The point about the CRV-7 rockets, I think, is more that they don't seem to fit the description in the e-mail, since the RAF doesn't have the WP heads that were a feature of Jamie Loden's comments. However, Black n' Yellar's post suggests that the USMC haven't used them either....
He may have meant strafe with rockets, but we can't be sure. And there's the problem. Until he's asked, we can't be sure, and he's probably not going to appear in print to clarify whether or not he misunderstood what 'strafe' means any time soon, I suspect. Who fired the rockets/strafed, though, seems to me to be rather pointless speculation.
It seems to me that there's a serious danger here, though, of this spiralling into 'it was the RAF'/ no it wasn't/ Was/Wasn't/etc/ad nauseum/please God make it stop' argument here. And the press will love that (as the Observer this morning shows).
I'd respectfully suggest that inter-service points scoring will risk obscuring the fact that the we debate, amongst other things, whether or not this incident means that we shouldn't start demanding why the government spends
£123 Billion on Quangos (yes, that is BILLION) at a time when the armed forces are rather stretched, and whether or not it the money would be better spent elsewhere.
That might be more difficult for the press lurking here to make easy copy from than 'we hate the RAF/ Army doesn't understand air power' comments, or analysing Jamie Loden's comments based on an incomplete picture (and even the complete e-mails don't necessarily provide one).
Far more important, surely, that if the media are going to start basing stories on this thread they get not inter-service willy-waving, but reasoned debate about the wider issue of Afghanistan. At least that gives the media the chance to pick up the points and run with them, even if they choose not to.
Given that further exploration of the Treasury's treatment of defence issues might be embarrassing for Mr Strangely Broon, you'd have thought they might show more than a scintilla of interest in the subject for once - and that might , ultimately (optimist that I am) help those in near constant contact in Afghanistan get the kit and level of support that they deserve. [Sorry if that's turned into a slight rant]