Pilots tallying fewer bombings as Iraq hits lull

[unhappycamper]

Pilots tallying fewer bombings as Iraq hits lull
By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, November 4, 2007


BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq — The concrete barriers keep score.

Air Force F-16 squadrons passing through Balad Air Base have used the tall slabs outside their temporary headquarters to tally the number of bombs dropped by pilots over the course of their deployments.

Small, black icons of bombs represent each precision-guided weapon dropped. Tiny, painted guns mark each time a jet has used its 20 mm guns.

The block for the 22nd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron is bare because it still has another two months left in its Iraq tour. But the unit from Spangdahlem, Germany, is far from matching the totals set by its predecessors this past summer.

While the Air Force has already dropped more than four times as many bombs in Iraq in 2007 as it dropped last year, pilots say that trend has surprisingly changed in the past month. Just as the number of U.S. deaths and insurgent attacks in Iraq have hit new lows for the year, the pilots have noticed a lull in the calls for airstrikes.

“We’ve trained as fighter pilots to come out and do the mission, and many of us want to do that part of the mission,” pilot Capt. Nicklaus Walker said.


Rest of article at: http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=50019

[RC]

1. Blackwater is not indiscriminately shooting up the civilian population right now.

The Iraqis have less incentive to fight back because our mercenary death squads (read Blackwater) are not active.
If we would just leave, Iraq would settle down. But we, the U.S., is all over the place stiring stuff up and using that as the excuse for being there in the first place to keep the peace.

[Eagle_Eye]

2. Could it be the Air Force is replenishing its stockpile of bombs to use on Iran?

It takes months to produce a JDAM kit. The bush administration is going to need thousands of JDAMs to hit Iran. The Air Force is backing off its bombing missions to make things look good politically, but is there a hidden, more subtle reason for it?

[Sweet Pea]

3. Months?

Where did you get THAT idea?

[Eagle_Eye]

4. A quick search shows Boeing making 1200 a month

I could not find the Request for Quotes off of Fed Biz, but the Boeing website claims a production of 1200 a month
http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/paris07/assets/bgs-facts/IDS/bck%20JDAM.pdf

1200 a month seems low, I would expect 5000 to 6000 a month.

But more to what I meant in post, JDAM kits are pipelined. From the time the contract goes out, until JDAM kits are delivered takes about a year. Plus they do not just roll off the production line like cigarettes. Most weapon components are delivered in 'lots' periodically. A production of 10,000 JDAMs might be delivered across the span of a year in 'lots' of 1000.