An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle fired Hellfire missiles at enemy combatants who were engaging friendly forces with rocket propelled grenades May 30 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Air Forces Central announced May 31. This was one of the 52 close-air-support missions in Afghanistan and the 65 CAS missions flown by coalition aircraft in Iraq on May 30. One the previous day, a Reaper dropped a 500-pound laser-guided bomb on enemy combatants in Kabul, AFCENT said in a May 30 release. Also in Afghanistan on May 29, A-10s fired cannon rounds at enemy combatants in the vicinity of Nangalam and hit them with a general-purpose 500-pound bomb. An F-15E dropped a 2,000-pound JDAM onto an enemy position in Bagram, while a B-1B bomber used 500-pound joint direct attack munitions and 2,000-pound JDAMs against enemy firing positions in Farah and to render useless a disabled vehicle to the enemy. Further, French 2000 Mirages released 500-pound LGBs against enemy locations in Sangin, AFCENT said, noting that all of these missions were deemed as successful. In total, there were 56 CAS missions in Afghanistan and 69 in Iraq on May 29, according to AFCENT.
Air Force and Army leaders recently reached an agreement to partner more closely on joint all-domain command and control over the next two years. The services are still scoping out how to pursue a common data standard, and haven’t chosen specific systems or platforms to collaborate on or launched new…