Lazer Hound
You really need to a bit of air power study. The main assets
requested by the US for operations Afghanistan were SF, tankers - which provided some 25% of all USN and USMC tanking during the op (just as a bit of Air Power education the USN and USMC use the same AAR system as the RAF so get over yourself), ISTAR and recce assets. The recce was mainly provided by the Canberra. Why? Because the USAF DID NOT HAVE an equivalent capability. E3 and R1, again because we have them and they were not commited elsewhere. We did not commit fast jets because we do not have long range bombers the equivalent of the B52, B1 and B2. All tac air was provided by the USN and USMC from carriers supported
by the RAF tanker force.
Furthermore perhaps you should go and ask the USN and USMC crews who vastly prefer RAF tanker support than USAF, because the RAF crews are prepared to go anywhere at anytime to help out the important fighter/bomber crews. And if you still need more info ask the GAF Tornado crew who were tanked out of a probable ejection by an RAF Tristar that got shot at in the process. I believe the captain got a DFC for that one!!
Then you could ask why the US ask for our recce and ISTAR assets. But if you don't
know then you probably aren't cleared to know.
In GWII Storm Shadow was used before it had completed all company tests and it worked, again the US asked for this because they did not have an equivalent capability. If you have to compare weapons dropped then of course the USAF is going to drop more than the RAF and by a significant margin - 1 B52 can drop as many bombs, in one go, than an entire Sqn of Tornados. But then in case you hadn't noticed we don't own any B52s!!!!
All your bo
cks about statistics are fine and good, but when you are talking about numbers of aircraft commited to an op you are talking about GOVERNMENT POLICY, not RAF policy. The beancounters in HMT and the MOD set the numbers, of all forces, that are to be contributed to any one op, not anyone else. You can always go and look in the SAG Scenarios book to find out what the contributions are - you do have access to that, don't you? When you compare the US contribution to these ops any UK contribution is going to be tiny. How many boats did the RN commit compared to the USN/USMC? How many troops as % of total forces did the UK commit when compared to the US? The percentages are equally small.
rafloo. It's professional, if that is an indication of the state of the RN at L-o-O then it's time to get out.