Jet Bomber (Civ6)

Jet Bomber
Air Bomber unit of the Information Era
Introduced in Civilization VI
Unlocked by	Stealth Technology
Required infrastructure	Aerodrome
Resources
Resource	Aluminum
Resource	Aluminum
Maint.	Aluminum
Maint.	Aluminum
Cost
Production	700
Production	700
Gold	2800
Gold	2800
Maint.	8
Maint.	8
Stats
Movement	15
Movement	15
Melee	90
Melee	90
Range	15
Range	15
Bombard	120
Bombard	120
Sight	5
Sight	5
Upgrade path
Upgrades from
Bomber
Bomber
Notes
Information era Bomber upgrade.

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The Jet Bomber is an Information Era air bomber unit in Civilization VI. It upgrades from the Bomber (or its replacements) and requires Aluminum.

In the Gathering Storm expansion, the Jet Bomber requires 1 Aluminum to train and 1 Aluminum per turn to maintain.

• Attributes:
  • Has Sight of 5.
  • -17 Bombard Strength against land units.
• Abilities:
  • May Pillage tile improvements and Districts (destroying them, but not gaining yields).
  • May perform a Nuclear and Thermonuclear Strike, if your civilization has these weapons.
  • Priority target: may attack Civilian or Support units in formation directly

Strategy

Jet Bombers are invaluable units in Information Era warfare. Using normal bombing runs, Jet Bombers can quickly wear down a city's defenses, allowing the city to be taken easily. If necessary, a Jet Bomber is also capable of performing a Nuclear or Thermonuclear Strike, which will instantly destroy the defenses of any cities caught within the blast radius. Like Bombers, Jet Bombers are still vulnerable to Anti-Air Guns, Mobile SAMs, patrolling fighters, a select few naval units, and (in Gathering Storm) Giant Death Robots.

When delivering nuclear weapons, the attack will fail and the nuke will be lost if the Jet Bomber falls below 50% HP during an interception, so always make sure your Jet Bomber is in good health and the anti-air defenses are cleared before delivering a nuclear payload.

Bugs

In the iOS versions of the game, using the Jet Bomber to attack causes a visual glitch to occur where the screen freezes before the animation finishes. However, the game itself continues to run. This glitch can be avoided by swiping the screen away from the attack's animation before it happens.

Civilopedia entry

As fighters got faster and more lethal, for a brief period jet bombers were considered necessary by Cold War air forces … until intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles promised the ability to rain destruction on distant cities with less fuss. The United States designed the XB-70 Valkyrie, for instance, to carry nuclear warheads across the pole to Russia – only two were ever built. The B-1 Lancer was somewhat more successful; with a speed of Mach-2 it could (hopefully) outrun the nuclear blast so the crew might survive – about 100 of the B-1B version were put in service as “low-level penetrators.” But in general, the old B-52s and Soviet Tu-95 series worked just as well (although their attack would be a one-way trip), and were a lot cheaper. In modern air forces, the distinctions between bombers, fighter-bombers and fighters have blurred considerably, such that most aircraft in service today could be considered “jet bombers.”

Trivia

• The Jet Bomber's model is based on the B-52 Stratofortress, an American long-range bomber built by Boeing after World War II. Despite this, the icon for Stealth Technology (which unlocks the Jet Bomber) shows a B-2 Spirit.
• The Jet Bomber can be landed and launched from Aircraft Carriers in-game. In real life, Aircraft Carriers are not large enough to reliably station most modern strategic bombers, as there is not enough space to consistently land/take-off.