Air Force Seeks More Bombs to Attack ISIS

By Kris Osborn

In order to keep pace with the rapid operational tempo of ongoing attacks against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, service officials said. 

Lt. Gen. Charles Brown Jr., Commander, U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said the U.S. may take some precision weapons from existing U.S. stockpiles in other areas of the world in order to keep pace with the amount of air-dropped precision weaponry needed to attack ISIS. 

Since delivery of newly ordered bombs is at least several years away, the service is looking at taking munitions from other pre-positioned stocks in strategically significant parts of the world. 

“We have stocks around the world that support not only Central Command, but other combatant commands.  And we have to do some analysis of where we take risk.  And what I mean by that is where do we pull some weapons from that we were saving for further contingencies.  And do we use them now or do we save them for later?” Brown asked when speaking to reporters recently. 

B1-B bombers, drones and F-15E fighter jets have been bombarding ISIS for months, dropping more than 20,000 air-to-ground munitions, and the service is concerned its inventory could fall dangerously low if the air campaign against ISIS continues for the long term,  Air Force sources told Scout Warrior. 

“We do a lot of precision-guided munitions.  And you have to think about — the way I look at this is, you know, we were drawn down in Afghanistan and across DOD, the weapons buy was probably not — been forecast for this particular operation,” Brown added.

One weapon in particular that continues to be effective against ISIS is the GBU-54, a laser-guided precision weapon able to destroy targets on-the-move. This is particularly important when attacking ISIS because they fighters are known to travel in small groups and, at times, deliberately blend in with civilians to avoid being hit. For this reason, precision strikes and the ability to hit enemy fighters on the move provides a substantial tactical advantage.