It’s cool that this seems to work, but is this really a Special Ops mission?
"The U.S. Air Force has for the first time in an overseas test used its Rapid Dragon system, in which cruise missiles on pallets are launched from the back of a mobility aircraft.
An MC-130J Commando II from the 352nd Special Operations Wing launched a Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range cruise missile using the system nicknamed “bomb bay in a box” in a range over the Norwegian Sea on Wednesday, the Air Force Research Laboratory said."
OK. Seems very James Bond. It seems the trend is to get as many missiles in the air as fast as you can? From this to the ‘Murder Hornet’ festooned with AMRAAMs.
What I’m thinking if going up against a peer/near peer adversary you might need all your fighters configured for air to air, throwing cruise missiles out the back of C-130’s would free them up for that. I wonder how many a 130 can carry, also love the code name, “Rapid Dragon” sounds like it’s aimed at the Chinese.
Yep, it’s pretty out of the box thinking. I also think it’s impressive that a 1954 design aircraft is still such a core component to our military, the C-130 is the M2 of aircraft. We have designs from the 70s that are no longer in service.
