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11 photos of the legendary B-52 Stratofortress bomber, which just returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan
11 photos of the legendary B-52 Stratofortress bomber, which just returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan
Daniel BrownApr 20, 2018, 18:57 IST
US Air Force
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The US Air Force recently announced that the last squadrons of the legendary B-52 Stratofortress have returned home after concluding operations against ISIS in the Middle East and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"Following two years of B-52 squadrons employing nearly 12,000 weapons on Islamic State and Taliban targets across U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility, the venerable BUFF flew its last mission April 7 before turning over the bomber duty reins to the newly arrived B-1B Lancer," an Air Force spokesman said in a statement.
The bomber, nicknamed the BUFF for "Big Ugly Fat Fellow," has been in service with the Air Force for 63 years, the last two of which it served as US Central Command's go-to bomber.
The B-52 has a payload of about 70,000 pounds. It's able to carry a variety of bombs, mines, and missiles. It can even carry air-launched cruise missiles.
It's able to drop and launch the widest variety of weapons of any US aircraft, including gravity bombs, cluster bombs, precision guided missiles, and joint direct attack munitions.
In February, the B-52 dropped a record number of smart bombs on the Taliban in Afghanistan, unloading 24 precision-guided munitions in a 96-hour period.
The US announced in November 2017 that it would begin targeting the Taliban's revenue sources, much of which is opium and heroin, with airstrikes. But the new strategy has been criticized by some as a game of "whack-a-mole" since the Taliban can reportedly rebuild their drug labs in just a few days.
