This redeployment of B1 bombers to Guam is odd considering the USAF JUST pulled our B-52’s from Guam (like last week) and ended our continuous forward deployment of strategic bombers.

Then I looked up the combat radius of a B1b and plotted that from Guam. That figure has lots of assumptions but the outer circle shows the spec’d combat range and the inner circle shows 20% less to give an idea of what max-speed range might look like. Talk about “reach out and touch someone!”

But B1b’s aren’t particularly stealthy anymore and that’s lots of water to cross to reach mainland China (even Taiwan), so why bother when any first strike against China would be conducted by B2’s anyway? Besides, 4 B1’s isn’t much considering the size of the theater.

Then I ran across an article that discussed fitting B1’s with anti-ship missiles and it clicked.

I think the USA is hunting for a ship in the western Pacific and we don’t know exactly where she is. Further, I suspect this ship is so valuable/dangerous that the USN doesn’t want to put any major asset near enough to strike her lest they are attacked, save maybe a sub, which would be unseen. B1’s are a lot faster than submarines, though!

I won’t speculate further regarding this proposed target but it seems important.