Wow, Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, the Pentagon’s bastion in the Horn of Africa, has grown like crazy. While we’ve all heard it was expanding, I hadn’t seen anything to give a sense of how massive its growth has been, until now.
I hadn’t look at Google Maps satellite pics of the base in a long time, maybe a year, until today. What used to be a fairly modest facility — compared to other expeditionary American air bases– on the south end of Djibouti’s main airport has ballooned into something serious.
(The French may still have an ammo storage facility there, older Google Maps images frequently showed French fighter jets at the ex-Foreign Legion base)
The pic above shows four C-130 Hercules (possibly two Marine Corps KC-130 tankers and three Air Force Special Operations Command AC –130s or MC-130s judging by the paint schemes), three Navy or Marine Corps M/CH-53E heavy lift choppers, three AFSOC U-28As and what looks like one C-12 Huron (it may be an Army RC-12 or an Air Force MC-12 Liberty).
Further to the right (East) of the main American ramp along the new south taxiway you can make out a small, clamshell hangar-equipped ramp sitting by itself for drone operations.
Keep scanning to the East of the drone ramp and you can see another C-130, three P-3 Orion submarine-killers (possibly used to hunt Somali pirates) and six F-15E Strike Eagle bombers. This is the first I’ve even seen what are likely American strike fighters sitting on the ramp of the African base (ok maybe they’re Saudi or Israeli, but I doubt it). There also appears to be a special walled-off facility within the American facility. I wonder who’s operating out of there. Look to the south of the Drone facility and you can see the big white radomes of some type of signals facility.
Click though the jump to check out some close up pics of the base via OSGEOINT.
Click here to learn more about the Pentagon’s increasing presence in Africa.
The picture below shows what appears to be an Predator or Reaper UAV.
{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
Looks awesome good way to keep AL Qaeda off guard in Africa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
Kony2012
Don't you know? The U.S. is prepping for war with Iran. WWIII to be exact. The last great war. The world won't be the same again. Iran, Turkey, Israel, Russia, China. It'll be a big party.
as indicated by all the budget cuts
well, the FED can just keep the printing press on 24/7. In the end, it's the taxpayers (somewhat synonymous with "ordinary folks") who will be paying the price for all the geopolitical blunders by the so-called government.
can you imagine people like GW Bush, Cheney, Condi Rice, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Wall St. CEOs, etc getting arrested, prosecuted, jailed and fined to the tune of tens of trillions of USD to compensate the clueless and gang-robbed US taxpayers??
Really, do you just say stupid sh!t?
We don't actually have to do much, not until the big games begin at least. A little tanker and logistical support and a tacit go-ahead and Israel will do it all for us. And I say good for them; they're the ones who will suffer the most or get the best out of it….
that's strange "prediction" indeed, as it's the US that has been fighting a proxy war on Israel's behalf in the Middle East, all expenses paid by US taxpayers.
Did I tell you to put the crack pipe down and go get some new lenses. Some extensive reading on the subject matter won't kill you. Trust me.
Nevertheless, Lindsey Graham and John McCain are thumping their collective chests along with Hillary to justify war via the shadows of Humanitarian efforts in Syria. By supposedly giving air cover in Syria and enforcing a no fly zone (nobody is flying in case you hadn't noticed), REALLY BAD IDEA, we will go into Damascus to "CHOP THE HEAD OFF OF THE SNAKE" of Hamas, Iran's arm in Syria and Lebanon. But… Since we and Israel are ALSO arming Ajabaijan bases, with RUSSIA'S supposed blessings, with HIGH TECH drones (just north of Tehran), and forces in Afghanistan sitting outside the border not so far from Tehran… AND the 5th Fleet sitting in the Gulf with DOUBLE Air Craft Carrier Groups… UHHHH – DO YA THINK??? I MEAN SERIOUSLY… Look at a map if you don't believe it… or understand the NEED to go through Damascus.
Yes, the road to Tehran, IS through Damascus, but it is LITTERED WITH BODIES… DEAD ONES… This is going to be a sad tale IF America IS dumb enough to fall for it!!! We don't need Boots, Jets and Boats. We have ICBM's that could target a quarter located on a half dollar – PUH…LEASE!!! RE-TIP with CONVENTIONAL and LAUNCH… 45 minutes and done… Send the bill to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and ALL Emirates…
On google maps it shows about 4 to 7 P3 Orion like aircraft spread across the entire base and airport. I say 'Orion like' becase I am not an expert on the aircraft. Not sure if these are all Orions or variants of the same aircraft.
Imagery date is 2012, nothing more precise.
Imagine if the Axis had the web and bloggers. The would have won the war!
My thoughts exactly. Thanks for detailing it all for our enemies, makes their job that much easier… what ever happened to "loose lips sinks ships"?
It's on Google friggin Earth. Anyone with a laptop and internet access can see this.
Not to mention that even if they didn't have Google Earth all they need a is decent pair of binos and someone who can count and describe the aircraft. It doesn't take a genius to figure these sorts of things out, one does not need Google Earth to count planes at an airfield, esp. one that's attached to a commercial airport. Hell, that's part of the how the Somalis got the drop on the Rangers that resulted in the Black Hawk Down incident, they had people sitting outside the airfield the Rangers operated out of with radios and they'd call in whenever planes and/or choppers took off letting their superiors when, which direction, and how many; all without any loose lips of any sort.
They already have satelite imagery
That's where military deception comes in…
Sun Tzu's most important rule: All war is deception. Just some countries are incredibly bad at it (Read: North Korea) or make really dumb decisions (Nazi Germany.)
