The U.S. Air Force is determined to junk half its best jammers

The U.S. Air Force is winnowing down its fleet of EC-130H Compass Call electronic attack planes.

The 15 high-tech jammers belong to the 55th Electronic Combat Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. But if the flying branch has its way, it will retire seven at the turn of the fiscal year in October, according to the Pentagon's budget request.

They're few in number, but highly important planes. These are same EC-130Hs that twice shut down Saddam Hussein's air defenses, and helped American pilots and troops return home alive from the conflicts in Kosovo, Haiti, Panama, Serbia and more recently Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

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