PITY THE POOR TALIBAN:

The B-1 remains well-liked by pilots for its unusual maneuverability and responsiveness for an aircraft of its size, as you can see in this video. In the early 2000s, Boeing even floated a concept for Mach 2-capable B-1R model using the F-119 turbofans of the F-22 Raptor and armed with air-to-air missiles.

The Bones finally saw action striking targets in Iraq in 1998, then flew out of England to hit Serbian targets during the Kosovo War--delivering one-fifth of all bombs dropped despite flying only two percent of the missions. The B-1's towed decoys also proved effective, 'catching' two deadly 2K12 Kub missiles.

However, the Bones fully came into its own during the U.S. campaign to overthrow the Afghan Taliban in 2001. Afghanistan was simply too far for the Pentagon's land-based fighters to fly without lots of aerial refueling--but B-1s based in the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia could fly over Afghan airspace and loiter overhead for hours at a time.

The Bones brought to the table their huge payload--and their ability to pickle dozens of inexpensive GPS=guided two-thousand-pound JDAM bombs precisely onto targets designated by ground forces. The B-1 thus became a form of flying artillery orbiting overhead, on-call as ground troops ferreted out enemy positions and marked them for destruction. In 2008 B-1s were outfitted with Sniper-XR targeting pods under their noses so they too could designate their own targets.

Bones went on to deliver huge bomb loads in conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria. For example, B-1s played an instrumental role in preventing the fall of the besieged Kurdish enclave in Kobane, Syria in 2014, dropping 660 bombs that killed an estimated thousand ISIS fighters. Four years later, Lancers were used to launch nineteen JASSM cruise missiles as part of a punitive strike against Bashar al-Assad.

As of 2017, sixty-two B-1s remain in service with the 7th and 28th Bombardment Wings based in Texas and South Dakota respectively, though aircraft are often operationally deployed to Diego Garcia and Al Udeid air base in Qatar.

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