Mmm, some interesting comments here!
Firstly, Impinger,
As someone who flew during Allied Force, whilst the brief contribution that the SHAR force made was political, and contributed very little, I would still have rather have had an FA2 with AMRAAM on the FYROM CAPS than the Italian Tornado F3s or AIM-9L only Portugese F-16s that were sometimes there.
Duck Dodgers,
On the swing side however, it is frankly highly insulting to suggest that the Bruggen Tornado Wing achieved 'very little' during OAF. They flew some of the most demanding missions against some exceptionally well defended targets; the mission to Obrva on 1 May 99 being a fine example of obtaining good results in the face of intelligent and aggressive use of IADS, SAM and AAA. Whilst their initial use from Bruggen did obviously require AAR support, this was no more or less than the F-15Es from the UK, or the F-117s and other assets from Spangdalen. Indeed, the GR1 routing from Bruggen was partly dictated by US wishes to keep the war in the North of Serbia to themselves via the notorious 'Black' ATO, but don't get me started on that or I'll get all anti Spam again! Once the Tornado's were redeployed to Corsica in the closing week, the AAR issue was gone. Despite the distorted stats that came out after OAF regarding weapons effectiveness, the Bruggen Wing contributed much to OAF when compared to other assets.
Secondly, having flown alongside the F3s during TELIC from PSAB, it could indeed be argued that they achieved nothing. However, they flew exactly the same CAPS deep into Iraq from the outset that the USAF F-15Cs did, and they are not swing role either!!!! Are you suggesting that they F-15Cs achieved nothing?! DCA/AD can be a victim of its own success. Just because they didn't gain any kills, does not make them a failure!!!! It is just as much of a success (if not more so) when aggressive CAPs over hostile airbases ensure that the bad guys do not wish to even step inside the aircraft to challenge the strike assets. Nevertheless, OC 111 did blub like a girl when we nicked the 43/111 Op TELIC Standard!!!!
However, whilst I would question your assertion that the small FA2 budget is 'tiny' given what the fleet is capable of, I still agree that the loss of the SHARs AMRAAM capability is a huge and potentially fatal blow to RN power projection.
Regards,
M2