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In 1944, the U.S. military faced a sudden need for a really, really big bomb.
Instead of developing the bombs, the U.S. Army Air Forces decided to turn B-17 bombers into guided bombs.
The program was meant to counter Hitler’s V-series of superweapons.
The United States produced so many weapons during World War II that it was nicknamed “The Arsenal of Democracy.” One weapon it didn t make, however, was a really, really big bomb.
Faced with the sudden need for a conventional, high-explosive bomb, the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) came up with a creative solution: take old, nearly worn-out B-17 bombers and turn them into flying bombs, as seen in the short video below.
After two decades of concerted investment and operational experience, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) armed forces, dubbed “Little Sparta,” are now one of the leading militaries in the region.
1 With approximately 63,000 active uniformed personnel for a population of 9.9 million (only 1.2 million of which are Emirati), allegedly augmented by foreign auxiliary and mercenary forces, the UAE has gained global attention for its role in countering Iran and violent extremist networks and for interventions in Yemen and Libya.
2 It is one of the United States’ closest military partners in the Middle East.
3 American scholar Kenneth Pollack assesses that, taken as a whole, the UAE’s military is the most capable among the Arab states, while there may be variance across the force.