nocutstoRAFGiven that they started work to clear Paveway IV on the Typhoon in June 09, and they did the first live drop using the avionic systems on the March 7th, what is left to do before releasing the Paveway IV for operational use on the Typhoon?
nocutstoRAFHowever on your second paragraph last time I checked nobody had decleared war on Lybia. this is supposed to be an enforcement of No-fly zone plus the defence of civilians from military action against them….
My question to you and all who think like you:
What should the Coalition forces do if the Lybian “rebels” attack Syrti and start killing civilian supporters of Gaddafi? Doesn’t the resolution hold for those civilian lives being in danger from militant groups?
I think you missed my point, the no-fly zone is inherently an act of war, you are taking away a Sovereign Countries right’s, by its very nature you are at war. I suspect that is why US Def Sec Gates was so opposed to it. If you are at war, then you need to expect the other side (i.e. Gaddaffi) to shoot back so you take out his equipment that could harm your aircraft and ships. This is a separate issue to protecting the civilian population.
As we are not going to put boots on the ground I fail to see how we can do anything about either side attacking civilians on the other side with small arms.
nocutstoRAFWhy use Refales and in short while Typhoons mostly (or at least keep Rafales in the front of publicity) as opposed to other assets like Super Etandars and Tornados.
Why use Brimstones and not Hellfire or Maverics on targets out in the open desert.
Why keep on attacking any military target on site like Antiship missiles when the coalition role demanded by UN, is to save civilian lives and keep the restricted air-zone.
The UK are only using the Typhoon’s for A2A roles, while are Tornado’s are doing A2G. As far as I can tell the UK does not have any stocks of Maverick’s left, they stopped being mentioned on the RAF web-site. Plus I am not an expert, but googling for images of RAF Tornado’s with Maverick’s has turned up zilch, suggesting we only ever cleared the Maverick for the Harrier.
Finally, we are at war with Libya, unless you assume that you can have a no-fly zone and embargo without being at war, this means you need to neutralise anything that might pose a threat to your ships or aircraft. So I see anti-shipping missile batteries as legitimate targets.
@DEFCON4
Interesting story, really hammer’s home the uses of LRMPA and what the UK gave up when we cancelled MRA4 🙁
nocutstoRAFSo far there is no record of an F-15E loss due to a systems failure in the peacetime. The only claimed malfunctions were both over the war zones:
– 88-1694 over Iraq in April 2003
– 90-0231 over Afghanistan in July 2009Now another one over Libya. Quite strange if you ask me..
Does anyone know if they normally restrict the G’s pulled by F-15E’s during peace time training? The reason I ask is I just read a story on Hungarian Mig-29’s which are showing significant fatigue as they keep pushing them to the limits in training and pulling 9G manoeuvre’s, so is it possible the F-15E’s are fine under normal conditions but more prone to failure at military thrust, with full payloads while pulling high G forces?
nocutstoRAFHe also suggests that Type 45 is perfect for air policing over Libya, of course ignoring the minor fact that 1) Its not fully capable of operating its primary weapon system yet. 2) How do you make sure your not shooting down the wrong target.
Are there still problems with good old Sea Viper then? I thought Aster 30 had been fully cleared for operations?
nocutstoRAFPrince of Wales will get the Cats, almost certainly.
Queenie apparently will be built with the Sky Jump even though the jump jet has been dropped and now she’ll be a replacement for HMS Ocean more than a carrier.
While I suspect you are right, simply because leaving the decision to 2012 about which catapult system to use is simply to late to make the changes needed, is it too late to make some modifications to QE to make her a better assault carrier (remove the ski jump, add a well deck, possibly add some additional weapons as she will be expected to operate closer to shore than PoW would)?
EDIT: Also would it not make sense to reverse the names, just in case they do dispose of the first carrier, so we do not have the embarrassment of selling QE and keeping PoW, when from a naming point of view it would be more acceptable to sell a ship called PoW than it would be QE.
nocutstoRAFThanks Swerve for the info, the bits and pieces I had read suggested Italy was keeping a rather low profile, though this sounds like its selective bias in newspapers articles rather than reality based on what you said, I guess it’s not really news if Italy has ships in the Mediterranean. For example the only story I found today with regard to Italy was about several more boat loads of illegal immigrants from Tunisia turning up on an Italian island.
