You Won't Believe What B-52 Bombers Just Did to Open Strait of Hormuz

Welcome to today's video. It's March 22nd, 2026, day 23 of Operation Epic Fury, and the B-52 Stratofortress just dropped payloads across Iran, and it's been doing it for the last few weeks that have turned Iran's ballistic missile facilities into smoking craters, specifically this one right here, the BUF, the Big Ugly Fat Fellow, and that changed. The fellow is changed a little bit from what the actual nomenclature might be, but again, you guys love acronyms, so I gotta keep them coming. They launched likely from RAF Fairford in the UK, flew marathon missions over hostile territory, and slammed precision-guided munitions into the QE Baramali Ballistic Missile Assembly Facility, among multiple other places. These B-52s were just seen yesterday taking off, loaded with stealthy cruise missiles and JDAMs. So you see the cruise missiles on the outside, and you know that it's also packing some heat on the inside, proving that they can do both, stand off bombing, so launching those cruise missiles, and stand in bombing, dropping the JDAMs. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is firing back with defiant rhetoric, as they do. Their military spokesperson, at this point, could be an AI voice, I mean, we don't really know who's in charge. They're vowing to irreversibly destroy U.S. and allied energy, IT, and desalinization infrastructure across the region if their power plants get hit, while claiming the Straits of Hormuz remains open, except to enemy vessels, so stay with me. This is the B-52 doing what it does best to dismantle Iran's missile empire, and their ability to produce these ballistic missiles, and then what it's doing next is gonna challenge everything you've heard about the B-52's unstoppable reach. And here's some of the latest breaking news that's coming out right now. This is from The Guardian. Nobody else is responsible Trump to blame for Iran crisis from ex-CIA chief Leon Panetta. On this channel, we like to explore different points of view, but he called the president naive over the Straits of Hormuz closure, and he said that the president didn't really know what was gonna happen, which is pretty silly, because when it comes to operational plans, myself having worked on them for 10 years in classified vaults for the U.S. Air Force, that's basically the first thing that you brief. There's unclassified parts of that, but this isn't a Venezuela. Leon Panetta is here basically saying, oh, we didn't get it done in 12 hours, so this is very naive. But there's phases to this campaign, and one of those phases is after you crush Iran militarily, and you have to do that for a while, as we've seen, then you have to roll into a phase where you focus on keeping the Straits of Hormuz open against Iran's proxy tactics, and that's exactly what we're seeing right now. So ultimately, I think Leon Panetta is a little bit naive to think that these top generals who are gonna be briefing the president didn't actually break down what's gonna happen after Iran is crushed militarily. So it's a bit of a slap in the face to these top generals who are ultimately crushing it and taking it to the Iranian regime in a way that they never thought was possible. So to Leon Panetta, I would say, you're a little naive, my friend. Probably should've looked at some of those briefings when you had access to what would actually happen if the conflict with Iran went down. And then President Trump posted this on Truth Social. He said, we are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the terrorist regime of Iran. And then he focused on some priorities that as the conflict starts to wind down, what will still be important? And one of the main ones is getting partner nations like Gulf nations, getting Europe. Anybody who's getting oil from the Straits of Hormuz, besides China, needs to come in and help and step up to actually keep the Straits of Hormuz away from the proxy threats of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and allow freedom of navigation to the Straits. And then this is from The Aviationist. They said, B-52s launched from RAF Fairford carrying new impressive cruise missile payload. So this is kind of what I was talking about before, showing that cruise missile payload. The B-52 is so versatile. I mean, you can load this thing down with that payload and then just let it go in and do work, let it go to work. And then this was a joint statement on the Straits of Hormuz. So United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Denmark, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Chechnya, Romania, Bahrain, Lithuania, Australia on the Straits of Hormuz. They're all coming together, it looks like, to say, hey, we're putting our foot down and we're all gonna step in to open up the Straits of Hormuz. So this is a good sign that some of these partner nations might start to roll in with some actual metal, something actually with teeth, besides this very stern letter. I mean, the letter's good because it shows that they're thinking about it and they understand that the U.S. is like, hey, Straits of Hormuz is important, we want the global energy to flow, but ultimately, you guys benefit a little more from this than the United States, so just step up and contribute. So I think this joint statement is really cool. Bases like RAF Fairford leading the charge in the UK, letting these legends fly out of there. These B-52 crews are the big swing and you know what's at this point and the UK has allowed them to come in without any more drama because I think the UK sees the writing on the wall. