It sure sounded like a good idea: Take a few B-52s, strap on outboard radar-jamming pods, and scramble enemy air and electronic defense networks at will. It seems now that Air Force officials are reconsidering the whole thing in favor of a more-agile platform. That’s the word from the Lexington Institute’s well-informed Loren Thompson, as quoted in a Reuters dispatch. Of course, given the Pentagon’s budget slashing mood, cutting the electric B-52 dollars might have been a fairly obvious move to make. However, the Air Force will need to make a move soon to have a replacement by the time the Navy retires its EA-6B Prowlers.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
