Posted on 04/09/2016 7:00:14 AM PDT by McGruff
The U.S. Air Force has deployed B-52 long-range bombers to the Middle East for the first time since the Gulf war ended over 25 years ago to begin striking the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, officials said Saturday.
The U.S. Air Force Central Command said in a statement that an unknown number of B-52s will be based at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The U.S.-led coalition’s Combined Air and Space Operations Center (CAOC) responsible for running the air war against ISIS is also based there.
The U.S. Air Force pulled its B-1 bombers in February and sent them back to the U.S. for maintenance. At the time, senior U.S. military leaders said there would be no capability gap.
But the number of bombs dropped on ISIS fell to an eight-month low in February, according to statistics published by the U.S. Air Force.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It’s a start...
For months, senior Air Force leaders have wanted the aging B-52 to take the place of the B-1s.
B-52s are not supersonic like the B-1s, but they also have long legs and can also loiter over the battlefield for nearly 12 hours and carry over a dozen precision guided bombs or up to 50 500-pound bombs. It can also carry nuclear weapons.
We’ll meet again.
Don’t know where,
don’t know when...
I wonder how many bombs a 747 can carry?
I can’t believe that people are falling for this charade.
this is just like Clinton deploying Apache helicopters to Bosnia; it was done purely because it looks good.
these B 52s will be flying around and will make no actual contribution.
I don’t know exactly why the 52’s are there, but I do know it’s not for ISIS. Unless they’re to be used to drop more flyers telling ISIS to clear out before blowing up some more infrastructure.
I love the smell of carpet bombing in the morning.
I feel for the maintenance crews. Winter spent in North Dakota and now summer in Qatar.
When you care enough to send the very best.
We don’t even have to use them. Their mere presence should be enough to tell ISIS that Obama means business. Besides, we don’t want to make them mad by opposing them too strongly—that just creates more terrorism. The worst thing we can do is consider them a threat, because that’s letting them win. We will not be terrorized, now or ever. The real danger is global warming because it’s GOING TO KILL US ALL! And those mean Trump supporters must be stopped at all costs.
None to drop, they have no Bombay or wing racks. In the internal areas they could carry a lot. In a former life I used to fly out of JFK, LOT flew IL-62’s to Warsaw, a ramp guy showed me the cabin escape system it was a rope with donuts on that came down from the overhead, he also said the baggage storage area could be fitted with bomb racks. This was late 80’s, before communism was killed, they quickly went to 767’s afterwards.
I can’t see a reason either except for PR for Obama. Further if he adds ridiculous ROEs like Clinton did for bombings (must be below 10,000 ft to assure no FFs or civilian casualties), we’re gonna lose some B-52s....
Load one up with as many large canned hams as possible and then drop them on the Muslims from 10,000 feet.
Obama is probably praying to allah that one or more of those 52’s is brought down by a surface to air missile or some damn thing.
“Their mere presence should be enough to tell ISIS that Obama means business. “
LOL! Or did I miss your /s tag ...
All right! Dusted off the “Flying Fortress” the B-52s. Bout time!
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