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.

B-52G low level info for Desert Storm.

Colonel Ramsay bio

http://www.151arw.ang.af.mil/resourc...o.asp?id=10878

[2.0] B-52 At War

Video detailing a B-52G hit by two Iraqis SA-2s and returning with combat damage.

USAF is well aware of the superiority of the Bone over the Buff. It basically has the performance of a fighter with the range and payload of a bomber. It's a remarkable airplane. That's why they've been working so hard for over 10 years to figure out how to keep it flying. It just can't be done in any kind of effective manner. It's not like they can just "re-skin" the wings and/or the fuselage like they've done on other aircraft.

Remember this is a swing-wing airplane. There are some massive, monolithic, fracture critical structural components that are flight critical. Even if they had saved the production tooling (which they didn't) repairing/replacing those structures is just not feasible. A lot of money has been spent and a whole bunch of very smart engineers have been working for over a decade to crack this nut. They've found that it would cost more to fix than it did to build, and even then, the final result is shaky at best.

Actually, yes, they have looked at that. Modern FADEC engines are essentially self-contained. They're not dependent on aircraft systems (like air data computer outputs) for their operation. Obviously they need an electronic connection with the cockpit for throttle position, but that's about it. And that can be done on a databus. That same databus can provide the cockpit with engine operating parameters (EPR, N1, N2, TIT, fuel flow, etc). And the Buff has already received a fairly extensive avionics upgrade to make it GATM compliant, plus the fleet is now being upgraded with the Boeing CONECT digital communications upgrade which includes an extensive onboard high-bandwidth, rad-hard and EMP-hard digital databus. The Buff is by no means all analog. CONECT is open architecture, so expansions and upgrades were specifically designed to be (relatively) easy.

B-52'S Keep Them Flying.
 

Hello All

The B-52 has been one of my favourite aircraft for a long time. With the different upgrades & modifications I hope they will be flying for another 30 years or so.

Cheers
Glider 90

I accept the characterization of the initial Desert Storm engagements as combat and correct my statement to 35 years.

Ken, modern FADECs can operate 'self contained', but far from optimized (commonly referred to as 'failsafe' or 'get home' mode). I've been involved in integrating FADECs into the aircraft systems from 1986 until I retired a little over a year ago, and it's horrendously complex. That anyone in the USAF thinks it'll be simple or that modern FADECs are 'self contained' simply validates my concerns...

Ummm... 2018 - 1991 = 27 years.

35 would be 1983.

Having seen the B-52 contrails heading north, I used to wonder what the Republican Guard thought. They knew that they would most likely soon be desert hamburger and there wasn't a thing they could do to stop it - except to surrender.

Not much you can do - hope they're going to hit someone else, hope they miss...

But it always astounds me how many people seem to have survived a carpet bombing attack over the last 80 years

Survive, yes. Unit cohesion, combat effectiveness, morale? Questionable.

yes but if they'rre trained and bloody minded they can still stop an advance - rather like the episodes in WW1 and the US Civil War when people exploded bloody great mines under the opposition front line.

In most cases someone (normally an NCO) rallied the survivors and reoccupied the devastated area in time to slow or stop the oncoming attackers... Also several occurrences in Normandy in '44.... and we won't mention Casino ................

"Don't mention the war". "It's OK Major, I think I got away with it", said Basil.

Apparently the carpet bombed Iraqi troops weren't so trained and/or so minded, because they surrendered in droves to coalition forces as soon as they showed up.

USAF likely to issue B-52 engine replacement request for proposals in early 2019

The US Air Force is likely to issue a request for proposal for its Boeing B-52H Stratofortress bomber engine replacement programme close to the first quarter of 2019, according to an Air Force document released on 13 March.

The contract for re-engining the USAF’s 76 Boeing B-52H bombers would likely be granted some four to six months after final proposals are submitted, according to the document. The department is looking to acquire at least 608 new, commercially available turbofan engines to replace the eight Pratt & Whitney TF33s each bomber carries.......

Does each B-52 really need 608 new engines? That's a lotta new engines...

The B52 these days is really a big PGM truck rather than a carpet bomber

They’re obviously very small engines, one TF33 being equivalent to 76 of the new engines.

So 76 B-52H models going forward? I seem to recall around 42 being combat coded, a few dozen more with various reserve/attrition coding, and about 90+ H still intact, with 12 still at AMARC in 1000/inviolate storage (with GhostRider escaping a few years ago, the only B-52 to date to do so). I note the pondered order is for at least 608 engines, but would imagine another 10-20% for spares? An impressive order indeed.

But they were still alive Ken... which is my original point... carpet bombing (or mining) doesn't wipe out all opposition.... I doubt the Wermacht or the Confederacy would have surrendered in droves...