It's a shame that the ROE thread has gone, although predictable.
It seems that ROE are the British Government's dirty little secret, although not much of a secret since they are saying that no civilian casualties have been caused thus far in the Iraq/Syria air strikes. Ergo we only drop when there are definitely no civpop in the vicinity. Not exactly rocket science for ISIL.
But how well does this strategy really serve us and the subjugated of Raqua? Pretty well tells ISIL that they are safe in a populated urban environment as long as they ensure some civilians are within a typical blast radius. What about the situation where ISIL are about to enter and occupy a town and could be hit, but there are a few (10 or so) non-combatents in the close vicinity. The RAF can't drop a bomb/missile and so ISIL go on and enter the town and proceed to round up 100 civilians for execution. Who is well served in that situation? certainly not the denizens of the town that has just been taken. And because we are not really being effective, hey presto the, the whole thing just goes on and on and people begin to wonder if these expensive planes and missiles are worth anything? Then they start calling for ground troops and air power gets generally dismissed as not being a decisive option.
I also question why some PPRUNERs are so sensitive over 'OPSEC'? The outlines of the ROE are pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain. I am sure no serving military would ever post the exact nature of the ROE on this forum, so why can't we speculate and admit the obvious? It is this shutting down of all other (informed or not) opinion that led us into the whole Iraqi WMD / years in Afghan.
Flug