Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Standard operating procedure is to drop two guided bombs from high altitude, which will destroy pretty much any target.
My point is that a standard strike is 2xPWIV or JDAM (even which is overkill in most situations). The other bombs the B-52 can carry basically act as deadweight given the paucity of targets.
when you have a fully active brush/guerilla war going on like the early phases of the Iraq insurgency, it's worth suppressing a large region with a single plane.B-52 for COIN missions ?, god damn...that would be expensive.
And can you provide that "SOP?"
Do you realize the different roles and missions you're talking about?
GR9? I could tell you that no such "SOP" exists in the USAF and I'll stick my neck out and say the same for the Navy and Marines. I work with the USAF and sometimes have acess to generic operational directives and if you could tell me a specific signed and delivered "SOP" coming from a specific MAJCOM regarding this, I'll eat my shoes.Given that it's only been a few days since I was briefed by a GR9 pilot on operations in Afghanistan, yes. Seems fairly standard in the USAF as well.
You don't use a B-52 for COIN operations. With that said your assertion that COIN missions are the only ones available is kind of far fetched as I doubt you're currently in Afghanistan to make that determination. You claim you've had this brief with a GR9 pilot, well if true I bet that same pilot has little or no insight into where and when the USAF will decide when to use a B-52 in the region. With that said there have been missions that only a B-52 could accomplish and it will take more than "two bombs" to complete such missions....The COIN mission is the only one available at the moment. There aren't that many targets available. You could dream up some scenario with lots of targets that the B-52 would be more useful to bomb but chances are there will be some IADS present and survivability goes way down.
The RAAF is having a similar debate with our F-111 fleet. For thirty years they have provide great security for Australia in the maritime strike role, and nothing in the region was capable of intercepting the,. Remains the case today, and the ordinance carried by the aardvarks is truly awesome (at least in the regional sense). But they are to be retired ( if not already retired, to be replaced by a similar number of "Super Hornets". Now I dont know jack about the new F-18s, but I will bet my last dollar that they are not as capable in the strike role as the old F-111.
The F-18s are a temporay expedient, to be replaced by the F-35, if and when it flies properly..... Maybe that bird will fill the gap, but I have my doubts.
In the context of a large country like Australia, with limited resources, ther is no question that aircraft are more cost effective than missiles. In fact I doubt that missile can undertake the long range maritime strike role that the F-111s were able to do
BTW, didn't your govt. just order 14 of them for the low, low price of $3.2 billion? I wonder how many F-15E's you could get for that much...
JL
The only F-35's that are gonna be around fifty years from now will be in museums. The continuing advances in computer, pattern recognition, sensor, and missile propulsion technology will see to that.
BTW, anybody remember the economical, 'all things to all airmen' TFX?
Thought not...
JL