V Bomber Program on More4 at 10:00pm tonight

[Eric Mc]

Black Buck happened because the RAF wanted to participate in the recovery of the Falklands. Operation Corporate was essentially a Navy led operation with (obvious) Army and Marines personnel involved in the actual land battle. Even the RAF Harier GR3s that went down with the Task Force were under Navy control. The RAF wanted to do something of their own and came up with the slightly hare brained idea of using Vulcans to bomb Port Stanley airfield.

I wonder what the RAF would be able to do if something similar happened today?

[Dunk76]

Well, as we rhetorically discussed earlier in the thread Eric, they couldn't.

Not unless they made a trip to Fairford and made off with a certain big white bird...

[B Oeuf]

Dunk76 said:

Well, as we rhetorically discussed earlier in the thread Eric, they couldn't.

Not unless they made a trip to Fairford and made off with a certain big white bird...

Don't we have enough tankers now?

[Eric Mc]

What's the range of a Tornado GR4 compared to a Vulcan
/

[B Oeuf]

Eric Mc said:

What's the range of a Tornado GR4 compared to a Vulcan
/

3890km in ferry config ie 4 underwing tanks to the big fellers 6290km

[Dunk76]

B Oeuf said:

Dunk76 said:

Well, as we rhetorically discussed earlier in the thread Eric, they couldn't.

Not unless they made a trip to Fairford and made off with a certain big white bird...

Don't we have enough tankers now?

Got me 'fords mixed up; meant Cosford.

I don't think we do, do we?

[Ledaig]

On again tonight - More 4 2100 !!!

[lost in espace]

Many thanks 13 days of 4OD left get your boots filled here

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/engineering-bri...

[DiscoColin]

Dunk76 said:

B Oeuf said:

Dunk76 said:

Well, as we rhetorically discussed earlier in the thread Eric, they couldn't.

Not unless they made a trip to Fairford and made off with a certain big white bird...

Don't we have enough tankers now?

Got me 'fords mixed up; meant Cosford.

I don't think we do, do we?

A little Wiki action says : oh yes. There are apparently 9 Tristar tankers in service (each of which can carry over 3 times as much fuel as the Victors) and 15 further VC-10 tankers. Now, if we were still operating Vulcans: Distance from Ascension to Falklands is 6112km. Range of Tristar tanker is 7785km. Range of VC-10 is 9412km. Range of Vulcan is 4171km. A VC-10 on the way out and another on the way home is all it would take (they can each carry up to 78 tonnes of fuel), and the tankers themselves would not need to refuel (AFAIK, the VC-10s can but the Tristars can't).

This also means that it would be possible to do it with Tornados quite easily (at least from a fuel standpoint) too, though with ordinance they would have to be refueled quite a few times from the accompanying tanker, which might itself need to be topped up on the way home.

Of course this is all simple maths - if someone from the Air Force would like to chime in with operational considerations I would happily bow to their knowledge, but the reason for the Black Buck missions needing so many planes was down to the Victor only having a 4000km range, so you need a lot more tankers to fuel the tankers to make the numbers add up for a 12500km round trip.

[Eric Mc]

I was just wondering how many top ups a Tornado GR4 (or even a Typhoon in ground attack mode) would need compared to the Vulcan.

Converted airliners make much better tankers than converted bombers.

[Dr Jekyll]

Eric Mc said:

I was just wondering how many top ups a Tornado GR4 (or even a Typhoon in ground attack mode) would need compared to the Vulcan.

Converted airliners make much better tankers than converted bombers.

During the first gulf war bombing raids were mounted with three Tornados to carry bombs, three Buccaneers to carry laser guidance systems, and two Victors to refuel them all.

If only the Victors had not been converted to tankers one of them could probably have done the job on it's own.

[Eric Mc]

Ironically, the Victor B2 was chosen for conversion to the K2 tanker because it was a more capable aircraft than the Vulcan.

[Dunk76]

Dr Jekyll said:

Eric Mc said:

I was just wondering how many top ups a Tornado GR4 (or even a Typhoon in ground attack mode) would need compared to the Vulcan.

Converted airliners make much better tankers than converted bombers.

During the first gulf war bombing raids were mounted with three Tornados to carry bombs, three Buccaneers to carry laser guidance systems, and two Victors to refuel them all.

If only the Victors had not been converted to tankers one of them could probably have done the job on it's own.

The combat range of a GR4 is around 1400kms (although I presume this includes some high speed mucking about, rather than an economic cruise with high-speed bombing run at the end).

Tellingly, the GR4's payload is almost that of the Vulcan. I'd imagine the Tonker's nav and guidance systems are more efficient than the V-Bombers stuff.

[Eric Mc]

Most people's cars have a more accurate nav system than a Vulcan.

[Talksteer]

Dr Jekyll said:

Eric Mc said:

I was just wondering how many top ups a Tornado GR4 (or even a Typhoon in ground attack mode) would need compared to the Vulcan.

Converted airliners make much better tankers than converted bombers.

During the first gulf war bombing raids were mounted with three Tornados to carry bombs, three Buccaneers to carry laser guidance systems, and two Victors to refuel them all.

If only the Victors had not been converted to tankers one of them could probably have done the job on it's own.

