False information - bombs on target?

[Maple 01]

I found this little gem on the MoD website

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/542510A4-C270-4AE3-8AC0-9E1DA49CD7D8/0/A4x300dpi.jpg

Perhaps I'm being bit thick but can anyone explain how one aircraft, presumably a Tornado, can destroy 12 tanks in one go without going nuclear?

[Safety_Helmut]

Brimstone ?

[Maple 01]

Working on a theoretical PK rate of 100%!

[Talk Wrench]

Just The Beancounter Graphical Squadron showing Joe Public and the Mil that cutbacks really do work :sad: :sad: :sad: :sad:



TW

[FrogPrince]

I too saw this propaganda and had to scratch my head. No mention was made of how the single airframe could be in two or more places at once.

So...

I found this useful link for the DPA to follow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS

P.S. Did you know...

"Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation directly aimed at influencing the opinions of people, rather than impartially providing information..... Strictly speaking, a message does not have to be untrue to qualify as propaganda, but it may omit so many pertinent truths that it becomes highly misleading."

[The Rocket]

What a load of misguided 4rse

Surely the 21 aircraft, dropping a thousand pounder each, would have been ONE Vulcan/Victor in 1970?:confused:

And in the 90's rather than 6 A/C to destroy a HAS, would it not have been at worst, ONE Tornado, and a ONE designator Bucc, to destroy a handful?:confused:

Surely it should show how in 1970, we had for example 1 Gp Capt per 200 men

And in 2006 we've progressed to 1 Gp capt per 20 :ugh:

Safety_Helmut,

Perhaps if they could get Brimstone to hit what the Pilot asks for, and not just pop off for a little bimble before it hits what it feels like, it could indeed destroy 12 tanks in one strike:oh:

[SRENNAPS]

I find this propaganda quite insulting to our past aircrew.

[passpartout]

No, I don't think it's an insult to previous generations.

It is a fact that a Tornado can drop bombs more accurately now than a Vulcan (or Canberra, or Lancaster, or Whitley etc) could in the past. A GR4 is capable of greater accuracy now than it was even 5 years ago.

But to claim that one Tonka with 4 Brimstone weapons can destroy 12 tanks is ridiculous, and the RAF potentially sets itself up for a fall:

"So, Gp Capt, I thought these new weapons of yours couldn't miss? So why did one tank get through and wreak havoc on our infantry?"

[Melchett01]

Perhaps I'm being bit thick but can anyone explain how one aircraft, presumably a Tornado, can destroy 12 tanks in one go without going nuclear

Well if you'd said Apache, I'd have to had said don't be stupid! The tail will be off after the first salvo:\

As for Brimstone, usually carried on racks of 3, so 4 racks would in theory be capable of hitting 12 tanks. There's just nothing to say WHOSE tanks they would hit ..... theirs or ours! Great cold war weapon against hordes of Ruskies streaming across the German plains into kill boxes. A nightmare now, largely in ROE terms, get yourself a good lawyer if you plan on using them - I certainly wouldn't want to volley fire them into an area

[SRENNAPS]

[QUOTE=passpartout]No, I don't think it's an insult to previous generations.

Oh, I think it is.

In world War 2, many singleton Hurricanes or Mosquitos took out several tanks.

In Aden a single Hunter could take out half a convoy of vehicles.

In the 70's a Phantom could do just about anything - USAF Tombs proved that in Vietnam.

1980,s one aircraft could fly several thousand miles and scare the crap out of the Argies.

1990's - GW1 - Two aircraft could take out a HAS. One Tornado carrying a bomb and one Buccaneer carrying a pod. Several weeks later one Tonka could carry both. Many pics around to prove it.

The above reading is fact. The last two pics in the link have yet to be proved.

YES I do feel the pic is an insult to our previous aircrew.

PS Sorry to "The Rocket" for repeating what you have stated.

[HEDP]

Personally I think anyone who fires them in singles as well will need a good lawyer, one of the main tenets of ROE being a visual identification of the target and that just leaves the chances of it going for any old target anyway!

[The Rocket]

SRENNAPS,

No worries fella, isn't it really frustrating seeing pictures like that, knowing that it's all just a bunch of self congratulating cr4p for the beancounters, who have no real knowledge of the difference between "Paper Capability" and "Actual Capabiltity".

I await the day I see posters telling the youth of tomorrow how it used to take 10 F3's to shoot down one Discus glider, and 8 GR4's to knock out a single AK47 armed Shogun:ugh:

[SASless]

The JDAM product improvement program may add a terminal seeker for precision guidance and other system improvements to existing JDAMs to provide the Air Force with 3-meter precision and improved anti-jamming capability. The Air Force is evaluating several alternatives and estimates that the seeker could be available for operations by 2004. The seeker kit could be used by both the 2,000-pound blast fragmentation and penetrator JDAMs.

Now I would reckon a B-52 could carry a few of these dis'tings and accomplish the job. A 2,000 pound GBU-31 within three meters might take care of business.:ok:

[MajorMadMax]

Actually, it looks quite easy if you can get the enemy to tightly gaggle all his tanks in one location like in the graphic! :ok:

[foldingwings]

I think you'll find chaps, that during GW1, the Buccs eventually got tired of supporting the Tonkas and eventually took out a number of targets with self-designated PWs.

