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What an overkill. Using billion dollar equipment to bomb ragtags running around in sandals. There's gotta be a cheaper way. Turkey is 50 miles from Raqqa. Good diplomacy would have Turkish army rolled in and flushed them out in a week. We don't have real diplomats anymore.
The F-22 is limited to coordinate-dependent munitions such as JDAM and GBU-39. As such its use is extremely limited to pre-planned targets, or possibly datalinked hand-off targets identified by another platform such as an MQ-1. If the target moves, too bad. So if they're actually being used it's more of a validation test than anything else. Anyone can drop a JDAM, but employing a GBU-12 or GBU-54 requires a targeting pod, which the F-22 doesn't have. The F-22 could drop GBU-54s with someone else lasing the target using "mule" tactics but that's a real waste of an F-22, since any platform with weapons carriage capability can do that as well. The headline is more sensationalism than anything else.
I could imagine they want to test it in an actual combat environment.
Not only that, remember those pilots are required to log so many hours of flying time in that airframe to stay qualified. The airplanes themselves are required to fly or they have to go into extensive, costly, time-consuming phase inspections. An airplane's normal condition is to be in the air, flying. Ya got 'em? Use 'em!
An airplane's normal condition is to be in the air, flying. Ya got 'em? Use 'em!
Do you want to win the war or follow the user's manual. We've been at this for two years. Billions in flight time and pilots at risk. They still got their capital and the second largest city in Iraq. The lights are on everywhere and gas stations are pumping gas. WTH. This is no way to fight a war.
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