Wraith Stealth Bomber

The Wraith carries two heavy bombs instead of the Vulture's five: one pass puts 832 onto a building, which is a Radar Station, a SAM Site or a Missile Interrupter in a single run. Its stealth is a range. The enemy sees it only within four tiles of one of their units or buildings, or within eight of their Radar Station, so their anti-air elsewhere in the base never joins in, and whatever stands at the target gets its shots late.

How to use

This is the decapitation strike. The enemy's Radar Station supports their strategic aircraft, heavy naval units and nuclear weapons, and it is also what sees you coming from eight tiles. So take the radar when the SAMs beside it are already busy, or take what the radar does not cover: a Missile Interrupter or a SAM Site on the base's edge dies to one pass. Thread the run between the anti-air; a Falcon has to be over the asset to see you at all. The bomb run is inside 2.4 tiles, so whatever stands at the target always gets its shots, and repeated missiles from a SAM Site there can bring a Wraith down. Its bombs are less effective against heavy armour and it has no air-to-air weapon. Two passes empty the bomb bay, and it returns to an airbase or an available Aircraft Carrier to rearm. Repair it between sorties: at 1,400 metal it is not a thing you lose twice.

The nuclear bomb

Once the Radar Station, the Nuclear Reactor and, when the tech tree is enabled, the Nuclear Program is researched, a Wraith can carry one Nuclear Bomb. It is fabricated only while the Wraith is over one of your airbases, within four tiles; send it away and the work stops where it is, costing nothing, until it comes back. Delivering it is a bombing run, not a launch: Drop nuclear bomb on the command card, click the point, and the Wraith flies there, lets it go and heads home. The bomb lies on the ground for ten seconds before it goes off, and the enemy can shoot it apart in that time, so the run is only half the job.

Anecdotes

Stealth shaping is tuned against the short wavelengths a missile's own radar uses; the long-wave search sets a radar station stands for still catch a glimpse of it, which is why the bombers fly the routes they do. Twenty-one B-2s were built, at about two billion dollars each, and their shape traces back to a Northrop flying wing that first flew in 1947.