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, their days are numbered, at least in the fact of them controlling the Straits of Hormuz or having any say about what happens in that region and I think the UK is like, oh, okay. We see how much the military has been crushed and so we can likely bring some of our ships in with a lot less risk than what it would have been bringing them in a few weeks ago. But these B-52s are flying extended range sorties and they're likely the ones responsible for hitting Qui Barjamali facility hard in the hills near Tehran. That was hit on March 7th but it looks like these strikes have continued since then, striking down multiple of these ballistic missile production facilities, also likely striking drone production facilities and even near the Straits of Hormuz, striking those underwater unmanned vehicle facilities, prepping the battlefield for the Marine Expeditionary Unit and there's nobody that can roll out the red carpet better than the B-52. Essentially, the B-52 is creating that red carpet for these Marines to come in as the VIPs to then do the smaller, more surgical thing. So the B-52 is basically the big hammer. It's Thor's hammer coming down, crushing the areas around the Straits of Hormuz and then you bring in the surgical scalpel which is the MEU plus all these potential partner nations that could chip in as well and then you have a lasting structure and you have a lasting plan to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. CENTCOM released that satellite imagery, the telltale sign of the B-52 rolling in. It shows those long assembly halls, the support buildings and the infrastructure were intact prior to the B-52 arriving and then March 7th, it turned everything into rubble at those facilities. It collapsed structures, debris fields, facilities completely out of commission and we're seeing multiple strikes on hardened areas where the IRGC could be using as fighting positions or just command nodes, underground command nodes, intel collection to do what they do. I mean, they have some sort of tracking systems right now that are still working, right? Because they're tracking which ships are going through the Straits of Hormuz so they're likely underground facilities that pass intelligence that still have communication with each other. So the B-52 is likely one of the ones responsible for taking down those different command nodes that are communicating and telling the different IRGC factions which ship has connections to the United States so you gotta take care of that and the B-52 is likely the one leading the charge on that right now. This isn't just damage to these facilities. These major production lines are being erased, starving the IRGC of fresh missiles during their sustained operations where they're bragging about how many missiles that are hitting Israel. They're bragging about all the different things they can do but as you can see, their missiles were struck down trying to hit Diego Garcia. The endurance and the payload of the B-52, this allows it to do things that lighter jets can't really do when it comes to taking out these bigger facilities. I mean, the amount that the B-52 can carry is basically scary. So the B-52 can turn missile factories into history but wait until you hear how badly Iran's rhetoric is crumbling under this pressure because Iran's regime built the Qebarj Mali site specifically to produce those ballistic missiles which they thought were gonna completely protect the regime and they might have actually if you would have let that play out for another 10 years and they had 10,000 ballistic missiles. They only had 2,500 luckily at this point but those facilities feed the IRGC's arsenal for those close range, middle range and even the long range threats for striking deeper and deeper across the world. At some point, they would have been able to strike the East Coast of the United States and obviously the UK would have been struck before that but after weeks of coalition hammering with the B-52 and other assets, Iran's missile production is getting gutted, air defense is shredded and Iran's maritime assets in the Straits of Hormuz likely right around that critical choke point. As we look at the map here, you can see all these different areas where they likely can have these different proxy threats and now we're moving into the next phase where these need to be focused on and this is not an easy thing. Remember, you bring in the sledgehammer, you crush the big things and then it takes a while for that surgical scalpel to come in and make things happen. Over the last 12 hours though, CENTCOM has said that there has been more degraded coastal missile sites and fast attack boat infrastructure keeping the choke point contested still but increasingly under coalition control day by day just one step at a time striking down Iran's threats. Iranian officials though, they're still talking big, they're claiming that the Straits are open except to enemy vessels and they're vowing retaliation and in the Straits of Hormuz itself, the B-52 just bent over the IRGC and showed them what real strategic reach feels like. But President Trump has been clear, he gave Iran an ultimatum just yesterday saying they have 48 hours to fully open the Straits or the U.S. will hit and obliterate Iranian power plants starting with their biggest one and Iran is being very defiant saying if they do that, then