Strike Assets
ftrplt,
Well with the amount of strike assets based here alone (12 B1's for example) and throughout the Middle East (F15E's/F16's Kuwait) and Diego Garcia (B52's, B1's), I am not suprised they didn't need the F111's. The FA18's freed up US assets in the initial phases of the ops in Iraq whilst conducting support for their tankers and AWACS platforms and then got in amongst it with CAIRS etc with the troopers.
With complete air superiority in both theatres there was nothing tactical about the arrival and departures of the strikers and fighters that would have justified the need for a low level dash capability. From the post Afghan debriefs that have been released (I might add they are still moving mud and rocks around there on a daily basis as I write) most of the ops were medium/high level and once again negating the need for deep penetration, dash capability. The B1's FL250/FL260 transit and loiter profiles testomony to that.
Off note the F15's and 16s from Kuwait set records for mission length with 4 F15's conducting a mission of 15.5 hours with 10 refuels...... breaks the previous standing record held by an F111F which was on "Eldorado Canyon" the strike on Lybia. I wonder how many refuels he had?
Also of interest is that 2 B1's can deliver more JDAM than a carrier air wing, and the Buff's and Bones delivered 73% of the ordinace in Afghanistan, just to put my comment on the availability of 12 B1's and B52's for both Afghanistan and Iraq into perspective.
You only have to look at Indonesia's response to our purchase of the extra G's, with an official complaint to the International Court because we did not "consult" them on the purchase of said machines. If that isn't a small hint that the F111 establishes itself as a deterent I am not sure what is.
Last edited by Fox3snapshot; 6th Aug 2003 at 13:02.