On Tuesday March 11, two B-52 bombers flew together with several Swedish JAS 39 Gripen, flexing muscles, in a very visible strategic communication across the skies of NATO’s newest member state.
“The mission also included a low-formation flyover of the Swedish Parliament to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Sweden’s accession to NATO,” U.S. Air Force in Europe said in a statement.
While the public was focused on the giant American bombers over the roof tops in Stockholm, the actual military training happened much further north, later in the same day.
From the capital, the bombers and fighter jets continued to the Arctic Circle where live weapons drop with GBU-38 JDAM bombs took place at targets in the Vidsel Test Range. The range is the largest in Sweden and is located in the wilderness between Jokkmokk and Arjeplog.
Once released from the aircraft, the JDAM bombs autonomously navigated to the designated target coordinates inside the range.
Both of the two B-52s, numbered 60-0007 and 60-0044, are nuclear capable, according to the Nuclear Notebook 2025 published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The planes, though, do not carry nuclear weapons on training flights in Europe. […]
According to the statement, the bombs drop was the “first-ever live weapons drop” conducted by B-52s in Sweden. That, however, is not totally correct. As the Barents Observer reported, two B-52s conducted live fire bombing towards targets in the same Vidsel Test Range first time in August 2022.
Last week, similar bomb drops took place over Rovajärvi shooting range in Finnish Lapland, a short 100 km from the border with Russia. The air forces of Norway, Sweden and Finland have in recent years frequently trained with U.S. strategic bombers. B-1 bombers have for periods been deployed both at Kallax airbase near Luleå in northern Sweden and at Ørland airbase in Norway. Läs artikel