Nice to know our $600 billion defense budget is being used to bomb pirates. WTF?
The munition is bigger than the target. What a waste.
Remember Obama wants to retire the B-1 to save $$$$.
Why don’t they use a smaller aircraft and strafe them.
I’m sure the gunex events could be useful.
Less expensive too.
Talk about using a sledge hammer to kill a gnat.
Why can’t we make some good old WW2 era subs and shoot them with Mk 48’s? We don’t need a blue water navy to fight coastal pirates. Another rub is why fight anything that is not in our hemisphere. Stop policing the world.
Pirate these days basically use 30 foot long open boats. You dont need to actually hit them with a 500 # bomb. Anything within 50 yards will blow them to bits.
Drop a bunch of 1000 lb concrete slugs with no explosives.
That would work just as well on the boats they have and would save a lot of money. Sunk is sunk.
A 500 pound bomb direct hit on a 1,000 pound boat? Yes, that’ll do the job. Like dear old Dad used to tell me: “Son, if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”
yar? Argh!
I used to be proud of our military and it’s technology.
I don’t know about everyone else, but these days, when I read about a new military innovation, the first thought that comes to me is something along the lines of “What happens if the government decides we’re the enemy and turns those weapons on us?”
When the definition of “terrorist” can be expanded to include granparents demonstrating at TEA party gatherings, how long do you think it will take for the definition of “pirate” to be expanded to include anyone with a boat who doesn’t tow the statist line?
I’m surprised that this hasn’t been tried earlier.
During Desert Storm it was “discovered” that the desert cooled faster than the metal hulls of Iraqi tanks, which could be easily distinguished by the PAVE TACKS mounted on F-111Fs
So each evening a bunch of Aardvarks would be loaded up with 500lb GBU-12s and sent off on “tank plinking” missions. Iirc the F-111F fleet ended the war with more tank kills than A-10s.
I see a serious problem here. The Russians have not only developed very effective GPS jammers, but are gleefully distributing them to all sorts of villains who hope to avoid our GPS directed weaponry.
So what happens to one of these highly accurate bombs when it enters the GPS jamming bubble surrounding a ship at a respectable distance? Does it reduce its accuracy from 1 meter to 10 meters? 100 meters?
I remember that many years ago, the Russians demonstrated their anti-ballistic missile capability by using an ABM against a ballistic missile. They helped insure the shoot down by putting a homing beacon in the missile.
We weren’t *that* rude with this test, at least I hope, but assuming pretty much ideal conditions does not prove an effective weapons system.
Yeah, it might work against pirates; but in practical terms we don’t use weapons like this against pirates. We use them against enemy warships, that likely have jammers on board, if they know what is good for them.
Pirate Boats Can’t Hide From US Nuclear Subs
and Their Nuclear-Tipped Torpedoes
Some Freepers might want look at the pirates in a different light. The Taiwanese and Japanese have illegally fidhed out their waters. Shipping companies have long used their waters for illegally dumping waste. Their livelihoods have been destroyed and beaches vandalized by foreign shipping companies. I’d be a pirate too. Paybacks a bitc...
ping to self...
Is this some kind of Pirate Day joke?
When I worked for a Navy contractor I proposed the following name for a system designed to track pirates over the horizon: Advanced Reconnaissance and Ranging Reliant on Geospatial Headings (ARRRGH).
I don’t know why they didn’t use it.