RAF jets in Iraq

[eharding]

dr_gn said:

Would you guys honestly want to be flying around that craphole at a low enough level to use guns on a target? Can you imagine the consequences of the aircrew being captured?

As I said, I'd want to drop whatever I'm dropping from a long, long way away.

Precisely. The reason we're spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to kill a few vehicles and their occupants - and nobody else - is because the platform capability means the operators can spend an extended time at a fair distance from the target area making absolutely sure those are the people you want to kill, before doing so whilst the clients are blissfully unaware of anything unpleasant about to happen.

Simpo is pining for the days when you could fly a 'Rhubarb' sortie shooting up steam trains, troop convoys and the occasional staff car, never getting above 500 feet AGL, and still hope to be home for lunch.

If I was an ISIL player I'd happily take my chances with Simpo and his Tucano in the vicinity - because he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.

The thought that I stand a good chance of being personally evaporated without warning from a great distance would certainly cramp my style, particularly when most days a steady stream of my fellow ISIL middle-management chums are getting the same treatment.

[Simpo Two]

IanMorewood said:

Trouble with that is range, the Tucano with stores is good for about 350 miles...

Drop tanks...? But in practicality what this really shows is how poorly equipped we are to fight such wars. My view is either do something properly or not at all - but then I'm not a politician!

If you want to keep aircrew out of danger completely - I agree IS probably aren't signatories to the Geneva Convention - then drones is the only answer I think.

(Or nukes, but they aren't very PC)

eharding said:

The reason we're spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to kill a few vehicles and their occupants - and nobody else - is because the platform capability means the operators can spend an extended time at a fair distance from the target area making absolutely sure those are the people you want to kill, before doing so whilst the clients are blissfully unaware of anything unpleasant about to happen.

Agreed. But is it a sensible exchange?

eharding said:

Simpo is pining for the days when you could fly a 'Rhubarb' sortie shooting up steam trains, troop convoys and the occasional staff car, never getting above 500 feet AGL, and still hope to be home for lunch.

Apart from the treatment of prisoners, I'm not seeing much difference to be frank.

eharding said:

If I was an ISIL player I'd happily take my chances with Simpo and his Tucano in the vicinity - because he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.

You'll never know

eharding said:

The thought that I stand a good chance of being personally evaporated without warning from a great distance would certainly cramp my style, particularly when most days a steady stream of my fellow ISIL middle-management chums are getting the same treatment.

I doubt the possibility of getting killed cramps IS's style whatsoever. They don't think the same as we do; getting killed is a bonus (martyr card).

[CAPP0]

Max_Torque said:

Apparently, the Brimstone guided bomb/missile cost £175k a pop (or a drop/bang)!

And you need a £10M Tornado, with a £6M flight crew, and a £35k/hr air time cost to take out that Hilux..........

Worth every penny, and with this evening's news I'd be VERY happy for my taxes to be increased if I were assured that every bit of the increase would be spent on rubbing out more of these fking sick fks.

[IanMorewood]

Just had a look at the RAF's page on the Reaper and apparently it's not configured to use SNEB rockets which has got to be a major oversight during the past ten years got to be useful for close air support from a couple of miles away.

[eharding]

IanMorewood said:

Just had a look at the RAF's page on the Reaper and apparently it's not configured to use SNEB rockets which has got to be a major oversight during the past ten years got to be useful for close air support from a couple of miles away.

So, how to you think an optical sighting system for the unguided SNEB, where at the best of times the millisecond reactions of the grey-eyed warrior-sky-god pressing the button was the only difference between a hit and a country mile, is going to react to the latency of the sighting and firing data being bounced off a geostationary satellite?

[IanMorewood]

Clever people would design a lead system that would compensate for the movement of the aircraft and the target?

[dr_gn]

eharding said:

dr_gn said:

Would you guys honestly want to be flying around that craphole at a low enough level to use guns on a target? Can you imagine the consequences of the aircrew being captured?

As I said, I'd want to drop whatever I'm dropping from a long, long way away.

Precisely. The reason we're spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to kill a few vehicles and their occupants - and nobody else - is because the platform capability means the operators can spend an extended time at a fair distance from the target area making absolutely sure those are the people you want to kill, before doing so whilst the clients are blissfully unaware of anything unpleasant about to happen.

Simpo is pining for the days when you could fly a 'Rhubarb' sortie shooting up steam trains, troop convoys and the occasional staff car, never getting above 500 feet AGL, and still hope to be home for lunch.

If I was an ISIL player I'd happily take my chances with Simpo and his Tucano in the vicinity - because he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.

