Pentagon Sends B-52 Bombers to Middle East

[NVplumber]

Originally Posted by Rumann Koch

Not years back - it's already happening!

Military.com: Plans for Pentagon's Future Flying Bomb/Missile Truck Take Shape

One possible weapon is the AGM-183A Advanced Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW, pronounced “Arrow”) a hypersonic rocket that has a top speed of a mind-blowing Mach 20! This makes it up to four times faster than Russian and Chinese hypersonic weapons!

Another are massive swarms of drones!

And yes, no need for boots on the ground or pilots entering Iran's airspace as most attacks will be carried out from a stand-off position by cruise and hypersonic missiles, mostly launched by B-52s, B-1s, and attack submarines.

It was years back I read about this stuff. Long enough now I'm sure a lot of it has become reality. One of the concept weapons I remember was drone aircraft launch able from the aircraft able to deploy sub munitions and then be recovered in flight.

If it couldn't be recovered the drone itself could be used as a cruise missile. Several of these drones could be deployed from rotary launchers. A host of other weapons would be on board as well.

One aircraft could do what it used to take full squadrons of different aircraft to do. Yep...pretty cool stuff. One plane could actively attack ground targets, engage other aircraft and also direct other planes on other targets.

And all this while safely out of the range of enemy weapons and totally off their scopes. What capabilities we might actually have now who knows.

[Rumann Koch]

Originally Posted by NVplumber

It was years back I read about this stuff. Long enough now I'm sure a lot of it has become reality.

One of the concept weapons I remember was drone aircraft launch able from the aircraft able to deploy sub munitions and then be recovered in flight.

You may be thinking of the Lockheed D-21 supersonic reconnaissance drone.

The D-21 was initially designed to be launched from the back of an SR-71(A-12) Blackbird, the famous supersonic spy plane, and had a maximum speed of Mach 3.3 (2,200 miles per hour) at an operational altitude of 90,000 feet.

Here is a B-52 with one D-21 under each wing. Nice pair!

[jeffdoorgunner]

Originally Posted by NVplumber

It was years back I read about this stuff. Long enough now I'm sure a lot of it has become reality. One of the concept weapons I remember was drone aircraft launch able from the aircraft able to deploy sub munitions and then be recovered in flight.

If it couldn't be recovered the drone itself could be used as a cruise missile. Several of these drones could be deployed from rotary launchers. A host of other weapons would be on board as well.

One aircraft could do what it used to take full squadrons of different aircraft to do. Yep...pretty cool stuff. One plane could actively attack ground targets, engage other aircraft and also direct other planes on other targets.

And all this while safely out of the range of enemy weapons and totally off their scopes. What capabilities we might actually have now who knows.

I can't even imagine...…… some of the Vietnam stuff was scary enough.