Originally Posted by
sandiego89
Have you ever heard of the Gulf War? Look it up.
I'll help...During
Desert Storm, the B-52Gs completed approximately 1620 sorties. In fact, the B-52s managed to drop almost a third of the entire tonnage of bombs dropped by US aircraft. No B-52Gs were officially reported as having been lost as a result of enemy action during
Desert Storm. However, several were damaged. One B-52G was damaged by a hit from an unknown type of missile, but was able to make it home safely. Another lost a couple of engines as a result of a near-miss by a SA-3 missile, whereas another was damaged by shrapnel from AAA fire. One B-52G (58-0248) was even damaged by a hit from an AGM-88A HARM missile fired by another US aircraft that was providing defense suppression support for the attacking force. The missile managed to home in on the tail-mounted gun-laying radar of the B-52G, and obliterated a sizeable chunk of the tail when it hit. Fortunately, the damaged B-52G was able to land safely at Jeddah and was sent to Guam for repair. One B-52G (59-2593) was lost on February 3, 1991. The cause of the loss was officially blamed on a catastrophic electrical system failure while returning to its base at Diego Garcia, but there are rumors going around that combat damage was actually responsible. Three of the crewmembers ejected safely before the aircraft crashed into the Indian Ocean, but three others ejected too late and were killed.
Service of Boeing B-52G Stratofortress
I would call that combat, and other conflicts since.
I accept the characterization of the initial Desert Storm engagements as combat and correct my statement to 35 years.