365 of them were chopped up in the desert under the START I treaty with Russia, and left there 3 months so Russian satellites could verify their destruction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I#Implementation
I think maybe additional B52s were destroyed under subsequent START treaties. So the reason only 76 are left in service is not because of a high failure rate. Not sure why we need more than 76 anyway, with smart bombs, and no need to have SAC bombers with nuclear weapons in the air 24x7 as during the Cold War. From: Adam Moffett Sent: Monday, December 07, 2015 9:33 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT - really old equipment still in service Reading between the lines... We built 740 of those beasts back when we thought we were going to fight Russia.� 76 of them are still in service. I'm also thinking about our spending on fancy new bombers seems similar to our Littoral Combat Ship, Crusader artillery, and similar programs where they make something very cutting edge that ends up with glaring flaws, or they're as expensive as three of the older models, or they're impossible to maintain. I'm sitting comfortably in my armchair, so my opinion might count for nothing on this topic, but it seems like for military equipment you'd want to start with simple and rugged and go from there.� Maybe they should just make an updated B52 rather than reinventing the wheel. On 12/7/2015 10:06 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote: Imagine if you had active equipment in your network that was first produced in 1952, the last ones were built in 1964, and you didn't expect to retire them until at least 2040, because none of the intended replacements had worked out. � http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/b-52s-us-air-force-bombers.html � https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress
