An Air Force historian is compiling data on every US bombing mission since World War I in order to pinpoint the geographic location, historical progression, and strategic effects of US bombardment writ large. “What if you had the detailed data on when and where every bomb was dropped from an airplane in combat? What would you know?” asked Lt. Col. Jenns Robertson, the missileer and researcher spearheading the Theater History of Operations Reports project, reported the Boston Globe. Though Robertson is still gleaning data from myriad Defense Department records, he says his data base has already proven invaluable. The computer data drawn from millions of DOD period reports are plotted on a satellite map, making the map an ideal tool to aid ordnance cleanup in Vietnam, for example, according to the July 30 report.
The Air Force is shoring up its cyber defenses both on and off base for critical infrastructure such as water and electrical power, and industry experts are calling for more, even specialized, dedicated microgrids offsite to support USAF operations in case of a total blackout caused by cyberattacks.