However, back to the MOD graphic, whilst there is, indeed, an element of artistic licence from a Weapons Effort Planning perspective, the facts stated both historical and contemporary are pretty close to accurate for an unclass depiction.

FW

[tablet_eraser]

It's disingenuous to claim that a smaller military is inherently more capable than a large military. Although we have to accept that there is a dividend to be taken from more accurate weapons, the beancounters have a distinct inability to understand the implications of fewer platforms for those weapons.

I think the single best example is the cut to the surface fleet of the RN. Hands up who thinks 25 destroyers and frigates can do as much as 36? Anyone? No, I thought not. You can fit all the superb weapons you want, but if you don't have enough platforms to conduct all of the missions you need to conduct, you may as well have kept what you had before. Common sense says that if one aircraft can now take out 3 HASs, those 6 in 1990 could take out 18. So why cut back?

[foldingwings]

Clearly a strong grasp of air-delivered weapons that are in our inventory today but that weren't in 1990, Tablet Eraser - I think not.

Now, without going into the depths of classification, and maybe the Mods should close this thread before anybody else does, just think Storm Shadow and Brimstone for a bunker/HAS and a tank respectively and all will come clear.

The graphic, as I said in my earlier post, suffers only in its depiction from artistic licence. Factually and technically it is correct.

I'm afraid it doesn't compare to your analogy, T-E, of warships then and warships now. The facts are, smart weapons cut it, dumb weapons don't! More importantly, very smart weapons that equate to one weapon one target cut it the best.

FW

[lightningmate]

Always providing the cost of the 'very smart weapons' is not either prohibitive or limits numbers procured to a level that exhausts the inventory after Wave 2 releases their stores.

lm

[Maple 01]

The graphic, as I said in my earlier post, suffers only in its depiction from artistic licence. Factually and technically it is correct.

As long as you accept that the bad guys have no anti-air capability and that they know nothing about decoys, jamming and deception! And assuming that Biggles can make uninterrupted runs over the target area - oh, and a PK of 100%

Still confident foldingwings?

[tablet_eraser]

FW,

The case I was attempting (admittedly clumsily) to make is that the potency of today's weapon systems is limited by the number of platforms we have to deploy them on. I certainly was not claiming that today's weapons are no better than those in the 90s - quite the opposite.

I simply believe we have gone the wrong way by ditching aircraft that could be used to deploy the massive force we have at our disposal with such weapons as Paveway, Brimstone, etc. You're right that the graphic is technically accurate - thank God they didn't include a comparison with the RAF of WWII, when appx 8 out of 1000 bombs fell on-target. I fear, though, that it is trying to make the case that smaller is necessarily better; that is not the case. The fact that we are smaller reflects the accuracy of the weapons. I don't think that is the cause or the aim of last year's defence cuts, though.

[foldingwings]

Maple,

As long as you accept that the bad guys have no anti-air capability and that they know nothing about decoys, jamming and deception! And assuming that Biggles can make uninterrupted runs over the target area - oh, and a PK of 100%
Still confident foldingwings?

Now that's a different argument that perhaps should not be discussed here on a public forum. However, why would we want to make multiple or 'uninterrupted runs' over the target area. That's what the weapons are designed to do, not the aircraft.

Save to say that both weapons in question have significant accuracy and significant killing power. Indeed, one can be delivered with virtual impunity!

So, Yes, quietly confident.

T-E,

That's the very point, surely. The same number of targets prosecuted by fewer more effective aircraft with modern smart weapons. It is stretching it a bit to suggest that the graphic is telling the world that a smaller air force is a better air force.

FW

PS. I'm going for a malt now, before this exchange ends up like MSN Messenger!

[Danny_Boy]

I was just pleased to see that in the bottom middle picture, our corporate PR gurus have pluralised the 1 aircraft shelters. This poster must have been endorsed at at least SO1 level, probably higher. Fills me with confidence in our leaders.

[Onan the Clumsy]

No mention was made of how the single airframe could be in two or more places at once.

Well, schroedinger discussed a similar situation with his cat and a box. Maybe the aircraft was in a superstate :8

[Maple 01]

why would we want to make multiple or 'uninterrupted runs' over the target area.

Have multi-layered air defence systems been abolished or are out of fashion? No runs into target through hot MEZs? Blimey, the world has moved on – anyone want to buy a second-hand S-300?

The official assessment by the UK MoD confirmed the tremendous 96% hit capability, albeit achieved under range conditions (real combat conditions usually show lower hit capabilities for virtually all of the world’s weapon types).

So in an ideal world the 100% thing is rubbish, never-mind a real shooting war

All this is not meant as a criticism of Brimstone, just the over optimistic propaganda being passed off as fact by the MoD

[ZH875]

why would we want to make multiple or 'uninterrupted runs' over the target area.

So we can select the weapons switches on the second pass....:ok: .