I haven’t got time to go into a detailed response – that will have to come later – but as far as the use of the word ‘strike’ is concerned I agree with marktheevildude in respect of the Tornado being officially described as fulfilling a non-nuclear strike role. Secondly, it is interesting to record that even current MoD and RAF websites use the word ‘strike’ to refer to non-nuclear capability, including the frequent references on MoD websites about the Joint Strike Fighter!

Me thinks that whilst ‘strike’ might, during the Cold War, have been the correct terminology for nuclear capability and delivery, it is now no longer the case, and we need to accept that it is now used more flexibily.

In terms of Typhoon being originally conceived for the air superiority role, even Eurofighter’s own, dedicated website places a not insubstantial emphasis on Typhoon being, and I quote, a single-seat, twin-engine fighter, and, a growing prescence in European Air Superiority. You have to dig into the site before you read of ground attack roles (or multi-role).

If the situation in terms of Typhoon’s development in the ground attack role is so well advanced, as Jackonicko so emphatically states, then why the hesitancy on the part of senior officers and civil servants in answering the question as to when it will be deployed operationally?

This might be a ‘witless debate’ that ‘achieves nothing useful’, but I posed the original question if only because in today’s climate the need to get it right – for all three armed services – could not be more important or significant in respect of where we want our armed serrvices to be, and for which roles they will be expected to deliver on – and how we pay for it. In this context the relevancy of Typhoon being fit-for-purpose in the ground attack role. or whatever you want to call it, is as relevant today as it was when it was first aired in the so-called popular press all those years ago.

Since the late 1950s the RAF, more than the other two services, has had to accept resources, imposed by political short-sightedness, that it originally did not want. The number of compromises imposed on the RAF are almost legendary. I believe we could be facing yet another senario from the same mould, except this time the pressures are probably greater, with very little leeway. What’s the point of an air force that can’t meet its obligations? Is this why our idiot politicians are now, less than covertly, putting it into the collective public mind that maybe, just maybe, it might more efficient to merge the RAF with one of the other armed services (probably the army)?

In response to Jackonicko;

1. By ‘strike’ I never meant nuclear.
2. We need to re-check the original RAF spec for the Typhoon. Somewhere it does state that it was designed as an air superiority fighter.
3. Again, ‘strike’ does not automatically mean ‘nuclear’. The context in which I used the word ‘strike’ was meant to refer solely to the ground attack role. As as I’m concerned the use of Tornados to take out ground defences in the early stages of the First Gulf War was a ‘strike cabilibity’ – and no nuclear weapons were used. May be this is more about semantics than the question I was raising!
4. If I can dig out the relevant quote, I’ll post it here. It might be inaccurate, which I concede, but it was reported as I described.
5. I never stated that I’d heard this from 11 Squadron! However, I did hear this at Leuchars, and I wrote as I was told.
6. You may be correct, but if you go back before the Saudi issue – which was not that long ago – you’ll see that under the circumstances prevailing at the time, that Typhoon should have been ready in the ground-attack role sometime ago.

And for swerve;
I’m not sure that a like-for-like comparison is necessarily valid.