ChatterBank3 mins ago
Retaliatory Strikes
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the US has bombed 85 targets in Iraq and Syria linked to Iranian proxies in retaliation after Iranian militias killed 3 US soldiers in Jordan...
President Biden said "if you harm an American we will respond"...
was this the right thing to do or will it only get worse?
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by Untitled. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.“putting everything else aside for a moment it is quite astonishing that these raids were carried out via non-stop flights from the USA!! incredible.”
I don’t know what aircraft were used but it’s highly likely B52s were involved. They have an unrefuelled range of almost 9,000 miles and their range with in-flight refuelling is only limited by crew endurance. Even from the eastern side of the USA, the distance to Syria is about 6,000 miles, so refuelling would be necessary. However, the B52s’ main base is in Barksdale, Louisiana. During Operation Desert Storm a number of raids were made on Baghdad by B52s from that base. This involved round trips of 16,000 miles taking around 34 hours. This somewhat eclipses the raids carried out under operation “Black Buck” during the Falklands War. These involved RAF Vulcans flying from Ascension Island in the Atlantic to Stanley. At the time these were the longest range bomber raids in history but they were a round trip of a mere 8,000 miles or so, taking over 16 hours. The missions required the Vulcans to be refuelled seven times on their way to Stanley and two of the six accompanying Victor tankers had themselves to be refuelled during the mission. Here’s the refuelling plan:
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A sweep wing aircraft. Incredible bit of kit.
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