Buff at work in Iraq.
Six B-52s are currently deployed to Al Udeid, Qatar, to support Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
The aircraft have replaced the B-1s, that have returned stateside for upgrades and are expected to perform a new tour of duty in the Middle East by the end of the year.
The Stratofortress bombers have launched their first air strike against ISIS on Apr. 18 (targeting a Daesh weapons storage facility in Qayyarah, Iraq). Since then, the B-52s have carried out the same kind of missions the B-1s flew in theater before they were relieved by the Buffs: mainly Close Air Support and Air Interdiction delivering a wide variety of PGMs (Precision Guided Munitions), including JDAMs.
The following video was filmed on April 29 where the B-52s attacked multiple vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) and their storage facilities near Kirkuk, Iraq, to deny safe havens and disrupt terrorist operations.
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David Cenciotti: The B-52 is not referred to as the “Buff.” The acronym BUFF was affectionately given to the HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giant helicopter and stands for Big Ugly Friendly Fellow or a sustituted “F” word. The B-52 is the BUF or Big Ugly Fellow.
Nope. “Big Ugly Fat Fellow (or Fucker, if you prefer) ;P
Like the A-7 was the SLUF
In today’s Air Force, the B-52 is commonly referred to as the BUFF. It’s a stupid nickname to hang on the B-52, it’s not fat or ugly. “Ugly” is total opinion but if you look at the length of the fuselage and wings compared to their width, there is no way that the B-52 can be reasonably referred to as “fat”.
Earl Tilford: The B-52 has been referred to as the BUFF since the Viettnam War. And it stands for “Bug Ugly Fat F–ker”. In fact in his book, “Boeing B-52: A Documentary History” written in 1981, Walter Boyne states in the second paragraph of the Intro (page 9): “This huge, angular, eight engine aircraft, affectionately called the BUFF. . .”. I don’t know what planet you’ve been living on but if there’s one thing people DO know about the B-52 it’s that it’s nickname is the BUFF. And the nickname for the CH-53 is “The Shitter”.
“The B-52’s official name Stratofortress is rarely used; informally, the aircraft has become commonly referred to as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fu_ker).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress
All the B-52 guys I knew called it the BUFF – Big Ugly Fat Fu _ ker. Perhaps it was used as a nickname for more than one bird.
Did I just miss the secondaries or were there none or were there not supposed to be any?
Not supposed to be any? How does one dictate that there will not be any? That would be a neat trick.
My thought is if you’re hitting caches of explosives for VBIEDs you’re going to get secondaries but here I’m not seeing them so either I missed them or there weren’t any or maybe there weren’t any explosives there, I don’t know I’m not there. I’m not trying to make assumptions on what should or should not happen.
The third and fourth clearly hit something big. That being said, a typical car sized VBIED detonation would get lost in the primary from a 500lb’er. A 1000 or 2000lb bomb would overwhelm and smother the blast from a small VBIED. Those catastrophic explosions you’ve seen in some videos aren’t indicative of what’s normal. I saw the main gun on M1’s incapacitate VBIEDs without setting off their cargo on a couple of occasions.
There’s also the possibility that there wasn’t a VBIED in some of those garages. It’s still a valid target to remove that haven/workshop.
Great work if the targets were the ones claimed.