they're gonna strike desalinization plants in the area and basically turn the area into more chaos which they do have the capability to do still even if it's a one-off, a pop shot. But the numbers and the imagery don't lie, the B-52 is overwhelmingly crushing Iran's defenses and their military capability and now they're starting to take it to their proxy ability but again, that's not gonna be an overnight fix. The B-52, it keeps coming back for more bombing runs, proving that age is just a number when you've got that kind of payload and stamina. But the B-52, the reason why it can dominate is because of tens of thousands of pounds of precision-guided munitions and bunker busting delivered from standoff ranges way beyond most Iranian threats in the early days but now it looks like it's doing both. So it's likely doing those standoff strikes and then it's going in and doing stand-in strikes, long duration missions, air refueling, you can keep it going basically as long as you want to and it can do more things than those tactical fighters can do as far as bringing in the heavy metal and striking massive swaths of area and in my opinion, one of the best things to prep and prepare for the Marine Expeditionary Unit that's rolling in. And you teamed up with other assets like F-15s, F-35s and you really have the ability for the B-52 to just execute brute force with one single pass and be protected by fighters overhead. It's basically like the B-52 flexed so hard, it made the whole Persian Gulf blush. But let's move to the 4D chest strategic analysis section. Iran's missile empire is collapsing, production lines are being destroyed, stockpiles dwindling, their leadership is being struck extremely hard. It's basically a temporary job if you're in the leadership of Iran at this point and the US strategy is very clear, methodically degrade offensive capabilities of Iran's military industrial base and then secure the Straits of Hormuz, that narrow checkpoint and then protect it without boots on the ground, at least yet. And then bring in allies to help protect it and keep it open. You've got some of the world's best, most capable navies after the United States that are on the list of countries that I read so they can come in and help open the Straits as well. And the B-52's deep strike ability, it exploits Iran's weakness and it exploits the US's air superiority advantage, hitting hardened sites in the hills around Tehran, basically hitting any of these last vestiges of these sites that the IRGC has that's out away from the civilian population because again, the IRGC is using human shields, they're putting their headquarters in schools, hospitals and that will be another phase of the campaign as this noose is just fully tightened right now on the military and on the Straits of Hormuz. And a lot of corporate media outlets are saying, look it, this is a blunder, this isn't going well. Well yeah, this would be nice if it was over in 12 hours but this is a multi-month campaign, if not a little bit longer, could go on longer than that and that's what the operational plan from the US military has always called for. It's not like just because President Trump is there, he can snap his fingers and now make this a five-day operation. The military objectives being met have to be done methodically and there's no shortcuts unfortunately but I do understand the frustration. It would be nice if this was done in 12 hours. So picture this, Iran doubles down, they try to fully close the Strait. At this point, B-52s go full persistent nonstop patrols, basically carpet bombing areas around the Straits of Hormuz. That means unleashing massive amounts of JDAMs and wiping out anything that could be connected to the defense industrial base that's threatening shipping. At that point, they'd be pounding any surface coastal areas and underground ballistic anti-ship missile sites and then the team of Marines is arriving, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, about 2,500 Marines, potentially there to amphibiously, surgically strike anything else that's threatening the Straits of Hormuz. Now, would they be boots on the ground? Maybe, but they don't have to do that. They have amphibious capabilities where they could operate in the water the entire time but they would be perfect for helping to secure checkpoints and neutralize those fast boats up close and personal. B-52s providing top cover, A-10s providing top cover, dropping precision loads on command nodes while Apaches and even the MEU itself starts to surgically strike command nodes. Regime hardliners are likely gonna fold more and more but again, they're hardliners, so there's also gonna be the hardliners that double down and make this problem not an easy one. The winds are stacking up as far as degrading their ability to produce more drones and more missiles. What do you think happens next? Is the regime on the ropes or do they actually follow through on their ability to strike desalinization plants and other infrastructure in the Gulf? What do you think happens in the next 48 hours? Let me know in the comments below. Do we see even bigger B-52 runs? Go ahead and follow me on X, follow me on Instagram. I'm posting there pretty much every day and then join the Max Ready Room by clicking the link in the description. I do priority replies to members during live streams which are happening pretty much every day at this point and then watch this next video that pops up right here. This is Ryan, also known as Max Afterburner, signing off.