Uncle Sam's Bomb Farm

This is a view of the "Bomb Farm" on the deck of the US Fifth Fleet's aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln" days after Desert Storm commenced and the surreal son et lumiere sound and light Shock and Awe show got under way.

Imagine the damage each one of these High Explosive 2,000 JDAM bombs produces, (Cost US$260 plus US£232,000 for the Boeing retro-fit JDAM Guidance pack) - maybe you could make the comparison with the 4 back pack devices that killed 52 people in London on 7/7.

Compare the size of the bombs with the flight deck personnel.

December 2004 Boeing announced that they had delivered 10,000 JDAM kits and were producing at the rate of 3,000 per month.

On September 17th 2003 a B-2A dropped 80, 500lb JDAM’s simultaneously – basically a city wide cluster bomb.

“Placing maximum steel on the target is what we get paid to do as Air Force bomber pilots and that happened today in a big way,” said Major William Power, 419th Flight Test Squadron B-2A project pilot. “Dropping 80 JDAM MK-82s in less than 30 seconds, with each attacking their own individual targets, is truly revolutionary.”

The Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor, demonstrated in May ’05 the supersonic delivery of JDAM’s in which a Laser JDAM was released from a U.S Air Force F-16 flying at 20,000 feet approximately four miles from an unmanned truck moving at 15 miles per hour. A second F-16 trailing the test aircraft targeted the truck with a laser. The inert JDAM tracked the laser to the target and scored a direct hit on the truck.

“Adding the capability of supersonic JDAM provides a substantial increase in bomb range to destroy lethal threats well outside of their engagement envelopes,” he said. “The Raptor is essential to the Global Strike concept, and supersonic JDAM optimizes that capability.” (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)

... a bunch of ragheads can apparently do the same trick with an improvised IED made out of old artillery shells, a mobile phone and some ingenuity.... and at a slightly lower cost.

...of course if you needed a precise hit on a seafront motorcade in Beirut ..

Recent blogs on same topic here