Posted on 09/01/2008 6:54:56 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
August 27, 2008 (by SSgt. Don Branum) - Coalition air forces in Iraq unleashed a new precision guided weapon against anti-Iraqi forces August 12.
Two F-16 pilots with the 77th EFS executed the first-ever combat deployment of an GBU-54 Laser JDAM against a moving enemy vehicle in Diyala Province.
The GBU-54 is the U.S. Air Force's newest 500-pound precision weapon, equipped with a special targeting system that uses a combination of GPS and laser guidance to accurately engage and destroy moving targets.
"This employment first represents a great step in our Air Force's ability to deliver precise effects across the spectrum of combat," said Lt. Gen. Gary North, commander of U.S. Air Forces Central and U.S. Central Command Combined Force Air Component Commander. "The first combat employment of this weapon is the validation of the exacting hard work of an entire team of professionals who developed, tested and fielded this weapon on an extremely short timeline, based on an urgent needs request we established in the combat zone."
"We have consistently used precision-guided weapons to engage stationary threats with superb combat effects," said Brig. Gen. Brian Bishop, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing commander. "This weapon allows our combat pilots to engage a broad range of moving targets with dramatically increased capabilities and it increases our ability to strike the enemy throughout a much, much broader engagement envelope."
The joint terminal attack controller who called in the airstrike is part of a military transition team supporting Iraqi army operations in Diyala, said Marine Maj. Robert Washington, 1st Iraqi Army Division MiTT fires adviser.
"From my perspective as an artilleryman, being able to hit a moving ground target is a great advantage -- especially with insurgents using vehicles to escape quickly once they're identified," said Major Washington, who manages all aspects of fire support for the 1st IA Division MiTT, including artillery, mortars and air support. "Any improvement we can get is a big one."
The pilots who employed the GBU-54 are captains deployed from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C. They have flown a combined 1,360 hours in F-16s with more than 400 combined combat hours. Their identities were withheld for operational security reasons.
Both pilots have to work together closely to successfully employ the GBU-54. "It's a complicated weapon to employ: it takes two people backing each other up and making sure the weapon is employed properly," one of the pilots said.
Both considered the historic significance of their successful mission.
"I thought it was a really rewarding part of being history, in a sense, when you consider the evolution of precision guided weapons," the second pilot said.
That evolution has allowed the Air Force to employ weapons proportionately to the enemy threat, said Col. Michael Fantini, 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group commander.
"Precision's a big deal," he said. "In World War II, it took a lot of bombs to take out a target due to (low) accuracy. If I don't have accuracy, I need more bombs.
"Now, the fact that we can nearly always put one weapon against one target means we need less ordnance to destroy a target and less air power to put against a threat to achieve a desired effect," he said. "That translates to less exposure to the threat environment and a higher probability of killing targets." It also minimizes collateral damage, a critical consideration in winning the peace.
Teamwork in all aspects from development to the actual weapon employment was crucial, General North said.
"Teamwork was the name of the game to accomplish this," he said. "From the experts in our Air Force Materiel Command who shaped our requirements, then developed, tested and fielded the weapon, to our aircraft maintainers, our munitions Airmen, and weapons loaders ... and everyone in between ... they made the operational employment of this weapon possible.
"At endgame, on Aug. 12, the team of the U.S. Air Force joint terminal attack controller, alongside his ground unit commander in this event, ensured all criteria were met for the first combat delivery of the LJDAM. And finally, our F-16 pilot accurately and precisely delivered and guided the weapon to desired weapons effects, the disabling and destruction of an enemy vehicle and personnel," he said.
Development of the weapon began in January 2007 as an urgent operational need request, said Lt. Col. David Lujan, 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group deputy commander. Colonel Lujan was the program management officer for the GBU-54's development while commanding the 86th Fighter Weapons Squadron at Eglin AFB, Fla. The 86th FWS tests precision guided munitions for the Air Force.
"Around 2006, warfighters started to ask us for better capabilities against movers," said Colonel Lujan, who is deployed from Luke AFB, Ariz. "Boeing came up with the idea of putting the laser kit on the GBU-38, and we pitched it to the Air Force under an urgent operational need request."
The Air Force made the 86th FWS' request a top priority, moving the GBU-54 through the development and testing cycle in less than 17 months, fielding the bombs aboard 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing F-16s in May.
Courtesy 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SC Ping.
How much more difficult (and cheaper) would it be for a slower moving aircraft to strafe the target with machine guns instead? I’ve never seen a truck or car that could outrun any air vehicle.
That’s great but long term attrition - cost of this bomb, fuel flight time, etc vs. the cost pickup truck armed with RPGs?
This is just practice! We're showing the Ruskies how we can take out their tanks and armored vehicles from a far.
Plus, I'm sure the Warthog pilots have had their fill by now.
Fair point. We have to put a value on being able to test weapons in combat, the value of combat hours for the pilot etc, but I have no doubt the dollar cost per kill is high for Coalition forces.
It’s got to be cheaper and more politically effective than carpet bombing though.
Also: having the dollars to spend is one of the advantages the good guys should have.
