Hangarshuffle. I too was in the COB when the locals were throwing stuff at us (07/08) and there are many and varied reasons (and some that cannot be mentioned on here) that most of the time it was US aircraft that pitched in. What you perhaps do not know is that all aircraft were allocated to the JFAC at the Deid and tasked from Baghdad according to Coalition priorities. So, as the GR4 was more capable in some areas than the F16/F18 it therefore tasked accordingly - and this task was not burning holes in the sky above Basra at 20K to lob the occasional bomb at the local in his jinglie truck who may, or may not have been actually seen in the process of lighting the blue touch paper. There's a lot more to this than just having a cheap shot at the light blue - who were just as frustrated at what was happening as you apparently were. If the truth were known, you should be casting your ire at our erstewhile "brown" colleagues - who assured me at the time that they were the most "air minded" brigade in the British Army (if they were then God help the rest of them) and assigned the task of organising their air support to a passed-over Rifles major - who to my knowledge never attended the weekly "Air Apportionment VTC". Just saying like.........
