JackonickoThere isn’t half some ******** talked on this board sometimes.
“It did cause a doctrinal change in the RAF with a move to medium altitude precision strike….”
No, it didn’t.
Of six RAF Tornado losses, only one was actually shot down while at low level. The first was either shot down or was lost after a switch pigs – either way the aircraft ‘ballooned’ out of the sanctuary of low level, one was shot down after a JP233 run, and two more were shot down while toss bombing, one exploded at medium level when bombs ‘bumped’ on release, one was shot down by a SAM at medium level.
17 Jan 1991 – ZD791 (Flt Lt John Peters and Flt Lt ‘John’ Nichol) Cause not positively determined, but crew reported an engine fire before ejecting. Mission was against Shaibah, with 1,000-lb bombs. Crew taken POW.
19 Jan 1991 – ZA392 (Wg Cdr Nigel Elsdon and Flt Lt Max Collier*) Possibly hit by a SAM 3 minutes after attacking Shaibah with JP233. Crew killed.
20 Jan 1991 – ZA396 (Flt Lt David Waddington and Flt Lt Robert Stewart) Hit by SAM when pulling up for a toss-bombing attack on Talil. Crew taken POW.
22 Jan 1991 – ZA467 (Sqn Ldr Gary Lennox and Sqn Ldr Kevin Weeks) Shot down during toss-bombing attack on Ar Rutbah radar site. Crew killed.
23 Jan 1991 – ZA403 (Fg Off Simon Burges and Sqn Ldr Robert Ankerson) Premature 1,000 lb bomb detonation after release. Crew taken POW.
14 Feb 1991 – ZD717 (Flt Lt Rupert Clark and Flt Lt Stephen Hicks) Shot down during medium level LGB attack. Flt Lt Clark taken POW, Flt Lt Hicks killed.
Low level penetration remains a valid and vital tactic according to the target set and threat picture.
The switch to medium level tactics in Granby and afterwards marked the end of the initial anti-airfield campaign – thereafter it was primarily HAS plinking – better achieved from medium level.
It also reflected the elimination of an air threat – which gave medium level a degree of sanctuary. With an air threat, the balance changes, – medium level becomes dangerous and low level provides the sanctuary.
But if the RAF had to go against an opponent where the air threat was more dangerous than the AAA/LLSAM threat, you’d see a return to low level tactics.
“Tornados came back with damage and some pretty shaken up crews to deliver a weapon of questionable effect. It feeds into, as you rightly say, the lessons of the RAFs tactical failings of GW1. Low level was not bad per se, it was the weapons and how you deliver them.”
JP233 was far from being a weapon of questionable effect against European airfields, railway marshalling yards, or other hard/semi-hard area targets (tank parks, etc.). The problem in Iraq was the sheer size of some of the airfields and the sheer number of alternative runways and taxyways. Cutting a swathe of destruction with JP233 was never likely to close such airfields down, though in fact, it did largely achieve that end, and was the most effective runway denial weapon used during Desert Storm.
The later withdrawal of JP233 had little to do with military effectiveness, and everything to do with woolly headed opposition to landmines.
JackonickoThe idea that in 1982 someone piped up and said “hey maybe this airframe might be used in 27 years time” is nonsense.
In 1982, the Canberra had just passed 30 years in service, and looked set for many more years, and the Shackleton, Vulcan, Victor, Hunter and Buccaneer were all looking set for lengthy careers.
It was clear that many aircraft types were enjoying longer careers than their predecessors, and that this trend was continuing and even intensifying. While I don’t know off hand what the Chinook’s OSD was projected to be in 1982, it’s not unlikely that it was well into the 21st century.
In any case, the point is not that anyone put aside the Argentine Chinook airframe with a specific ‘use by’ date in mind, just that it was stored pending possible use for as long as the Chinook remained in service – whether that was 10 years, 20 years or 40.
Though why I’m wasting time and energy arguing with someone who can’t spell ‘detrimental’, and who argues against international aid, I don’t know. I must be mad.