Not to forget three C-160 Transalls, two non-US Orions (probably Spanish or German), and a Bruguet Atlantic maritime patrol aircraft at the French base just east of the commercial airport. The patrol aircraft are used to support the EU NAVFOR Operation ATALANTA, hunting pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The Mirages are truly gone. Back in the day, the Mirage 2000s were the primary big noise-makers. Now it must be the strike eagles. When the French kept a kepi blanc paratroop force here, each week they would jump two sticks of troops from the Transalls into a DZ just to the southeast of the base. Then they would gather the chutes, pile into trucks and RTB to have some wine.
I would say the dark p-3 is a norwiegen or canadian.
JMSDF also has one or two P-3s there. Japan also is building (or might be finished by this point) their own compound at the NW end of the airfield.
I didn't know the Marines had a CH-43E. I thought it was the CH-53E Super Stallion. I have flown in and worked with the CH-53D and E, but never heard of or saw a CH-43E. Please clarify.
Dude the 4 key is right next to the 5 key….use some common sense it was obviously a typo
How about proof reading before publishing, it is what a professional journalist is supposed to do. Which also means the Editor failed to catch the error as well.
you can also see another asw ac on the other side of the field diff from a p-3 it is twin engined looks to me like an atlantic.
Welp, this base was put into place quite a while ago. Most American's have been kept out of the loop, and most still have NO CLUE what it is when they reference Djibouti. My buddy and I were alerted this new base quite some time ago… However, the force level we were alerted to wasn't a couple of thousand… Try 50,000…..
So… Hard to say what the truth really is… But I do know the background history on this base… and once again, we walk in behind the damned French and pick up the pieces of their friggin disaster…
However, I perceive the placement of this base as being convenient to assault of Al Qaeda of Yemen and Oman as well as protection of the pipelines that cross the Saudi Arabian nation to the Ports of Jiddah (near Mecca) and Al Wajh (I think that's the other one)… Which are essentially at the mouth of the Suez Canal in the Red Sea offering an alternate to the Straight of Hormuz (Meaning – SCREW YOU IRAN).
BUT, you see, the problem is, these bases are so big, that they're poorly guarded. For instance, 10 days ago or so, TERRORISTS blew up one of these pipelines RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES AT OUR 5th FLEET BASE ACROSS THE BAY IN BAHRAIN… How do you like that… Geeze….. MESSAGE SPOCK???
Well now we know what those Strike Eagles were/are up to; splashing AQ chiefs in Yemen…!
Well, more like that's where the drones originated… and if you recall the drone that crashed, that one probably originated there too…
This is our latest strike…. It's got this mornings date on it (3 hours ago). http://sg.news.yahoo.com/us-air-raids-strike-qaed…
That drone that crashed which I mentioned earlier, US Drone Crashes at Seychelles Airport December 13, 2011, was an unarmed U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper… It most like originated in Djibouti as well…
http://www.military.com/news/article/2011/us-dron…
http://www.newsoxy.com/world/drone-crash-45542.ht…
Once you pull up a world map, and rule out the ridiculous, the obvious must be the truth… even if they don't own up to it… at first… (Occams Razor, of course) This base is in the immediate area.
Just read this on the link provided below by osgeoint, proving what I had pointed out in the first place…
"MSI on 29 October 2011 acquired from Geo Eye shows many of the deployments that imagery watchers of Google Earth are more familiar: the C-130 and the P-3. However, two previously unreported platforms are observed including the F-15E Eagle and the MQ/RQ-1 PREDATOR."
Just read this on the link provided by osgeoint below, essentially proving out what I stated earlier… Great link by the way…
"MSI on 29 October 2011 acquired from Geo Eye shows many of the deployments that imagery watchers of Google Earth are more familiar: the C-130 and the P-3. However, two previously unreported platforms are observed including the F-15E Eagle and the MQ/RQ-1 PREDATOR."
Hey Defense Tech,
Here's an imagery update just for you, thanks for linking the site: http://osgeoint.blogspot.com/2012/03/djibouti-cam…
Cheers,
OSGEOINT
@Marcase
Just read this on the link provided by osgeoint below, essentially proving out what I stated earlier… Great link by the way…
"MSI on 29 October 2011 acquired from Geo Eye shows many of the deployments that imagery watchers of Google Earth are more familiar: the C-130 and the P-3. However, two previously unreported platforms are observed including the F-15E Eagle and the MQ/RQ-1 PREDATOR."
I couldn't post a direct reply so I hope this one posts…
I wonder if this is where AFRICOM will ultimately end up. Running it out of Stuttgart is getting a bit nonsensical me thinks.
Well from what I read, it already is… Perhaps I'm mistaken. But I read that on the military's own site.
You're right grunt, the helos are definitely CH-53E super stallions, the seven bladed rotor is a giveaway. I think the D models retained the 6 bladed rotor, although you see a lot fewer of them these days. As for the F-15E's, those are definitely ours, the Saudis use a lighter grey scheme on their F-15SA's and the Israelis paint their F-15I's in camo on the top. Singapore and Korea use dark grey schemes on their F-15SG and F-15K versions but they've got their own piracy problems to contend with in southeast asia.
Bungee Man-Thank you. You are correct about the main rotor and the E model's tail rotor is canted.
CH-53's carry a good payload. I wonder how many trips its made to Yemen? How many men they carry..to where? They are doing work, thats for sure.
its for the gulf of aden middle of the sea base its a base underwater like the one in cali
great quality pictures
Looks like a P2V on the north end perhaps.