RELYING ON THE B-52

The great airborne Cold Warrior has taken on a new mission: blasting Saddam Hussein’s vaunted Republican Guard to pieces and turning large parts of Iraq and Kuwait into moonscape.

Built as intercontinental atomic bombers in the 1950s, the B-52s have been redesigned, reinforced and retrofitted through three decades of wars, both cold and hot. Although the planes are older than most of their pilots, they bring to this latest conflict a package of state-of-the-art electronics and smart weaponry.

THE B-52 IN THE GULF NUMBERS: The Gulf fleet is thought to comprise 33 to 45 aircraft. One has been lost at sea. BOMBING RUNS: The aircraft typically fly in formations of three at an altitude of six or seven miles. These “cells” drop their bomb loads--usually 40 to 60 tons per mission--in a box-shaped area about one mile long by a half-mile wide “CARPET BOMBING”: There is some technical debate over whether this is actually taking place. According to military experts, true carpet bombing is carried out by many planes in a tight formation, flying wingtip to wingtip and nose to tail. The term “saturation bombing” is used frequently in the Gulf. BASES AND FLYOVERS: With space for the B-52s in Saudi Arabia at a premium, the NATO airfield at Fairford, England, and the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean are the favored bases. Spain has provided a staging area at Moron de la Frontera. France is allowing B-52s to fly through French airspace as long as they are carrying conventional weapons. MAINTENANCE: For every hour a B-52 is in the sky, 30 to 50 hours of maintenance are required.

EFFECTIVENESS Even when its bombs are dropped from miles in the air, the B-52 is surprisingly accurate. The addition of sophisticated electronic defense systems and “smart” weapons enables the huge planes to fly low-level missions with comparative safety. Results of bombing Republican Guard strongholds have been mixed. Against troops and equipment spread out over a large area or targets that require a direct hit, effectiveness declines. A hardened bunker must sustain a direct hit to be destroyed, and if the bunker is fortified with sand, even a direct hit may be ineffective. B-52 raids against Iraq’s front lines are expected to be more effective than those against the dug-in Republican Guards, because the frontline troops are more exposed and likely to be in concentrated formations.

TYPICAL PAYLOAD CONFIGURATIONS: 45 250-lb. gravity bombs 51 500-lb. gravity bombs 51 750-lb. gravity bombs 18 2,000-lb. gravity bombs BACKGROUND Designed in the late 1940s, there were 744 B-52s built between 1955 and 1962. The first were designed to carry four nuclear bombs a distance of 7,000 miles at maximum altitude--long enough to get to the Soviet Union without refueling. Until 1968, the Strategic Air Command kept the bombers airborne 24 hours a day against a surprise Soviet attack. In Vietnam, the B-52s were fitted with conventional bombs and flew hundreds of raids. Two dozen B-52s were lost, including 16 shot down in a two-week period in late 1972. Since then, the planes have been reinforced and retrofitted to make them less vulnerable to antiaircraft missiles. Of the original fleet, about 250 remain, 150 of which carry conventional weapons. SAC still has planes on round-the-clock ground alert. According to some estimates, the B-52 could remain in active service until 2035, when the aircraft will celebrate its 80th year. Crew: 6 (includes pilot, copilot, navigator, radar navigator, ECM operator and gunner) Length: 160 ft. 10.9 in. Wingspan: 185 ft. Maximum takeoff weight: 488,000 lbs. Maximum speed: 595 m.p.h. Maximum altitude: over 50,000 ft. Range: 7,500 nautical miles THE ROUTE TO WAR Because the giant planes are vulnerable on the ground, the Gulf’s B-52 fleet is scattered among several bases as far as possible from the war zone. Bombing missions are taking off from Saudi Arabia, Spain, England, the island of Diego Garcia, even bases in the United States. The key refueling and maintenance stops in are in southern England and on Diego Garcia. Bombers completing a mission over Iraq--at the midpoint between the two--may continue on to either base. Sources: Los Angeles Times; Press Assn. Ltd.; Times of London; Janes’ All the World’s Aircraft; Greg Grant, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Reuters.