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Old 19th Jun 2011, 10:05
  #87 (permalink)  
FODPlod
 
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Six aircraft by two sorties a night out of 200+ (using the figures in DefenseNews) are not 'quite an impression', they're single-figure percentages.
This is still 6% of the sorties by only 3% of the a/c involved so they were obviously pulling their weight.

The impression I meant was:

On the first night of Odyssey Dawn, four of the Kearsarge's six Harriers took to the skies at 4 a.m. to join other U.S. and allied aircraft halting government forces advancing on rebel-held Benghazi... Covering the 150 miles to Benghazi in about 15 minutes, the pilots saw explosions from attacks on the loyalist military vehicles that were launched by U.S. Air Force F-15s and F-16s already on the scene. The Harriers engaged the middle section of a convoy of about 50 vehicles, including Russian-built T-72 tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery pieces, which were spread along several kilometers of the highway. Dropping six GPU-12 laser-guided bombs, the Harriers destroyed four tanks, one refueling truck and an infantry fighting vehicle.

"We had indications of anti-aircraft radar activity, but were not fired on," Wyrsch said.

At 10 p.m. on March 20, four Harriers took off for a second sortie to locate and attack the remnants of the same convoy, which had been reinforced by new vehicles outside the city of Ajdabiya. Using night-vision goggles, the pilots dropped 12 GPU-12s, destroying mobile artillery and rocket launchers.

Harrier raids were suspended on the third night of operations, when two Ospreys were scrambled to pick up the pilot of an F-15E who had ejected near Benghazi after his fighter jet apparently suffered a mechanical failure. Two Harriers from the Kearsarge arrived on the scene before the Ospreys and flew low over a "suspect" group of armored vehicles... The Ospreys came in at 250 mph and under 1,000 feet of altitude, following laser designation provided by an accompanying Harrier that had a GPS reference. "We were looking at a needle and avoiding populated areas," one pilot said. They landed and retrieved the F-15 pilot.
I understand your reasons for being so scornful but this sounds pretty impressive to me.
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