I was sarcastic. in both my posts. Maybe by the time the Typhoon was engaged it came to mostly plinking old BMPs & pickup trucks, but the Rafale got in the thick of things before any SEAD had been done by anyone.
The Rafale was involved in SEAD too (SCALP-EG) and attacked at least one SAM site with AASM.

Nic

The official report doesn’t mention anything about AASMs being used on SAMs. The French conducted one early sortie against regime troop positions and were engaged by one SA-8, a radio command SAM, which was out of range and was left in tact.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR600/RR676/RAND_RR676.pdf

Throughout Unified Protector, ACC presented a flight of six F-16CJs from the
77th and 55th squadrons of the 20th Fighter Wing, based at Shaw AFB, South Carolina,
to USAFE’s 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano AB, Italy. In conjunction with a similar
number of U.S. Navy EF-18G Growlers and Italian Air Force Tornado ECR aircraft,
these planes provided the bulk of the coalition’s suppression/destruction of enemy air
defenses (SEAD/DEAD) capabilities.6

Initial strike missions began at 3 p.m. EST, when U.S. and British surface ships
and submarines fired Tomahawk cruise missiles (TLAMs) at air defense (IADS) targets,
including SA-5 sites, early warning radar sites, key communication nodes, and
other military facilities primarily along the Libyan coast (see Figure 5.2). On the first
day of Operation Odyssey Dawn, two U.S. guided missile destroyers and four submarines
fired more than 120 Tomahawk missiles at more than 20 targets. The heaviest
concentration of Tomahawk strikes took place near Tripoli and Misrata, although the
coalition also struck areas near Sirte and Zuwarah. Admiral Gortney reported that
the strikes were “very effective in significantly degrading the regime’s air defense capability
to include their ability to launch many of their SA-5s which are the long-range
surface-to-air missiles, the SA-3s and the SA-2s.”56 Additional air-to-ground strikes
from 15 USAF F-15Es and F-16s, and AV-8Bs from USS Kearsarge, along with coalition
partners and U.S. Navy EA-18G Growlers providing electronic warfare support,
took place some 10 miles south of Benghazi, where the Libyan regime forces targeted
by the initial French attack had not yet completely halted their advance on the city.

In their post-war assessment, the French point at this first strike to downplay their
reliance on U.S. assets for SEAD. This assessment is correct for this particular raid,
since no losses occurred. Libyan air defenses nonetheless identified the French raid
and engaged it with an SA-8 surface-to-air missile system, which fortunately was out
of range.12 It is, however, questionable that such a risky tactic would have worked for
the whole campaign, as the French were probably not ready to take significant risks of
aircraft losses. Therefore, this opening move might denote a divergence of operational
habits. The French, like the British, are used to making do with less.

Pilots and targeting professionals used dynamic targeting and SCAR tactics to
search for and destroy enemy forces.67 General Woodward recounted that as one of
the first SCAR packages approached Benghazi on March 19, a HARM missile fired
from an F-16CJ aircraft employing the advanced avionics/launcher interface computer
(ALIC) destroyed an activated SA-8 tactical SAM system.68

Despite France’s early accomplishment, the first days of operations relied heavily
on U.S. assets, especially ones that the French were unable to provide, including
SEAD aircraft and Tomahawk cruise missiles that conducted deep strikes against critical
infrastructure. (Of the 199 sea-launched cruise missiles fired in the first ten days,
192 were American and seven were British.* None of the missiles were French, as the
French naval equivalent, SCALP Naval, had yet to enter service.)

*This says 12 were British?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8400079/Libya-Navy-running-short-of-Tomahawk-missiles.html

Agreed, AASM brings more flexibility to target personal , defense positions, vehicles, possibly boats. Brimstone make sense, as per its origin, in rich vehicle targets environment, but I doubt it is efficient in dense urban , and against personal or reinforced defense position.

Brimstone has been used an awful lot in that environment in Libya and Syria. Used to target single rooms in building complexes. Obviously a bunker requires more than a 9kg HEAT warhead, but then 250lb bombs are generally too small for proper bunkers too. Brimstone has also been used very effectively in trials against FIAC/power boats. Bombs struggle against these fast, manoeuvrable targets. It can also be salvo fired, as many as 12 at a time. I believe the US is developing JAGM as a similar capability. And the other plus is that it provides for force commonality, bombs can’t be launched from surface vehicles/vessels and are really effective when launched from helicopters either.

British Harrier jets were armed with AIM-9L which was an important factor in the Harrier’s success in the war. Yak-38 were armed with R-60.

Nope. More to do with levels of training and flying expertise. If the Argentinians could actually fly, the air war would have been a lot harder.

It may boil down to, Exocet vs AK-630, who would win?

Wouldn’t fancy the missile’s chances against the 6 AK-630s on the Slava. And the Soviets wouldn’t have been anywhere near as kind in the type of victory they’d inflict. The UK left the Argentinian mainland alone.

Well the X-47B pretty much is a mini-bomber, sort of like an unmanned B-2 scaled down to F-117A-size.

Not in service yet. Last report I saw was that Sweden had a very small stock, bought for the testing & integration programme, & the head of the Swedish air force said that in the unlikely event of someone attacking Sweden or an equivalent emergency, he’d release those few missiles for use.

Presumably he’d do the same with production missiles between delivery & the official in-service date, but otherwise they won’t be considered to be in service until operational units are fully set up for them & they’ve been delivered to squadrons.

Oh okay, that’s what confused me.

Only Gripen has Meteor in service as far as I know.

Mmmm… why should anyone want to promote homosexuality? You’re either homosexual or not. As pointless ‘promoting’ it as it would be to promote heterosexuality.

Good question. I think the laws are more against educating them about it. But they made a big fuss about it in the UK during the last Winter Olympics in Sochi. Meanwhile Qatar wins the World Cup bid, and the only thing they find to mention about that is various corruption allegations.

But hey, there’s a lot of jobs in the RSAF sale I guess.