Not sure how well the Victors would have done if anyone had shot at them though...

Incidentally the original preference for Black Buck was to have used Buccaneers which could in theory have used laser guide bombs against port Stanley most probably with very decisive results. If they had knocked out the Argentine long range radar there Argentine attacks on British shipping would have been far less effective.

The issue with the Buccaneers was that they vented their oil overboard during operation rather than scavenging it filtering it and sending it though again. As a result the RAF were not confident that the Buccaneer could run for 18 hours without topping up the oil.

The RAF Tornadoes could have completed the mission but the first of them had only entered service 5 months ago, a mere 8 years after the types first flight.....

Actually thinking about the Falklands war I was surprised the RAF didn't do a number of things:

1. Ship out some Harrier T4s wired for carrige of the Pavespike LGB pods the RAF used on the Bucaneer.
2. Equip the Harrier with a buddy re-fuelling pod as on the A4, this would allowed the task force to strike the Argentine mainland, using the aforementioned laser guide bomb capability they would have been able to make a decent stick of knocking out some of the more important Argentine air assets.

I know we had the artificial construct of the "exclusion zone" but I think any restrictions on attacking the Argentine mainland were primarily there as it was believed that the UK had no more than a token ability to do so, so any attack would have been needles escalation.

[eccles]

DiscoColin said:

A little Wiki action says : oh yes. There are apparently 9 Tristar tankers in service

There's only 6, 704, 705 and 706 are passenger only.

[B Oeuf]

Dunk76 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Eric Mc said:

I was just wondering how many top ups a Tornado GR4 (or even a Typhoon in ground attack mode) would need compared to the Vulcan.

Converted airliners make much better tankers than converted bombers.

During the first gulf war bombing raids were mounted with three Tornados to carry bombs, three Buccaneers to carry laser guidance systems, and two Victors to refuel them all.

If only the Victors had not been converted to tankers one of them could probably have done the job on it's own.

The combat range of a GR4 is around 1400kms (although I presume this includes some high speed mucking about, rather than an economic cruise with high-speed bombing run at the end).

Tellingly, the GR4's payload is almost that of the Vulcan. I'd imagine the Tonker's nav and guidance systems are more efficient than the V-Bombers stuff.

Ah but 3890km in ferry config ie 4 underwing tanks compared to the big fellers 6290km. Tonks would only need one laser guided weapon to achieve the task surely?

[Dunk76]

B Oeuf said:

Dunk76 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Eric Mc said:

I was just wondering how many top ups a Tornado GR4 (or even a Typhoon in ground attack mode) would need compared to the Vulcan.

Converted airliners make much better tankers than converted bombers.

During the first gulf war bombing raids were mounted with three Tornados to carry bombs, three Buccaneers to carry laser guidance systems, and two Victors to refuel them all.

If only the Victors had not been converted to tankers one of them could probably have done the job on it's own.

The combat range of a GR4 is around 1400kms (although I presume this includes some high speed mucking about, rather than an economic cruise with high-speed bombing run at the end).

Tellingly, the GR4's payload is almost that of the Vulcan. I'd imagine the Tonker's nav and guidance systems are more efficient than the V-Bombers stuff.

Ah but 3890km in ferry config ie 4 underwing tanks compared to the big fellers 6290km. Tonks would only need one laser guided weapon to achieve the task surely?

Well that's the difference between a dedicated heavy bomber, and a multi-role strike aircraft with the payload of a heavy bomber. The Tornado can bomb with the Vulcan, but only if it relinquishes range.

Personally, trusting one Tornado with one bomb for one runway is asking for failure.

[B Oeuf]

Dunk76 said:

B Oeuf said:

Dunk76 said:

Dr Jekyll said:

Eric Mc said:

I was just wondering how many top ups a Tornado GR4 (or even a Typhoon in ground attack mode) would need compared to the Vulcan.

Converted airliners make much better tankers than converted bombers.

During the first gulf war bombing raids were mounted with three Tornados to carry bombs, three Buccaneers to carry laser guidance systems, and two Victors to refuel them all.

If only the Victors had not been converted to tankers one of them could probably have done the job on it's own.

The combat range of a GR4 is around 1400kms (although I presume this includes some high speed mucking about, rather than an economic cruise with high-speed bombing run at the end).

Tellingly, the GR4's payload is almost that of the Vulcan. I'd imagine the Tonker's nav and guidance systems are more efficient than the V-Bombers stuff.

Ah but 3890km in ferry config ie 4 underwing tanks compared to the big fellers 6290km. Tonks would only need one laser guided weapon to achieve the task surely?

Well that's the difference between a dedicated heavy bomber, and a multi-role strike aircraft with the payload of a heavy bomber. The Tornado can bomb with the Vulcan, but only if it relinquishes range.

Personally, trusting one Tornado with one bomb for one runway is asking for failure.

From the point of reliabilty or bomb accuracy?.......you might have a point, but maybe 2 Tornados with a couple of bombs apiece? which brings us back to tanker capability again, I still think it could be done......with some spares liberated from the scrappies and plenty of bodge tape

[Eric Mc]

The heavy bomber is almoost dead as a concept now. The last US one was the B2 and the last Russian the Tu-160. Both are over 20 years old now.