U.S. Stealth Bombers in Dry Run Over South Korea!
- U.S. Stealth Bombers in Dry Run Over S.Korea!
by Global Research News, http://www.globalresearch.ca/
Global Research Editor’s Note
The B-2 are equipped to launch B61-11 tactical bunker buster bombs with nuclear war heads. Their deployment over Korea is a clear act of provocation. (GR Ed. M. Ch.)
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U.S. stealth bombers conducted a mock bombing run over a firing range on the island of Jikdo off Gunsan on Thursday, according to the Combined Forces Command.
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The B-2 bombers, the most expensive aircraft in the world at about US$2 billion apiece, have conducted secret bombing runs over the Korean Peninsula several times, but this is the first time their dry runs have been made public.
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U.S. military authorities apparently decided to announce them because they wanted to send a warning message to North Korea in response to recent belligerent rhetoric and dampen mounting calls from South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons.
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Two B-2 bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri on Wednesday night and flew 10,500 km for more than 15 hours, being refueled in mid-air. They arrived in the air over the Jikdo firing range around noon Thursday. After dropping drill bombs, they were refueled again and returned to their home base.
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The CFC said in a press release U.S. Strategic Command sent the bombers “as part of the ongoing bilateral Foal Eagle training exercise,” demonstrating U.S. commitment and “its capability to defend [South Korea] and to provide extended deterrence.”
- A B-2 bomber flies over South Korea on Thursday.
The B-2 is a new strategic bomber that has been deployed by the U.S. Air Force since 1993. Twenty m long and 52 m wide, it is far bigger than the F-22 stealth fighter jet but has such excellent stealth functions that it appears on the radar screen as if it were of similar size.
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It would prove its real worth when striking strategic targets such as the North Korean presidential palace and nuclear and missile bases that are equipped with powerful anti-air defense systems or hidden deep underground.
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The B-2 can carry GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs, each of which weighs 14 tons. The bomb can supposedly penetrate 60 m of earth or 8 m of reinforced concrete. It also can carry 80 225-kg Joint Direct Attack Munition smart bombs.
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On a single sortie, it can destroy 80 different targets. It could also carry 16 B61 nuclear bombs.
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With production reduced significantly, the price has soared stratospherically. One of the 21 B-2s in service crashed at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam in June 2008.
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The B-2 proved its value in combat missions since the first NATO bombing in Yugoslavia in 1999. At the time, six B-2 bombers dropped a total of 656 bombs.
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After its first bombing mission in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, a B-2 bomber once carried out six bombing runs over three days and one flew non-stop for 44 hours and 18 minutes, the longest air combat mission in history.
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