent. It is more general about the concept with claims covering the use of bays with pop out or turreted guns in a few ways. The title is “System and method for deployment of an aircraft weapons system” with claims: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=09963231&SectionNum=4&IDKey=666A1766EFB3&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2%26Sect2=HITOFF%26p=1%26u=%252Fnetahtml%252FPTO%252Fsearch-bool.html%26r=1%26f=G%26l=50%26co1=AND%26d=PTXT%26s1=%25229,963,231%2Bb2%2522%26OS=%26RS=

 

I meant unenforceable as a swappable weapons packs including guns/cannon (Hawker Hunter) and aircraft with hidden and articulated guns has substantial prior art (sci-fi movies or manga and where you’ve seen cannons deploy from a hatch could still be argued in court as an example of the idea already being out in the world. If I remember rightly there is a Star Wars scene where a hatch flips on the landed Millenium Falcon and a swivelling gun fires at stormtroopers. That might invalidate the patent if your judge accepts that in atmospheric flight the Falcon would count as an aircraft) and anyway unless they have a matching WO patent it doesn’t grant non-US exclusivity so Chinese and Russian plane makers can do anything they like with it

Edited May 12, 2018 by LostCosmonauts

[Boman]

Although this is a patent only, it seems a waste of time given that you have more than sufficient AC-130's going around, packing more punch already. 😜

[Fredag]

It'd make it a bit Starwarsy,who has the Tie fighters...?

[junglierating]

I call spoof

[camper1]

Didn't the US author Dale Brown use this concept in some of his books along with the Megafortress B52 which apparently never needed to be refuelled and had unlimited weapons which never missed.Reasonable tongue in cheek action though.

Ian

 

[Mike]

I know this is quite silly, but with modern tech, I'm pretty sure they could maintain aim on a target while the aircraft was still flying pretty quickly, although they'd have to be a bit careful to avoid shooting big holes in the engine nacelles or bay doors. Could they fire it from high altitude and be effective?  I don't know, but I wouldn't want to put such a valuable and high-profile aircraft such as the Bone down in the weeds where it could get a missile up its butt with very little warning. Probably best that it stays in the realms of what-if, or more likely what-were-they-smoking?  

[Giorgio N]

On 5/12/2018 at 7:44 AM, LostCosmonauts said:

Neither the patent nor the claims specify the B-1, that’s just the plane chosen to illustrate the patent. It is more general about the concept with claims covering the use of bays with pop out or turreted guns in a few ways. The title is “System and method for deployment of an aircraft weapons system” with claims: http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=09963231&SectionNum=4&IDKey=666A1766EFB3&HomeUrl=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2%26Sect2=HITOFF%26p=1%26u=%252Fnetahtml%252FPTO%252Fsearch-bool.html%26r=1%26f=G%26l=50%26co1=AND%26d=PTXT%26s1=%25229,963,231%2Bb2%2522%26OS=%26RS=

 

 

Exactly ! Sounds to me that not many here have actually taken the time to read the documentation attached to the patent...

Boeing here have patented a weapon deployment system capable of being used from the internal weapon bay of an aircraft, they have not proposed a gunship variant of the B-1 !

In the text they mention the B-1 simply as an example of an aircraft with an internal weapon bay that may benefit from the system but mention this type together with the B-52, the F-22, F-35 and any future type. The weapon itself is not described, and the text mentions the potential use of conventional guns or direct energy weapons, they mention CAS as one potential use of the system but never say that the system is specifically designed for CAS.

Really here Boeing is trying to protect the design and the concept of the deployment system, they don't care about a gunship variant of the B-1 or any other aircraft