Officials said in statements to the Wall Street Journal that more powerful weapons were placed in a squadron of A-10 Warthogs to give pilots a greater chance of successfully destroying munitions caches and other targets in Iraq and Syria, where US forces have been repeatedly targeted by Iranian-sponsored fighters.
The move marks the first time the U.S. military has placed these precision-guided weapons aboard Warthogs, which were recently retrofitted so that each can carry up to 16 “bunker buster” bombs, officially known as bombs. “GBU-39/B”.
Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who oversees US military operations in the skies over Syria and 20 other countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, said the A-10 planes are very effective in some of the operations that the Air Force has to carry out. , and that the new squadron This represents a 50% increase in the number of attack aircraft in the region.
The Pentagon sent a ‘Warthog’ squadron of a dozen planes to the Middle East last month after Iranian-backed forces carried out a series of attacks on US bases in Syria, including a suicide drone strike that killed an American contractor.
US officials have said the use of the Warthog is a step forward because its firepower is superior to that of the F-15 jet fighters. It also represents progress in the US military’s efforts to prove the worth of the “Warthog” fleet that Pentagon officials have been trying to remove for more than a decade.
Experts say the best way to use the relatively slow-flying Warthog is to provide air support to US forces in places like Syria, where militants don’t have planes to challenge US pilots, but it is not suitable in Asia, where it is vulnerable to Chinese air defenses.
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