AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy — When the 510th Fighter Squadron leaves for Iraq in May, the pilots’ F-16s will be equipped with one of the newest weapons available to the Air Force.

A new 500-pound satellite-guided bomb, called the Guided Bomb Unit-38, is the smaller version of its 2,000-pound brother, GBU-31, that was used throughout Operation Iraqi Freedom.

While the larger bomb was successful in destroying large targets such as Saddam Hussein’s main palace in Baghdad, the GBU-38 allows pilots to take out smaller targets with less risk of collateral damage or civilian casualties, Air Force weapons experts say.

“You can use a 2,000-pound bomb to take out a tank, but it’s not good to,” said Senior Master Sgt. Steven Laser, superintendent of weapons standardization with the 31st Maintenance Group at Aviano.

The GBU-38 holds 80 percent less explosive than the GBU-31, allowing the Air Force more flexibility in selecting targets during urban combat.

“We could drop in closer proximity to things that we didn’t want to blow up,” said Maj. John Wilbourne, of the 85th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, where the bomb scored high marks in recent tests.

The bombs use global positioning satellite technology called Joint Direct Attack Munition — or JDAM — to find their targets. To make these “smart bombs,” the military attaches a new tail to “dumb bombs” that have been used for decades. Inside the tail, a computer reads GPS coordinates and adjusts the tail rudders to move toward the target.

So add a $18,000 high-tech tail to a Vietnam-era MK 82 bomb, and you’ve got a GBU-38.

The bombs can be programmed with target coordinates before a flight or by pilots in the air.

The GPS-guided bombs are alternatives to laser-guided bombs, which often could not be used in cloudy, foggy or rainy conditions, Laser said.

The biggest advantage of the new bombs for pilots is that “you can drop them and forget about them,” Laser said. No longer will pilots, or soldiers on the ground, have to keep a laser locked on a target until the explosion, Laser said. Or wait for clouds to clear before a strike.

“If you go all-GPS, you can go on any mission no matter the weather,” Laser said.

An Alabama Air National Guard unit was the first to use the GBU-38 on Sept. 12, when F-16 Falcons dropped two of the 500-pound bombs on a two-story building in Fallujah, Iraq, where terrorists were thought to be meeting, according to Central Air Forces-Forward. Since then, 84 of the 500-pound bombs have been dropped in Iraq, according to CENTAF.

And, in February, the 494th Fighter Squadron out of RAF Lakenheath, England, was the first to drop one in combat from an F-15E Strike Eagle, said Capt. Joseph Siberski, a weapons officer with the squadron.

The Navy dropped its first GBU-38 weeks later, when F-117A Nighthawks unloaded two of them on another building in Iraq where terrorists were thought to be meeting, according to Naval Air Systems Command.

Members of the 555th Fighter Squadron from Aviano spent the past month learning to load and drop the GBU-38 with Wilbourne’s squadron at Eglin Air Force Base.

Pilots in the 510th Fighter Squadron won’t have the benefit of practice, Laser said. But they should have little trouble, he said, since the bombs work similar to the larger version.

“Just with less of a bang,” Laser said.

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