Rule of Law, rule of property, democracy = more money (and many brave, principled soldiers of course).
Islamic indoctrination = warm bodies with no morals who die like flies.
We spend our money to kill their fanatics. A good buy!
I pay taxes and this is about the only thing I feel I get my money's worth.
It would make the aircraft much more vulnerable to ground fire, both AAA and ManPad SAMs. I'd prefer to spend money and not pilot's lives.
Plus an F-16 had more range than say an A-10. The A-10 could indeed make a mess of a truck, or a tank for that matter.
Money we have. Pilots are harder to come by. But remember it's not the cost of ONE truck w/RPGs against the mission costs, it's many, if many there are to attrit. You also have to factor in the cost of what the guys in the truck would have done with the RPGs, including the lives they would take.
Slowly but surely technology is eliminating the need for fighter pilots.
targets of opportunity and mobile targets used to be the province of eagle-eyed pilots who located and strafed these targets. Now our pilots can’t go down to the deck to strafe because of shoulder-fired rockets
Once these functions can be done by unmanned drones, the ‘pilots’ become ‘players’ back in the trailers playing their electronic games with a joystick. I wonder if bells or artificial explosion noises go off when they score a hit?
Turn in your silk scarves, jet jockeys, there’s a new sherriff in town.
South Carolina Ping
Add me to the list. / Remove me from the list.
You're worried about the cost of taking those a-holes out?
I'm not.
Excellent. That’s the American Military for you...they are the best.
Dropping a live one on top of some varmints is a historical moment of sorts..
A-10s and AC-130s can do the job but unfortunately the slow movers have to be in the area to get there in time. If not on station, the target has time to leave the area of whoever called in the need for the strike. The target then blends into the surroundings making finding it impossible. These weapons make it possible to take out the target quickly and accurately.
Both your theory and mine are unproven. I love the idea of human judgement in combat, but can’t that ‘pilot’s” judgement be exercised at a remote location rather than in a cockpit?
Isn’t the pilot in most cases simply reading instruments similar to those in the control room of a UAV pilot and pushing the button when the instruments say, “Fire.”
But one thing is sure, in the increasingly hot environment of air combat missions, an unmanned plane doesn’t need expensive equipement to keep a human capable of flying or a electronic warfare guy in the back seat to get him to a mission.
And if the UAV is lost, the ‘pilot’ in the control room isn’t lost as well.
Salute!
Good to see that our SC warriors are standing guard so my family can sleep well tonight.
Semper Fi, people.
As an aside, while watching C-Span this morning, some leftist called in and claimed he was “an Air Force veteran combat infantryman.”
I never heard of such a thing. Maybe I missed something while stumbling around during my tour. Maybe the Army has gunner’s mates on their battleships, too. I don’t know...
For all I know, maybe Marine farmers grow onions on quonset hut roofs at San Diego MCRD. Never saw it, but I do recall onions in the mess hall.
Yes, and it must be working, you can see the Russians running to get out of Georgia. "NOT"
I like your analysis! The only thing I dislike is the innocents that are collateral damage, the price they must pay for the chemotherapy action.
If they would rise up and destroy their own fanatics, we wouldn't be over there.
We're showing capability for any future wars-by-proxy and letting the diaper-heads know that they can be hit anywhere, anytime and the recipients will never know what hit them. One second they're driving a truck full of terror arms, the next second Satan is jabbing them in the ass with a red pitchfork.
I take it that a 500lb munition like a JDAM can’t be carried by a UAV yet.
You need to address you silly comments to the one that made them. My statement is and was that the air force was wasting tax payers money on over kill. An old truck can be taken care of with a drone and a fifty cal.
No, we’re not wasting money on overkill. The only thing the islamics understand is who has the biggest hammer and who is willing to use it. They laugh their asses off at our constant hand-wringing over collateral damage, use of minimum force, and civilian casualties while they don’t care who gets hurt or killed in their attacks, a few dead islamic women and children is just a cost of doing business. Minimizing force only encourages them.
If you’re so worried about dollar expenditures, go do a study of welfare, HUD, Social Security, and Medicaid, then come back and talk to me about who is doing the overspending.
Well...for starters, you could have say an A-10 do the job, but let’s say all the A-10’s were engaged on other targets and these guys were getting away.
Also, let’s say a slower aircraft got shot down because there were traps to bait them into the open while a surface to air team was lurking nearby...
there’s dozens of reasons actually.
A 50 cal would be better suited with a sopwith camel.
Next you’ll be saying the Army and Marines should engage them with lances and maces on horseback.
Sounds like you’re thinking of a situation that requires an air-to-ground “AEGIS”.
That’s just it, there will always be these various situations.
If you don’t know what a fifty cal. chain gun will do to a target fired from a mile away, you don’t know much.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsnhyTiTqk4
I happen to know a guy closely involved with testing this.
I won't say more than this: It works.
That's not a chain gun, and it's not a .50 cal.
To be precise, it is the land-based version of the Phalanx CIWS (Close-in Weapon System), and employs the M61 Vulcan 20mm six-barrel gatling gun.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.