Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
Six US Air Force Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bombers have dropped more than 454,000kg (1,000,000lb) of global positioning system (GPS) -guided bombs on Yugoslav targets with no collateral damage, according to USAF Brig Gen Leroy Barnidge, commander of the 509th Bomber Wing at Whiteman AFB, Missouri.
Unlike forward deployed Rockwell B-1Bs and Boeing B52Hs, the B-2s are operating almost daily from Whiteman, their home base. Barnidge says six of the nine available B-2s have conducted "in excess of 40" 33h roundtrip missions, dropping more than 500 900kg bombs fitted with the recently introduced Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) GPS precision guidance kit.
"The performance really has exceeded all of our expectations right now. It is a combination of stealth, long-range, large payload and precise munitions," he says, adding that battle damage assessments show the B-2 has caused "zero collateral damage."
Critics claim that the material that makes the B-2 stealthy is difficult to maintain in the field, but Barnidge says the B-2 can be forward deployed. Operating from the USA "is the right answer for the conditions that exist... Given the requirements, given the number of jets...this is the right way to operate."
Barnidge and senior Pentagon officials dispute an assessment by Gen Richard Hawley, the head of Air Combat Command, that JDAM stocks could be depleted this month. Barnidge says no mission has been scrubbed or will be cancelled for lack of JDAMs. "There has not been a single target, nor will there be a target that we will not be able to reach because we have insufficient weapons. We have more weapons available to us than we have targets," says a Pentagon official.
B-1s and B-52s are dropping "dumb" bombs on targets, such as airfields, where there is little fear of collateral damage, say officials. "The gravity bombs will be used against the appropriate target with the appropriate level of collateral damage figured in." Using GPS navigation, the aircraft are able to drop over 50 gravity bombs along a 305m path, add the officials.
Source: Flight International
