It won't be F-15's. It will be F-22's, precision-guided bombs and nuclear bunker-busters.
"Let's kick the tires and light the fires!"
The F-22, as far as I know, is not in operational status as yet. I think the first squadron is scheduled sometime early next year.
Congress defeated the budget to research nuclear bunker-buster earth penetrators. Unless the Bush administration has found a way around it....we don't have any. They haven't been researched, much less tested.
Anyone....chime in if you've got later info on these points.
Looks like we got enough bunker busters for the job. From tonyrogers.com:
Above is a B-61 Gravity Fall Nuclear Weapon in various stages of assembly. It is configured to be dropped from the B-1B Lancer, B-2 Spirit and F-16C Falcon platforms. A new model was updated in 1997 and kicks more ass than I ever want to know about. There are currently 750 Model B61-7 weapons in the U.S.A.F. stockpile. The mission-specific 1,200-pound B61-11 "bunker buster" replaces the B53, a 8,900-pound, nine-megaton bomb that was developed as a "city buster" and was later designated as a substitute for an earth-penetrating weapon.
The B53 was deliverable only by vulnerable B-52s; in contrast, the smaller and lighter B61-11 can be delivered by the stealthier B-2A bomber, or even by F-16C fighters. The B53 was the highest-yield weapon in the U.S. arsenal. Although not a true earth-penetrating weapon, it was believed capable of taking out underground targets through brute force. When fuzed for a ground burst, a small percentage of its energy would be transmitted through ground and rock to buried installations. Even a small percentage of nine megatons is a lot of destructive power. In contrast, the B61-11 offers a variable range of yields, the highest of which is only a fraction of the B53's. But because it can pierce deeply into the earth, "ground coupling" its energy output to efficiently produce a shock wave, the B61-11 is more efficient at destroying heavily fortified underground structures, enabling it to threaten the same deep targets as the B53.
Meanwhile, the B61-11's lower yields enhance its credibility as a deterrent. The B53 was too big and too "dirty" to use. Its use would have caused a massive amount of collateral damage above ground. The new B61-7, from which the B61-11 is made, has a selectable yield ranging from 0.3 to about 340 kilotons. It was first placed in service in 1985, and super-modified in 1997. (The original B61 entered the stockpile in 1968.) The B61-7 can be fuzed for air or surface bursts, and has a hardened ground-penetrator nose system with a retarded contact-burst fuzing option. It can be dropped with or without a parachute, making it deployable from B-1B, B-2 Spirit or F-16C aircraft. Delivery would be made from aircraft traveling at near supersonic speeds to avoid heat and shock effects. It is assumed that F-16C Falcon pilots would be able to start afterburners and accelerate far enough away from the impact site to survive the detonation of the weapon despite their small size.
I wonder how many cruise missiles it would take to get all their sites?
I tend to think that a massive cruise missile strike (literally hundreds incoming at once) would mean the entire thing would be over and done in hours, not days.