US appears to be staging stealth bombers for possible strikes against Iran

The United States appears to be massing power, including B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, leading many to speculate that it is preparing to strike Iran.

From what we can assess from Air Force statements and publicly available flight trackers, there are at least three B-2 Spirits now at Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, along with at least three C-17 cargo planes and maybe as many as ten KC-135 airborne refueling tankers – both aircraft that could feasibly be tasked with supporting bombing operations anywhere from Africa to the Middle East. More B-2s seem to be heading to the region, with a fourth bomber declaring a mid-flight emergency en route and landing instead at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii; potentially even a fifth one is now on its way. All these bombers would account for roughly a quarter of America’s entire operational stealth bomber fleet. 

B-2s don’t need to relocate to Diego Garcia to strike Iran since the aircraft has an unrefueled range of nearly 7,000 miles and B-2 crews are known to fly truly globe-spanning strike missions that sometimes take 40 hours or more to complete. Yet, it is common for American strategic bombers to mass in Diego Garcia ahead of Middle East strikes, even if they aren’t usually B-2s, which haven’t spent any really appreciable time on the island (aside from one short stop last August) in nearly five years. 

B-2s were used last October to strike Houthi targets inside Yemen, though many saw this as an intended warning to the Houthi’s financial and material benefactors in Iran. Tehran uses the Houthis as a proxy force to conduct attacks behind a veil of plausible deniability. The Yemen-based terrorist group has been launching missiles at military and commercial shipping traffic throughout the Red Sea.

Positioning these bombers in Diego Garcia puts them relatively close to Iran (at some 2,358 miles), while still outside the reach of Iran’s furthest-reaching ballistic missiles, which has a range of roughly 1,242 miles. 

Related: The B-2 Spirit is aging but still packs a bunch

Despite entering service nearly three decades ago, B-2s are still among the stealthiest aircraft on the planet, and are generally considered more than capable of penetrating Iran’s integrated air defenses.

More importantly, the B-2 is the only aircraft on the planet rated to carry America’s massive GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator – a massive 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb that may be the only weapon in the world capable of reaching and destroying Iran’s deeply-buried subterranean nuclear weapons facilities. 

Thus far, the Air Force has made no suggestion at all that it is preparing for an attack of any sort. Instead, this massing may truly be little more than diplomatic theater

The presence of these bombers and their unmatched bunker-busting capabilities may be meant as a warning to Iran not to get involved while the U.S. continues to strike its Houthi proxy forces in the Middle East and a second carrier strike group heads for the region.

But with tensions boiling throughout the Middle East, diplomatic theater could quickly turn into kinetic action.

So, to be clear, the U.S. has not expressed plans to strike targets inside Iran, and as far as we know right now, these bombers may be doing little more than conducting exercises meant to simulate complex bombing operations in different theaters of the world. However, one thing is for certain: Tehran has noticed their presence and probably won’t be getting much sleep until those bombers head back to Missouri, where they’re based. 

Feature Image: U.S. Air Force members from the 393rd Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, taxi in a B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber at Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, to support a bomber task force mission, August 14, 2020. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Alexandria Lee)

Read more from Sandboxx News

• What we can deduce about the Boeing F-47 and its capabilities so far
• Navy will soon announce the contract award for its F/A-XX 6th-generation jet, according to reports
• Delta Force Assessment and Selection: Spending nights at base camps
• The AGM-181 LRSO missile will modernize America’s nuclear triad
• Boeing has managed to win the contract for America’s NGAD fighter