Earlier this month, the US and allies practiced taking out a large surface ship with long-range weapons, including, for the first time, a US Air Force B-2 bomber.
It showed the US military can use one of its most survivable weapons platforms, the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, to sink a major surface ship with a low-cost guided bomb.
The Air Force says its stealthy characteristics allow it to penetrate heavily defended areas and also fly with a small chance of being detected by radar at high altitudes.
Mating it up with relatively cheap and demonstrably effective precision-guided bombs with warheads of up to 2,000 pounds could give the Air Force bombers the “anti-ship lethality” of a submarine-launched torpedo without the liabilities of a submarine, according to a US Air Force website.
The Air Force first tested QUICKSINK in 2022, when an F-15 fighter jet released a GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) that destroyed a full-scale surface target in the Gulf of Mexico, according to an Air Force statement.
Persons:
”, Seleena Muhammad, QUICKSINK, Carl Schuster, ” Schuster, Jon Husman, Alessio Patalano, Mark Hammond, Australia’s, “, LSIS Daniel Goodman, USS Fitzgerald, John Wade, RIMPAC, John Bradford, ” Bradford, Zhongping
Organizations:
South Korea CNN, US Air Force, US, Air Force, Munitions, Royal Air Force, U.S . Air Force, Navy, Air Force Research, Liberation Army Navy, PLAN, US Pacific Command Joint Intelligence Center, U.S . Navy, King’s College, US Navy, Ship, 3rd Fleet, Royal Australian Navy, Naval, Australia, Royal Australian, Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, US Navy destroyer, US Marine Corps, Task Force, Foreign Relations International Affairs, Times, PLA Navy, Global Times, ” Global Times
Locations:
Seoul, South Korea, Kauai, China, Tarawa, England, U.S, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan, London, Oahu, Hawaii, Norwegian, USS Dubuque, ‘, Malaysia, Netherlands, China China, Asia, Taiwan Strait, South China