Joint U.S. Pacific Command operations in the Pacific

This remarkable image must constitute one of the greatest collections of leading edge technology ever assembled in one place and part of an amazing photographic gallery for this story. And the sizeable chunk of war machine is just a fraction of what’s being put through its paces on and around Guam this week in Operation Valiant Shield, a U.S. Pacific Command exercise which focuses on integrated joint training and interoperability among U.S. military forces while responding to a range of mission scenarios. The exercise is designed to make sure U.S. forces have a seamlessly integrated environment where they can conduct deterrence-type missions and, if deterrence fails, high-intensity combat operations. The image shows the awesome B-2 Spirit and 16 other aircraft from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps flying over the USS Kitty Hawk, USS Ronald Reagan and USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike groups. The joint exercise consists of 28 naval vessels, more than 300 aircraft and approximately 20,000 service members. For the record, the B-2 Spirit is powered by four F-118-GE-100 engines each with 17,300 pounds of thrust which can propel it to high subsonic speeds carrying 40,000 pounds of bombs with an unrefueled intercontinental range and an effectively indefinite range given air-to-air refueling. The B-2 Stealth bomber can reach across the globe to attack more than a dozen different aimpoints with surgical accuracy in a single pass! There are 21 active B-2 Spirits in the US military inventory, each costing US$1.157 billion. Who needs a foreign policy?

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