PUBLISHED on August 11, 2025, 2:58 PM EDT – Key Points and Summary – In a powerful demonstration of its overwhelming firepower, a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber once dropped 80 individual 500-pound JDAMs on a mock airfield in a single pass.
-The 2003 test was so successful that the crew obliterated every designated target and, with leftover bombs, improvised by carving a “smiley face” into the desert floor.
-The anecdote, recently recounted by a general who flew the mission, highlights the unique and massive strike capability of heavy bombers.
-It serves as a stark reminder of the “order of magnitude” difference in payload between bombers and fighters, a capability now being passed to the next-generation B-21 Raider.
The B-2 Bomber Can Do What Looks Like Anything
More than twenty years ago, an American Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber proved itself highly capable, deep in the Utah desert.
During a 2003 test, a stealth bomber had to release an unprecedented load. The jet dropped 80 GPS-guided, 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) in one pass. The drop took place at approximately 40,000 feet, the whole arsenal was dropped in little over 20 seconds. This mammoth feat was able to take place due to the freshly installed “smart” bomb racks permitting the bombs to be precision-guided to specific geographic locations.
Smiley Face Carved into Runway
The test airfield, just under a mile long, had been outfitted with mock targets mainly built from shipping containers: a control tower, aircraft revetments, a hangar, even a simulated missile site. But the B-2’s destructive potential exceeded the planners’ preparations.
With every designated target already obliterated mid-run, the crew improvised. They then used any remaining bombs to carve a smiley face into the runway.
Major General Jason Armagost, who now heads the Eighth Air Force, recalled the mission during a recent webinar hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association. He noted that the “smiley” was not a prank but a demonstration of what heavy bombers can achieve in a sole sortie.
“Bombers are an order of magnitude different from fighters in what you can do with them,” Armagost told the online event. While fighters can project power over shorter distances, heavy bombers can strike dozens of separate targets in one go, often without ever being seen.
B-2 Has Huge Weapons Bay
The B-2’s humongous weapons bays can hold as much as 60,000 pounds of ordnance, including the infamous 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator. The latter bomb, also known as a “bunker buster”, is the largest non-nuclear one in U.S. service. It was recently used against Iranian nuclear sites.
Only 21 B-2s were ever built, with 19 still in service.
Their successor, the B-21 Raider, will be smaller. However, they may well be deadlier in terms of single-pass strike volume, thanks to newer precision weapons like the Small Diameter Bomb and StormBreaker glide bomb.
Though it will not match the B-2 in payload weight, the B-21’s ability to carry large numbers of smaller munitions at wider standoff ranges could improve their survivability against modern air defences.
About the Author: Georgia Gilholy
Georgia Gilholy is a journalist based in the United Kingdom who has been published in Newsweek, The Times of Israel, and the Spectator. Gilholy writes about international politics, culture, and education.
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