Still I do wonder why RN selected Westminster over Albion to send, or did not send some of our Bay’s to Tunisia, or why we did not just hire a cruise ship, or some ferry’s if we plan to help move by sea Egyptian refugees from Tunisia to Egypt.
nocutstoRAFI can understand the need for Mistral, Kearsarge and Ponce, but there are a lot of escorts there, and Italy has yet to send anything. Plus as HMS Albion is ready to deploy why did we send HMS Westminster instead Albion, especially as it was meant to replace HMS York, but York now seems to be staying in the area.
nocutstoRAFI see on the news today that HMS York is still in the area, available to help the evacuation and HMS Westminster is steaming into the area in support of operations, is HMS Cumberland still in the area? There seems to be good deal of war ships moving into the area, supposedly to evacuate refugee’s, but what with USS Kearsarge and Ponce in the area, Canada sending HMCS Charlottetown and French sending Mistral and a frigate, are we seeing a prelude to some sort of military operation, as surely chartering ships would be better than sending frigates to evacuate civilians?
nocutstoRAFHow far inland can SAMPSON (the shorter-range of the two radars on Type 45) see?
Last time I heard, or even checked I heard someone, I think from the RN a few years ago that if you put a single T45 Destroyer in the centre of the Thames river, it’ll be able to defend the whole of London from air threats.
Watching the BBC documentary on the T45 last year, it seemed that the T45 could from the south west coast of Britain see all of UK airspace with regard to tracking aircraft, and since I simply suggesting using the T45 as an air controller (with a Sentry covering the south for same reason) I thought it would be a good test of T45’s abilities if it could vector in fighter’s to intercept Libyan jets or helicopters.
You might be right Swerve about the attack helicopters, as it looks like its ~500 miles from the South to major towns on the Northern coast, though I was imagining that Chad might be sympathetic to Libya and allow then to stage via Chad, and fuel dumps in the desert, but that might all be more hassle than its worth.
Picking up Distiller’s point that they need to impose the no-fly zone sooner rather than later, given that the tipping point for use of chemical weapons will be in the next few days, it seems to me we need a two stage plan (BTW wasn’t there a thread on this very subject a while ago?). A quick and dirty no-fly zone from various air bases in the Med, then if Kaddafi holds Tripoli for the long term, we will need to go with a more permanent no-fly zone, then we should try to lease or set up airbases in Egypt and Algeria or Tunisia (depending if there is any infrastructure in the SE of Algeria).
Finally, should we be involving Russia in the no-fly zone, allow them to deploy a flight of flankers or fulcrums from RAF Akrotiri, so that they do not cause long terms problems over the no-flight zone? I would imagine they would say no, but at the same time they must be scared that their influence over Libya is going down the pan and they could kiss goodbye to their arms sales.
nocutstoRAFI was thinking of the T45 as some sort of air controller, vectoring in our Typhoons (or F3’s) to suspect contacts so that they can then visually ID the contacts.
Now I am off to watch Royal Navy Caribbean Patrol 🙂
nocutstoRAFWell the French are our new best buddies, and they did get the clever idea of being the first to fly in humanitarian aid to Eastern Libya. The only rule we need to insist on is they cannot fly any of their Rafale’s off the CdG as otherwise we will get carrier envy.
On a more serious note I think we could also use policing the no-fly zone to test out the T45, as Sampson is meant to have some decent overland capabilities, and it could be place at one end of a “do not cross” line, and they could then use a Sentry’s to police the other end of the line, as I think that there is a real risk of helicopters flying nap of the earth sneaking in from the southern Libya, possibly through Chad. Given that the Eastern Libya forces seem to lack MANPAD’s or much in the way of training, attack helicopters are a real threat.
nocutstoRAFThanks Fedaykin.
Just read the story, Germany’s reluctance would suggest that it might be hard for NATO to agree to set up a no-fly zone, plus I worry about how it might actually fan the flames in the region.
Surely we can persuade the interim military Government in Egypt to set up a no-fly zone of Eastern Libya?
Still it would be great test of the Typhoon, especially if we set up safe zones as well as we would be able to show its ISTAR capabilities as well.
nocutstoRAFAlso, the article is for subscribers only, would it be possible to provide at least a small part?
Or the full title (assuming this does not break copyright rules), as if we use Google we can see the article.
nocutstoRAFFinger’s crossed Swerve that the Government will stick with the plan as if it true we will only get a maximum of eight T26 (as per 90inFirst’s post) we are definitely going to have to keep as many of our T23’s in service for as long as possible.
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