Along with the update of the GBU-57A/B bomb just financed by the Congress, the U.S. Air Force will get additional JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) kits to replenish its stock.
The most recent one, worth 126 million USD for a further 5,000 JDAM kits to be delivered by 2014, is the third such order in a little over 12 months: in January 2011 the service ordered some 3,500 kits and then in March 2011 it ordered a further 4,000 units worth a combined value of $180 million.
Therefore, while studying new tactics to destroy Tehran’s underground bunkers with the Massive Ordnance Pentrators, the Air Force recharge its weapons for the hundreds other targets it would find in Iran (and elsewhere) with a whole bunch of modular kits used to transform 500, 1,000 and 2,000-lb dumb bombs into precision guided ones.
During the Libya Air War, some air forces suffered bomb shortage after dropping few hundred PGMs in the first three months of the war, that’s why the U.S. have started replenishing their own stock: it’s better to be prepared (to lend some bombs to the European allies too), should the need for an air campaign in Iran (or Syria) arise.
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Written with The Aviationist’s Editor David Cenciotti
Image: U.S. Air Force