The thought that I stand a good chance of being personally evaporated without warning from a great distance would certainly cramp my style, particularly when most days a steady stream of my fellow ISIL middle-management chums are getting the same treatment.

I guess the other good thing about something like a Tornado, high up, is that is can cover a much larger area, for much longer than a smaller aircraft at low level, and therefore if any random targets appear during a mission, there's a better chance of hitting them?

[frodo_monkey]

Dude are you on crack or have you just played a little too much Flight Sim?! Just confirm you want to use unguided rockets against targets in a low-collateral environment instead of a laser-guided missile designed to kill effectively with minimal chance of hitting something you don't want to?!

Do you think that 'drone' (or RPAS to give them their real name) operators practice high-dive weapon profiles frequently? How are you going to point the weapon at the target?!

FWIW - my quals are 400+ hrs of close air support on operations and a lot of weapons delivered successfully with no CIVCAS. Yours?

[frodo_monkey]

While we're at it, give the crap Tucano idea a rest too... If you want to spend a lot of money on a sh*tty one-trick pony with no loiter time, advanced sensor suite or smart weapons then feel free - I'd rather have a versatile multi-role machine that could fight/bomb/recce/do high-end war fighting conventionally with an ability to adapt to do CAS! F16 in fact...

[IanMorewood]

Whilst I admire your talents and don't doubt that the Tonka delivering Brimstone missiles from afar is a precise and clinical system, I'm thinking the need for such precision in these circumstances is somewhat overkill and places you at unneeded risk.

[frodo_monkey]

How so? If I drop a weapon with a higher collateral footprint and accidentally kill some civilians, doesn't that make me as bad as IS? Unguided weapons are definitely NOT the answer.

Edited by frodo_monkey on Friday 3rd October 23:52

[mph1977]

IanMorewood said:

Whilst I admire your talents and don't doubt that the Tonka delivering Brimstone missiles from afar is a precise and clinical system, I'm thinking the need for such precision in these circumstances is somewhat overkill and places you at unneeded risk.

brassing up civilians i.e what the US euphemise as 'collateral damage', in a slow flying trainer with a few guns lashed to is is better risk profile ?

[Dr Jekyll]

I suppose dropping a nuke is completely out of the question? Does the RAF even have any nukes any more?

[ecsrobin]

frodo_monkey said:

While we're at it, give the crap Tucano idea a rest too... If you want to spend a lot of money on a sh*tty one-trick pony with no loiter time, advanced sensor suite or smart weapons then feel free - I'd rather have a versatile multi-role machine that could fight/bomb/recce/do high-end war fighting conventionally with an ability to adapt to do CAS! F16 in fact...

I was shocked to find out recently a mk19 spitfire is twice as quick and can fly twice as high as a tucano. The tucano is a training aircraft and nothing else for the RAF not only is it not suitable imagine having to spend all that time training aircrew upto FJ to then make them hang around drinking tea all year round. Tax payers would go mad.

Although I'm led to believe the tucano is being looked at to get replaced in the near future.

[Simpo Two]

ecsrobin said:

frodo_monkey said:

While we're at it, give the crap Tucano idea a rest too...

Without resorting to Wikipedia, I seem to recall a thread on here in which the Tucano had roughly the same performance as a P51.

Right, so the target is a pick-up truck 500 miles away in a desert. Let's forget what's in the toybox at the moment, and start again from scratch. What's the most practical and efficient way to kill a pick-up truck 500 miles away in a desert?

[Dr Jekyll]

IanMorewood said:

the Tucano with stores is good for about 350 miles so unless you base it in Turkey you would be stuck. Turkey especially in the border regions doesn't strike me as all that safe so again you would be talking about a large scale deployment for a version of an aircraft that isn't in the UK fleet.

+1 Journalists and armchair warriors worry about tactics, senior officers worry about logistics.

[AlexIT]

Simpo Two said:

What's the most practical and efficient way to kill a pick-up truck 500 miles away in a desert?

I'd say a high altitude launch platform with guided weapons.

[magpie215]

AlexIT said:

Simpo Two said:

What's the most practical and efficient way to kill a pick-up truck 500 miles away in a desert?

I'd say a high altitude launch platform with guided weapons.

A-10 and a 50 rounds of 30mm

[anonymous-user]

AlexIT said:

Simpo Two said:

What's the most practical and efficient way to kill a pick-up truck 500 miles away in a desert?

I'd say a high altitude launch platform with guided weapons.

this^^^^

[AlexIT]

Or either fit a post 1985 diesel engine (possibly of VAG origin) in all pick-ups which will surely blow itself to pieces leaving IS stranded with a huge bill