USAF and friends have struck numerous targets in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past few days. US Central Air Forces says USAF A-10s used their rockets to mark enemy locations, then strafed them to aid coalition troops near Deh Rawood. During the same Dec. 6 action, RAF GR7s launched general-purpose bombs and rockets. Near Qalat in Afghanistan on Dec. 5, USAF A-10s marked targets, then struck enemy forces with their guns and 500-pound bombs. In Iraq on Dec. 3, USAF F-15s and F-16s struck targets near Balad. The F-15s strafed the enemy and F-16s dropped precision-guided munitions.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…