Monday, April 11, 2016

"B-52s arrive in Qatar to join bombing campaign against ISIS"

"U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers arrived at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, on Saturday joining Operation Inherent Resolve, the American-led campaign against the Islamic State group.
The deployment marks the first time the Air Force will use the Cold War-era warplanes — from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana — in the counter-ISIS fight in Iraq and Syria. The service did not disclose the exact number of bombers it deployed.
"The B-52 will provide the coalition continued precision and deliver desired airpower effects,” Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command and Combined Forces Air Component, said in a release.
“As a multi-role platform, the B-52 offers diverse capabilities including delivery of precision weapons and the flexibility and endurance needed to support the combatant commander's priorities and strengthen the coalition team."
In March, Air Force officials hinted that the aircraft, affectionately known as the "Big Ugly Fat Fellow," would replace the B-1 Lancers, which returned in January.
"There have been recent infrastructure improvements that now allow the necessary support to deploy the B-52 in theater," Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said at an Air Force briefing on March 7.
Despite being the Air Force inventory for more than 50 years, BUFFs can drop precision-guided weapons. Its payload capacity at 70,000 pounds can include gravity bombs, cluster bombs, precision guided (cruise) missiles and joint direct attack munitions.
The service is focusing on a modernization effort to make sure the B-52s stay flying for years to come, potentially as late as 2040, officials have said...."

(video at link)

15 comments:

edutcher said...

Isn't this using a sledge hammer to swat a fly?

But I guess this is the Choom Gang's way of making Hillary's foreign policy look good.

Or something.

Methadras said...

Optics to use the beltway parlance or as the rest of us unwashed say, perception.

Chip Ahoy said...

They are awesome. And noisy. And Barksdale had almost all of them. And they take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to take off. They need nice thick atmosphere flowing over their wings for takeoff and it takes miles and miles and miles to lift six inches. <--- Possible exaggeration there for dramatic visualization. Nana couldn't take it. She had to leave early. Odd, that whole airport noise was steady music to our ears. (A look at a map shows our house closer to the end of the runway than I had imagined at the time)

Another site said, "think of it, the planes doing the killing were built when the jihadist's grandfathers were young."

If you say so. Those planes were quite different, they had different wing shapes and angles, and different prop engines. The prop engines were changed a couple of times along with everything else about them except for their basic size and shape. These updated B-52s outperform the earlier bombers in every measurable way. They seal our reputation as the greatest terrorists on Earth ever in history. It's how jihadists recognize their imminent doom. Pray, Jihadist, on your rugs and pray. They are terrorist weapons. They bring the apocalypse.

ndspinelli said...

Very Nixonian. Although, ISIS doesn't need to be bombed back to the Stone Age. They be already there.

Leland said...

So this is executive action? The Iraq AMF ended with the pullout in 2011, no? The Afghanistan AMF was specific to 9/11, and I'm pretty sure ISIS didn't commit 9/11.

john said...

"The first thing about the B-52 is the historical presence that it carries with it. I think when the enemy sees the B-52 fly overhead, it strikes fear into their hearts..... bringing the B-52 out here is definitely a win for everybody, I think."

The NVA put aside the fear in their hearts to bring down fifteen B-52s over a 9 day period.

deborah said...

Great info, Chip.

Methadras said...

Chip, B52's have always been jet powered. Never turbo propped. Maybe the first earlier prototypes, but never the production B52A's.

Amartel said...

Lightning fast foreign policy decision-making in action. So impressive.
Hmm, bombing obviously awful people that everyone hates, world consensus, even the neighbors. What to do, what to DO? Ponder, ponder. [Years go by.] Scratches balls. Well, okay, if you insist, send in the B-52s. We begin bombing in 5 years!

deborah said...

Amartel, it's called leading from behind. Geeze. The Russkies made us look bad, that's for sure.

Trooper York said...

The B-52's are in Qatar?

Isn't Fred worried about what those dirty Muslims will do to a gay guy?

I wonder if Rock Lobster is still on their play list?

Rabel said...

They're just replacing the B1-B's, which are rotating home for maintenance, with the B52's. It's not really much of anything.

rhhardin said...

I flew 1946 airplanes, when I had airplanes. Older than B-52s. Wooden propeller, pulled on by hand to start. That would be in the 50s 60s and 70s.

The B52 has low bypass (or no bypass) jet engines, which is hugely noisy and inefficient.

The thrust is mass of air times its velocity.

The energy is mass of air times its velocity squared.

You want to move the largest mass of air as slowly as possible, which modern jet engines do with huge intakes mixing lots of air into the exhaust, to get the energy cost for a given thrust as low as possible.

The high velocity exhaust is responsible for the noise.

rhhardin said...

I don't think the B-52 has room under the wings for larger diameter engines, which might be the constraint.

deborah said...

Hey hotstuff, I'm deborah, fly me.