Posted on 06/16/2025 9:27:22 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
Around 30 KC-135 and KC-46 tankers departed the U.S. headed to Europe, but their final destination is unknown.
In the night between June 15 and 16, 2025, multiple U.S. Air Force KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft departed their bases in the United States headed to Europe. The sudden and unusual movement was quickly noticed on flight tracking websites, when about 30 tankers were first spotted headed towards the Atlantic Ocean and later arriving in Europe.
Most of these aircraft landed this morning at Ramstein Air Base in Germany and at Morón Air Base and NAS Rota in Spain, while two landed at Aviano Air Base in Italy and at least one landed at Prestwick International Airport in the UK. At the time of writing, some tankers are in flight over the Balkans, headed south, possibly towards Souda Bay in Greece or Incirlik in Turkey.
The reason of this mass deployment is unclear, however what can be said for sure is that these are repositioning flights and the tankers are not “dragging” fighter jets. If that was the case, the tankers would be flying at lower altitudes and would also be make the usual stops on the U.S. East Coast and at Lajes air base, in the Azores.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at theaviationist.com ...
The one in Fodor (i think) is built under a mountain. Isreal is not getting to that one with the bombs they have. Their planes cannot carry them. Only B2s have that lift capacity tied in with the precision guidance.
That is the facility where they store the materials and supposedly where Iran would manufacture a final bomb.
The problem with blowing it up, is that you would “blow it up” and disperse all of that U238 and Plutonium. That would be a problem.
It would be best to get them to surrender, and send our folks to go in and take the materials.
I doubt that will happen.
My scenario: Iran gives up and is allowed to empty those nuclear bunkers with whatever they can carry out by hand. Start a bonfire on the surface and and allow the scientists to burn their records. Last go down into the bunkers, measure just how deep it really is and blow it up.
There are plenty of tankers in Europe for that exercise. This is kind of “overkill” for that.
There are messages being sent all over the world. We are moving a lot of iron and it is obvious. Movements like that are literally a show of strength. I doubt if they will actually be used.
In that scenario, we should send our bombers to take out a specific facility. It should be all done in one bombing raid. After that, it's up to Israel to conclude the war in Iran.
Yep. Nations shouldn't be ****ing around with nuclear weapons.
North Korea is a notable exception to the rule. We don't want to encourage others to do the same.
Make the rubble dance...
Agree
It depends on the site. Fordow has the ones 1/2 mile under the mountains. Those won’t exactly be a piece of yellowcake to destroy.
See my post here:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4323084/posts?page=38#38
We could loan them out as well.
No need to give them away.
The B52 was only used 2009 testing of the MOP 30,0000lb penetrators. The single platform they are certified and integrated with is the B2 and when in survive the B21 as well. Neither the B1B nor the B52 are going to drop them in Iran.
So we must risk B2 in real open battle to hit those centrifuges. The B2 can carry two of these monsters. TheDr weapons penetrate so deep there is little chance of mass dispersal of materials they are designed that way to collapse the structures and contain the materials in the rubble.
If they put them not 200 feet down but 1/2 mile then we would have to use not only the GBU57 to open the hole up we would need to drop a B61-11 penetrating low yield tactical nuke down that hole the coupling of the shockwave is such that no matter how deep the facility is even miles deep it gets crushed by the seismic event the nuke makes. The B61-11 was designed specifically for this type of destruction. The only question is the USA have the collective balls to do it. I would say no we lost the will to fight total war or even warfare to win if it means offending the world long ago.
Thanks for the Air Order of Battle.
“Do we have sufficient assets to prevent China and Russia from their military goals?”
I’m sure that’s been factored in.
“Pray for peace.”
I do. But I prepare for war.
L
It has been around for quite awhile.
In 1958 Strategic Air Command placed bombers and tankers there for the Reflex (nuclear Alert) forces.
I actually caught that on Flightradar24 last night. It was very obvious. The stratotankers were coming from every where. It was impressive.
Same. Having seen the seedy underbelly of the “Islamic” world in the M.E., their demise cant come soon enough.
After all, we’re not Communists..
I never knew it until this day that it was Barzini all along.
Thanks. I confess I am absolutely no expert on such things. From what I understand, based on reports from Rafael Grossi, (head of the International Atomic Energy Agency) who has actually visited the sites, the tunnels leading down to them spiral and also veer off horizontally for hundreds of meters before spiraling down again. I’m sure we must know exactly where the actual centrifuges are despite all this, but still, targeting would have to be precise.
The centrifuges are reportedly on shock absorbing platforms and can withstand a 6.0 earthquake.
My question is: Would the shockwave produced by the the B61-11 exceed 6.0 on the Richter scale? I have no clue. Would it depend on the geology of the strike location?
Also, how accurate do you find the copypasta info in my post here (which only considers strikes using the GBU-57, no consideration of the B61-11, as you helpfully did — but otherwise...)
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4323084/posts?page=38#38
Thank you again for your helpful and informative post. I really appreciate it.
The only reason the flights are visible on Flightradar24 is that we WANT them to be seen on Flightradar24.
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