Which air-to-ground weapons are used the most by the US naval or air force ?

[FastNotFurious]

Hello everyone, I looked for a long time for information on this subject, statistics which would detail which are the most used bombs (MK82 or GBU 12 or JDAM?) Without ever finding anything, and what you would have sources that give an idea of the air-to-ground weapons most used by the US military?

The only thing I could find is that which gives an idea of the price range of these weapons : https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32277/here-is-what-each-of-the-pentagons-air-launched-missiles-and-bombs-actually-cost

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[FastNotFurious]

Sorry for my awful English, it's not my mother tongue I rephrase my question more correctly :

 

Do you have any sources which would indicate which are the most used bombs by the US Navy or Air Force ? 

[G.J.S]

There will never be an easy answer to the question you pose.

Weapon selection is based upon the target type and what you wish to achieve. Do you wish to degrade, or completely wipe a target? Is there a risk of collateral? 

Can the same desired effect be guaranteed with a smaller weapon? Maximum effect with minimum bang is the usual mantra.

 

[FastNotFurious]

13 hours ago, G.J.S said:

There will never be an easy answer to the question you pose.

Weapon selection is based upon the target type and what you wish to achieve. Do you wish to degrade, or completely wipe a target? Is there a risk of collateral? 

Can the same desired effect be guaranteed with a smaller weapon? Maximum effect with minimum bang is the usual mantra.

 

Thank you for your answer ! I understand that the choice in the use of weaponry depends on so many factors that we  cannot consider that the most used weaponry is necessarily the most useful in all circumstances, but I ask myself even the question, on the existence of the data which I mentioned previously, is there a detailed report which would list the bombs or missiles and classifying them by frequency of use during the last ten or twenty years or is these informations are classified? With this kind of data we could know precisely if dumb bombs are now completely relegated to the background or if they still occupy an important place because of their low cost, etc.

 

[Ghostraider]

The most used Bombs are the MK-82-84 Series in all Variants, in Guided variants with GPS, Laser or both kids, relativ small costs.

Trend goes to SDBs, more Bombs on Pylons guided Ammo, more Range, smaler collateral damage. Rockets are very expensiv, maybe more effective in special mission when you need more Range or faster Targeting. In any case rockets doesnt have a warhead to increase the Range and they use the kinetic energy to destroy the Target or make it useless.

[Hulkbust44]

In ODS the most employed weapon was the CBU-99/100 mk20 rockeye iirc.

[Rick50]

Just a guess, but I'd say 500lb Paveways are the most used. Followed by JDAM, then Maveric, and on down. Not by numbers bought or stored, but raw numbers expended in operations.

why? Because iron bombs aren't used as much  anymore. Because SOOOO often the target is done using LGB's, whether it's a stationary target or moving. The larger LGB's are too destructive  for many operations. Maverics haven't been used on massive numbers of armor. JDAM's are quite useful and been used a lot, but can't be used on moving targets, and can't be swayed off target at the last minute if innocents appear unexpectedly, but I do think laser guided is even more common.

In training, just a guess but I'm thinking 500lb iron dumb.

Again just a guess. 

This will probably change, next conflict, when the new generation of laser-capable JDAM enhanced gets more widely fielded.  And when Stormbreaker comes online for many squadrons, which will allow many capabilities even with cloudcover. But that's the future.

 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Rick50