John,
To quote from the letter you've reproduced, and counter some points.
It is not, however, happening in Afghanistan, where our soldiers are poorly supported by the Tornado
An opinion.
This is not surprising, as it was not designed to operate in the close air support role and the ‘hot and high’ conditions of Afghanistan.
A fact. But was the Harrier designed to operate as organic fleet air defence? Or was it sucessfully adapted to the role later in it's life?
It is understood that one aircraft has been lost, and another very badly damaged, because of the difficulty of operating the Tornado from the one runway available at Kandahar.
It is understood by who? Those who operate Tornado from KAF on a daily basis, who know and understand the reasons these incidents occured, and are fully up to speed on the necessary techniques to mitigate these hazards? Does Mr Dow have access to the causes of these two incidents, or is this simply further conjecture? To pin the blame on the Tornado is to ignore several large parts of the picture.
Because it was not designed for this task the Tornado necessarily takes much longer to get airborne from alert and has a very poor mission reliability, with many planned missions cancelled every month. This has resulted in the US Air Force having to step in, to ensure that our troops get the support where and when it is needed.
Prove it, if you can. Or, more to the point, prove that this is the fault of Tornado. What are you measuring - aircraft launched versus planned sorties? Or air requests serviced? Every unit with a half-awake BALO ought to be submitting air requests for every time they go out on the ground. Rightly, these are prioritised and air support allocated at a level far higher than Tornado Ops in KAF, using a process which really doesn't need to be discussed here. I certainly don't recall any lost sorties during my periods in theatre. Furthermore, does Mr Dow have access to the response times from the 'hooter' to wheels-up? Or is this simply further rehashing of commonly accepted untruths? Statistics are like a lamp post to a drunken man. More for leaning on than illumination.
This is in stark contrast with the record of the Harrier, which spent five years in Afghanistan and achieved a spotless mission accomplishment record.
Again, prove it. With real metrics and real numbers.
All this was achieved with far fewer aircrew and engineers than the Tornado requires.
Something to do with the design of the jets differing, maybe? I wasn't aware that the 'footprint' of the deployed unit was a deliverable...
The Harrier was designed for close support of ground forces, operating from austere bases, and it is arguably world class for that mission.
Concur.
Perhaps the time has come to face the realities that a specialist aircraft is needed in such difficult and limited circumstances, and to redeploy the Harriers for at least as long as UK remains in Afghanistan.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Dow
The only point which stands in the letter is that the Harrier was world-class for CAS and did a spectatular job in Herrick. The rest is thinly disguised Tornado-bashing and I challenge him to prove his claims with fact.
Just because Harrier was excellent, it doesn't follow that Tornado cannot do the job adequately, and it is blinkered to deny that there are any areas where Tornado has an advantage.
I'm afraid to say that although the Harrier force seems to have stood down with dignity, it certainally seems it's supporters aren't going to. Yes it was an excellent aircraft, in the finest tradition of many excellent British aircraft which have gone before. Let its departure reflect its service!
Blunty.
And to add, I've not heard anyone from the Tornado world throwing mud at the Harrier force....