There is no obvious answer to the question of how the Air Force should fulfill its assignment to get a new long-range strike system in place by 2018, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In a study titled "Alternatives for Long-Range Ground-Attack Systems," released in April, the CBO looked at eight current and future approaches to long-range strike, evaluating them on attributes such as speed, payload, survivability, and cost. CBO concluded that no single solution stuck out as a clear winner, although some were decidedly cheaper than others. For example, the report projected that new supersonic bombers would cost more than $900 million apiece, while new high-speed cruise missiles could cost just $1.4 million apiece. Whether the cruise missile would be more cost-effective, however, was not stated.
展开▼
