Originally Posted by
Easy Street
I can’t be arsed to address the rest of the bilge but feel compelled to address this slur (and outright lie):
Eight losses were:
13 Jan - CFIT in Oman during theatre familiarisation training
16 Jan - shot down during low level airfield attack, famously carrying 1000lb bombs (Peters/Nichol)
17 Jan - flew into ground minutes after completing JP233 attack. SAM hit suspected but not publicly confirmed.
19 Jan - shot down during low level airfield attack. Not publicly released which weapon carried, but it is known that four of the 8-ship were armed with JP233 and four with 1000lb bombs.
20 Jan - technical failure shortly after takeoff.
22 Jan - flew into ground near target (some sources claim shot down by MiG-29). Weapon load not publicly released*
24 Jan - premature detonation of 1000lb bomb.
14 Feb - shot down by SAM during medium level LGB attack.
To my mind, being shot down counts as “enemy action” irrespective of any other causal factors which may have put the aircraft at increased risk. So of the 8 losses, ‘only’ 6 were in combat; 3 were confirmed as due to enemy action, with 2 ‘possible’; *just one* was confirmed to have no Iraqi involvement. In only one, gusting 2 cases can vulnerability during JP233 delivery be cited as a likely part of the story. How that translates to ‘most’ or ‘unfamiliarity’ is beyond me. I can only conclude that some FAA types *still* hate everything to do with Tornado after SDSR10 and don’t care about making unfounded slurs against it and some extremely courageous aircrew to support their case. Easy to forget at 30 years’ distance that Iraqi air defences were considered highly capable before the decline which ensued after the war.
I have no doubt we’ll see a couple of commenters on here saying “well he gets you RAF lot wound up nicely, why don’t you just ignore him if it’s so much rubbish?”. Ignoring him is undoubtedly the best policy in official circles, and whatever you think of politicians they are all switched-on enough to recognise the submission for what it is. Trouble is, in the cesspit of the Internet (where a list of senior endorsements is probably enough for some to take the material as credible) it’s a matter of honour to push back against material as wilfully and offensively wrong as this.
* With respect to 22 Jan, the JP233 delivery profile (being straight and level) was much less likely to result in CFIT than the extremely hazardous “loft” (actually, toss) profile used for the 1000lb bombs. So if they were carrying JP233 - which the MOD has not seen fit to confirm - the only way it’s likely to have contributed to this loss is if it led to the aircraft being hit by ground fire before crashing. There is no claim of that by either side so I don’t see how this one can be pinned on JP233 in any case.
Only one of the aircraft lost was carrying JP233 when lost.
Dave Waddington is on record that he was carrying 1,000lb bombs (19 Jan); the 22nd Jan loss of Sqn Ldrs Lennox & Weekes was flown against a radar site and I've seen (somewhere, years ago) a source describing the plan being for them to carry out a loft attack.
The MiG-29 kill is deeply questionable - the story has changed several times, I believe. First change had to be because the pilot credited with the kill had been dead for two days; second change was moving the date so that he was then credited with the 19th Jan loss, but since the crew survived and were - and are - able to describe how they were shot down (SAM), this necessitated another change to bring the loss of Sqn Ldrs Lennox & Weekes forward three days. When it was pointed out that there was a fair amount of evidence that they were most definitely still with us on the 19th, the date was shifted back to 22nd and the kill attributed to another pilot. I believe that there is now some evidence which also calls this into doubt, too (something along the lines of the pilot concerned having to eject after collecting an AIM-7 amidships and sustaining injuries which meant that he'd not have been able to fly even a paper aeroplane on 22nd Jan).