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Home Front: WoT
B-2s At Sea
2007-12-03
The U.S. Air Force recently held an exercise off Hawaii, using several B-2 bombers that flew in from a base in Missouri.

The B-2s ran simulated attacks on ships in Hawaiian waters. The B-2 can carry Harpoon anti-ship missiles. For two decades, the air force has equipped B-52 bombers with Harpoons, for the same type of missions.

The Missouri-Hawaii mission was a round trip that kept the B-2 in the air for twenty hours. The B-2's radar can search the ocean, but is not equipped with a targeting pod that would enable it to identify what is down there. However, a B-2 can wreck a naval base in one pass, dropping as many as 80 JDAM (GPS guided) bombs in a minute.
Y'all catch that over there in Teheran?
Posted by:lotp

#13  FOr a while, Google was providing driving directions for NY-London and NY-Dublin trips. They involved "Swim 3300 miles."
Posted by: Eric Jablow   2007-12-03 21:02  

#12  This show was for China's benefit, not Terhran. It's meant to show that any naval adventure by China will be risky business.
Posted by: Spiger B. Hayes6882   2007-12-03 18:55  

#11  "Instead, the airmen rely on gravity – and extensive data on wind speed and elevation – to deliver their unarmed bombs to the right spot."

Bet that makes a WWII bombardier's heart happy!

Git your Norden bombsights here!

Posted by: GORT   2007-12-03 17:20  

#10  Here's one source

The planes are equipped to drop “smart” bombs, or weapons guided to their targets by GPS technology. But they don't use it in the Hawaii drills.

Instead, the airmen rely on gravity – and extensive data on wind speed and elevation – to deliver their unarmed bombs to the right spot.
Posted by: lotp   2007-12-03 16:55  

#9  Cain't find the source or the webpage that pointed it out to me, but the exercise was also significant in that the bombing was also carried out without benefit of GPS. Why is that significant? Glad you axed me that! In case the People's Red Army gets antsy and uses their anti-satellite systems against our GPS sats. Then we (USAF) could level the playing field and anything else they might have standing.
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839   2007-12-03 16:34  

#8  Tehran is probably about to announce that they have developed the locally made B-4 bomber that can travel up to Mach 10 on an indigenously engineered Ramjet and drop up to 200 2000# locally made GPS-guided bombs on a GPS system invented, developed, built, and launched by local sheepherders in their spare time. It can travel from its home base to the moon and back before it needs refuelling, and it is about the size of and looks remarkably like a Cessna. This B-4 bomber is totally invisible to all sensors, even to the naked eye, and they have about 500 of them parked in the open around the country fully fueled, loaded and ready to go.
Posted by: gorb   2007-12-03 15:53  

#7  Oh, and to put that into perspective, the center of Missouri to the center of Hawaii is 3,945 miles.
Posted by: DarthVader   2007-12-03 14:52  

#6  From Diego Garica to the Straits of Hormuz, 2,554 miles. From Diego to Tehran, 3,250 miles.
Posted by: DarthVader   2007-12-03 14:50  

#5  We could not calculate driving directions between Diego Garcia and Tehran, Iran.

"But, hey, I've gon an Amphicar!"
Posted by: Mike   2007-12-03 14:14  

#4  I wanted to check the distance from Diego Garcia to Tehran, but Google Maps comes back with this:

We could not calculate driving directions between Diego Garcia and Tehran, Iran.
Posted by: M. Murcek   2007-12-03 13:47  

#3  gromky, two words: Persian Gulf.
Posted by: twobyfour   2007-12-03 13:32  

#2  Wow. They bombed Hawaii from Missouri.

And I didn't think that B-2s did much maritime stuff. Surprised that they're training for it.
Posted by: gromky   2007-12-03 13:26  

#1  ...a B-2 can wreck a naval base in one pass, dropping as many as 80 JDAM (GPS guided) bombs in a minute.

That made my warrior's heart smile!
Posted by: DarthVader   2007-12-03 13:06  

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