The Air Force has deployed the new Sniper XR advanced targeting pod on F-16s of the 8th Fighter Wing, Kunsan AB, South Korea. Base officials say the Wolf Pack is the first Pacific Air Forces unit to receive the new pods, which provide greater stand-off range than the LANTIRN pods currently in use. Addition of the Sniper pod makes the Kunsan Vipers “the most lethal in all of PACAF,” says Col. Eric Best, 8th Operations Group commander.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China military briefing Oct. 27, part of a bi-weekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonics weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…