JackonickoI’m equally sure that they thought that they’d keep the Argentine Chinook airframe until it was needed, or until the Chinook left service.
Jackonicko“why should our armed forces have to resort to scavenging from a 30 year old piece of war booty? I’m sorry how ever good the engineering and cost arguements thats a scandal really.”
Why do you think we went to the trouble and cost of recovering the Argentine Chinook to the UK (and then of storing it for 27 years) if not as a potential source of spares and parts?
If the engineering and cost cases for using parts from the captured Chinook are water-tight – as they are in this case, how can it possibly be a scandal?
What would have been a scandal would have been if we had thrown away a useful asset (the Argentine Chinook) as a target, for scrap, or to moulder away outside the AAC Museum, or had we failed to use an asset we had in order to repair our own damaged Chinook.
This is a non-story – except as an illustration of the MoD doing exactly the right thing to make the best possible use of taxpayers money and its own resources to maximise the delivery of capability to the frontline.
JackonickoHarry,
Canopener Al was referring to the last few No.6 Squadron jets, which weren’t coming up against the airframe life limit, but to the next major – and we’d got rid of the ability to do Jag majors by then, effectively shutting down the support infrastructure when 41 and 54 folded.
Looking at the hours tally, the average was well short of 6,000. And there was a paperwork mod to extend to 8,000, anyway.
The aircraft had plenty of life left in them, in other words.
God knows where you got 30,000 hours from. It’s utter b*ll*cks!
David Burke,
The cost of upgrading an ex-RAFG Cosford Jag GR1 direct to full GR3A standards was carefully looked at, and was £450,000 per aircraft (less if you used a high time GR.Mk 3A as a donor airframe), plus engines (not if you pulled them from a high time GR3A), plus the cost of a major. (Well under one million pounds).
For between £1 and £1.5 m we could have produced what was effectively a brand new Jag (with less than 2,000 hours on the clock) and with 5,500+ hours useful life remaining.
Now a Jag GR3A would never have been as useful as a Harrier or a GR4A in Afghanistan, but could have augmented those types, doing all the recce, spiking, and adding useful extra capabilities (strafe, for example).
No.6 did simulated hot and high trials, and found that the Jaguar could have operated successfully from Kandahar with a light but useful load. Given the sudden importance of the 500-lb PWIV, it would be foolish to dismiss the contribution Jag could have made.
You say that: “The Harrier and Tornado is more than capable of carrying out the roles that the Jaguar used to do.”
That’s true, to an extent, but not wholly. Neither Harrier nor Tornado have a helmet. Neither has IDM (let alone PRISM IDM). Neither were as well integrated with an LDP or mission planner as Jag was. Neither had as robust a strafe capability. I don’t believe that either have Passover. There are a range of recce and CAS sub sets that Jaguar could still do better than either Tornado or Harrier.
Jackonicko“problem with the jags were that they were out of hours even the youngest planes had 30,000 odd hours on them jags were too old for another deployment”
That’s complete and utter invention, Harry.
The in service Jags had plenty of fatigue left on them (most were at around 4-6,000 hours, and the fatigue life was at 7,500, with further extension possible), and there was a reserve of very low hour (less than 2,000 hours in many cases) GR1/1A aircraft that could have been converted to GR3A standard at £450,000 per jet, plus the cost of a major.
The Jaguar force could have been kept going (with a running cost that would still have been far below the cost of an equivalent number of Tornado or Harrier squadrons) until 2012-2013 without any drama at all.
JackonickoNeither Mantis nor Taranis will be used in the AD role.
Neither is any UCAV an adequate replacement for a manned FJ except in the narrowest of niche roles.
And anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.
Jackonickodjcross,
UCAV F3s, eh?
You’re not a pilot, I take it?
You’ve never flown an F3?
They’d be the fighter pilot’s dream. The enemy fighter pilot, that is.
Imagine the SA (or lack of it).
Imagine the bandwidth you’d bleed trying to get the radar/IFF picture off the aircraft, and how many cameras would you need to get anywhere close to the FoV enjoyed by a human pilot.
