The San Francisco Chronicle March 20, 2003
Long-range bombers to deliver air power's heaviest blows
By Wyatt Buchanan
If the early morning attack with cruise missiles and smart bombs on Baghdad was a specifically targeted strike, the real, massive assault will be heralded by long-range bombers to pummel Saddam Hussein's forces, military analysts say.
Big bombers are the air warrior's choice for conducting complex bombing missions. The workhorse, decades-old B-52 dropped millions of tons of bombs on Vietnam, and they're the ones that will be used to soften up Iraq along with newer bombers.
"When the U.S. decides to reach out and crush someone, they use heavy bombers," said John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, in Washington, D.C.
Squadrons flying the three main types of American long-range bombers, the B-52, B-1 and B-2 -- planes originally designed to drop nuclear weapons -- are positioned at points around the Persian Gulf, as well as in England.
Of these three, only the B-52 was in use during the first Gulf War, and its capabilities have increased markedly in the past decade, said Chris Hellman, a senior analyst with the Center for Defense Information in Washington.
In the Gulf War, the bombers used only gravity-controlled "dumb bombs" to pound targets. Forty percent of the bombs dropped during Operation Desert Storm fell from B-52 bombers, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Now, in a process taking only 30 minutes, technicians can equip these same bombs with a Global Positioning System device, turning them into smart bombs.
"It's a fundamental change in what heavy bombers do. You've gone from World War II with heavy bombers burning down (entire) cities to heavy bombers now blowing up (individually chosen) buildings," Pike said of the precision afforded by GPS-guided bombs.
While bombers have the capability to conduct missions from home bases in the United States through aerial refueling during the flight, that won't be likely in this war, experts say, as all the planes to be used in the Iraq campaign have bases in the region.
Increased operational costs, along with wear and tear on planes, make long flights requiring aerial refueling a tactic that is useful only if absolutely necessary. Missions that take 35 hours from start to finish "play havoc on a crew and a plane," Hellman said.
Problems of long-range missions aside, these big planes that carry more bombs and have larger crews make heavy bombers the choice for multi-target bombing runs.
In highly defended areas like Baghdad, the famed B-2 stealth bomber will likely lead the attack as its radar-eluding capabilities allow it to destroy ground defenses and fly off undetected, Hellman said.
That makes the plane the show horse of the group, he said, compared to the workhorse B-52 and the problem-plagued B-1.
The B-1 was originally designed to hug the ground, sneaking under Soviet radar at the speed of sound, Hellman said. However, the guidance system that allowed the plane to fly at an altitude of only a few hundred feet left no room for error.
"You mess up and you're putty. More than a couple of people got puttied," he said of B-1 crashes.
Now the plane has been relegated to much higher altitudes, flying at some 30,000 feet. The B-2 and B-52 fly at 50,000 feet.
GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC, U.S. LONG RANGE BOMBERS / Chronicle Graphic
Copyright © 2003, The Chronicle Publishing Co.
