On August 22, six U. S. Air Force B-52 bombers were stationed. But it’s not the first time They were deployed from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota in the Arctic to the Royal Air Force base in Fairford.
Since their arrival in the UK, eight-engine bombers have remained in Array . . . Occupied. On Monday morning, two of the subsonic B-52s, the symptoms of called “Bush 11” and “Bush 12”, flew south into the Mediterranean Sea, joined 4 F-16s of the Morocco Air Force and trained to sink a U. S. Navy. But it’s not the first time the destroyer, dramatically demonstrating the bomber’s latent anti-ship dexterity.
“Those missions throughout our African partners demonstrate the strategic scope of our joint strength and our collective commitment to preventing evil influences in Africa,” Major General Joel Tyler, chief operating officer of the U. S. African Command, said of the mission.
The fake shipwreck is the newest in a high-level quest chain for Minot bombers. On 28 August, 4 of the B-52s in Fairford and two others in the United States flew over all 30 NATO countries in one day without getting married.
One of the B-52s, the call sign “NATO 01”, is heading towards the Black Sea, which since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 has become increasingly dangerous. Russian warships and fighter jets cross the sea. Russian air defense systems ring. outside.
Understanding these Russian defenses is NATO’s main intelligence task, so when NATO 01 flew over foreign airspace over the Black Sea, the two RC-135V/W electronic intelligence aircraft were nearby.
As Russian Su-27 fighter jets approached to practice the B-52, the RC-135 analyzed radar emissions from the Russians.
Three of the B-52s in Fairford repeated the September coup, flying over Ukraine to the edge of Russian airspace over Crimea. The Russians sent eight Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets and a Tu-21 radio relay aircraft to meet the Bombers. Again, two RC-135s were waiting to listen.
Sunday’s Mediterranean project was less exciting because apparently there were no Russian fighter jets involved, but the two-day exit (bombers spent the night in Moron, Spain) highlighted the B-52’s maritime capability.
In 1983, the Air Force changed the B-52 to fire Harpoon anti-ship missiles with a diversity of one hundred miles, a preview of the following decade, when the flying branch also added a large amount of precision non-nuclear munitions to the venerable ones. Later, the Air Force began connecting the Litening camera module to the B-52, in addition to the bomber’s existing radar and infrared and electro-optical sensors.
Clearly the Pentagon sought to give the B-52 an anti-ship role about 40 years ago. “Range, speed, laziness time and above-the-horizon communications and “onboard sensor network” are the bomber’s main attributes for maritime operations, the Air Force said.
The B-52s can jeopardize a giant area. ” In two hours, two B-52s can monitor 140,000 miles on the ocean surface,” according to the Air Force.
While many types of U. S. army aircraft have been in the middle of the U. S. Military, they are not the only ones in the U. S. Military. But it’s not the first time They can bring harpoons, few can bring 12 harpoons while flying 8,000 miles from the base, blocking enemy radars, and receiving and sending information from various types of radio.
Generally speaking, a bomber flew at high altitude while searching for a sending target, then fell on the most sensitive of the waves before launching its harpoons. Low altitude is helping the team aim to send the defenses themselves.
As a backing to the Harpoon, the B-52 can also launch laser-guided bombs to sink ships. Crew members exercise regularly to do just that. In any case, the B-52s that flew over the Mediterranean on Monday were most likely unarmed.
In 1989, Air Force researcher Major Gregory Berlan advised the flying branch to equip the B-52 with a new radar that would assist in the maritime attack mission. The original and absolutely obsolete APQ-166 bomber is not up to the task.
“Improved capability is achieved by allowing the B-52 to definitively identify enemy ships without having to fly within sight of enemy ships,” Berlan wrote. inverted artificial opening and opening radars. “
This never happened, although the Air Force tested the B-52 with the AN/ASQ-236, an artificial opening radar in one capsule. Today, the F-15E and F-16 fighters bring the SAR capsule. T.
An upgrade program is expected to replace the APQ-166 radar with a new electronically scanned radar for the B-52’s maritime surveillance capability since the mid-2020s. Meanwhile, the B-52 uses the Litening camera module, and signals from satellites and other aircraft, to visually scan the ocean.
Not by chance, Fairford’s flying bombers since last August have been photographed using Litenings among their engines on their starboard wings in most, if not all, of their missions. The camera module becomes a computer.
Fairford’s B-52s took off On Monday morning, flew south, and chased the Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyer USS Roosevelt, who is one of 4 Burkes leaving Spain on missile defense patrols.
The effectiveness of the B-52s, and what Roosevelt did to dodge or retaliate to them, remains uncertain, but that is, no shipping team likes to potentially connect 24 cruise missiles.
Today, 76 B-52Hs from the 1960s are still in service. The Air Force spends billions of dollars modernizing bombers with only new radars, but also better weapons, communications, and engines, allowing them to fly and fight for decades more.
The trims come with compatibility with the 300-mile long-range anti-ship missile. Combined with the new radar, the LRASM will make a terrorist bomber sink an even more formidable ship.