They’d be little short of target drones……..
……..now there’s an idea!
JackonickoI’d add that, while it may seem appallingly creepy to say so, that AFM readers are lucky to have an extremely dedicated and hard working editor for whom this really isn’t a nine-to-five job, and who really pushes himself and his team to try and bring us, the readers, the best military aviation magazine that he can possibly produce.
I think it’s a tribute to him that he succeeds so often, personally.
JackonickoI hear your pain…..
Unfortunately, the editors have a VERY difficult road to tread.
First they have to keep existing readers happy, and then they have to try to attract new ones.
And whatever they do, they’re going to upset some readers.
Every article, and every class of article is going to have it’s fans, but also its detractors. That’s probably a good thing, as any article that didn’t provoke criticism would be so bland that no-one would want to shell out money to read it either.
My understanding is that the controversial ‘state of the UK’ pieces are intended to provoke debate and stimulate interest – and looking at the letters they got from the carrier piece, it’s a strategy that’s working.
It’s also the case that any intelligent and informed article about almost any aspect of UK military air at the moment that cuts through the spin and the political nonsense will be negative and ‘whingey’ – or will have a negative element – if they’re doing their job properly, and if they’re giving an accurate picture of what’s happening.
And that will be just as true when AFM turns its attention to RAF training, the Nimrod force, or the transport world.
They need to balance such articles with more straightforward feature coverage, of course, and I think that generally, they’re doing a good job doing so.
I don’t like the ‘six best USAF ISTAR/Transport/CAS aircraft’ type articles, personally (I’d rather have 3,000 words of in depth coverage of the U-2S than a 300 word intro, a 300 word outro, and 400 words each on U-2, RC-135, etc., but I’ll bet that some people love those articles.
I love the news section, personally. AFM do news better than anyone else. But if you already get Flight, Av Week, and JDW, and read a bunch of the blogs, or if you’re only interested in historic military stuff, you might think it a waste of pages.
Jackonickoyes, there were. Those are the ones that have gone.
JackonickoIt does if you also want it to do some QRA, take a share of the Falklands commitment, deploy overseas, and work up an enhanced A-G capability.
If, in other words, you want to use it to make up, in part, for the loss of two proper frontline units.
JackonickoOr if they decided to keep the OEU (17) and raise it to a full size squadron…………..?
Jackonicko21 Ankush,
Typhoon numbers
232 aircraft planned:
Total RAF Forward Aircraft Fleet: 137 aircraft
Seven Squadrons: 15 aircraft each (105 aircraft total)
OCU: 24 aircraft
OEU: 4 aircraft
Falklands: 4 aircraft
In-use reserves: 1 aircraft per squadron, 2 with the OCU (9 aircraft total)
Attrition and reserve: 84 aircraft
Total: 232 aircraft
The 84 aircraft reserve would allow aircraft to be rotated in and out of service to balance flying hours across the whole fleet and to sustain the force through to its scheduled out-of-service date in 2029 (and likely well beyond).
Number required to support smaller, five squadron force:
Total RAF Forward Aircraft Fleet: 101-107 aircraft
Five Squadrons: 15 aircraft each (75 aircraft total)
OCU: 18-24 aircraft
OEU: 4 aircraft
Falklands: 4 aircraft
In-use reserves: 1 aircraft per squadron, 2 with the OCU (7 aircraft total)
Attrition and reserve: 62-64 aircraft
Total: 170-178 aircraft
It may be a coincidence that existing commitments (53 Tranche 1, + 67 Tranche 2 aircraft), + 40 aircraft from Tranche 3A, would come to 160 aircraft, very close to this total.
Interestingly, CAS has given a Forward Aircraft Fleet figure of 123 aircraft.
Jackonicko“But due to liberal fascists in the government the tender had been made to fit the French plane.”
Utter nonsense. The ‘French’ :rolleyes: plane :rolleyes: (it’s not French, and a plane is a carpentry tool) is the better tanker.
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