Ivan Rogov

Good luck to all involved.

I hope the suits have a plan. The 'easy' bit is the initial air strikes, cue puffed up grinning leaders briefing the press on how great they are. The 'bad' guys will try every trick in the book to confuse the issue and collateral damage (real or staged) would be a gift for Islamic fundamentalist’s accross the world, more fuel for the fire?

What option does Gaddafi have? If he doesn't have any then he can only stay and fight. If he goes who will fill the void? Or will we end up destabilising the region. In reality they might end up just killing each other over a longer period, the rebels will hate us for not doing more and Gaddafi supporters for intervening at all!

Lets just hope it's over before they announce the redundancies

FB11

Pol Potty Mouth,

I see you're new to the forum - a hearty welcome.

Firstly, I don't think you'll find many (any) on this forum who don't support the sailors and airmen involved in the operations last night. This isn't really a forum for posting a bunch of 'well dones'; most don't need to receive platitudes in an open forum such as this although the occasional nicety is pleasant enough.

Instead of referring to folks as blinkered fools, maybe if you raise it up a notch you can see that most are mourning the loss of flexibility the UK has in deploying and sustaining operations. The same comments about the carrier (no matter how much people believe it would have been of no value) will be said about MPA and ASTOR (on death row) as we move into embargo and NFZ ops.

It's not about the carrier in isolation, it's about the issue that we now only have the ability to mount land based fixed wing air ops as opposed to inherent flexibility you have if a choice is available.

FB11

0497

B2 bombers are making non-stop round trips from the US.

food for thought: the VLS planned for Daring T45 destroyers are not compatible with Tomahawks missiles

AR1

Its up for discussion now on Nicky Campbell's ' Big Question'..

dalek

A 3000 nm round trip. A great bit of political Grandstanding but completely impractical as a long term solution. What is wrong with Sigonella or Souda Bay?

JFZ90

T45 has Sylver launchers.

Have a read of this, re Naval Scalp.

Storm Shadow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lone_Ranger

Quote:
Now that the UK, US and France have reacted to Gaddaffi people will begin asking why we did not respond to Mugabe or even the riots in Egypt that have argueably sparked the current turmoil.
HellMan says.....


Oh brother, here we go again!

They say ignorance is bliss but please prunes .. do 5 mins research before posting!

Let me say this loud and clear as someone with 15 years in US government service with .. how shall I put this .. let's just say 'priviledged access to certain information':

The regimes in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi cannot be compared with that of Gadaffi, to understand this read: The Real Gadaffi

HM




Oh, so nothing to do with oil then

AR1

Despite my earlier dissent, I don't think it is. Libya contributes a relatively small amount to world production, behind Venezuela and others according to figures from OPEC (2%).
In the scheme of things, Libya not selling oil is far more damaging to it's economy than it is to ours.
And don't confuse any forthcoming profiteering at the petrol pumps with the impact of Libyan oil missing from the market.

Brewster Buffalo

IIRC Libya provides a provides a lot of Italy's oil also remember this

"The release of the Lockerbie bomber from prison would liberate Britain’s largest industrial company from a string of problems hampering its $900 million (£546 million) Libyan gas projects, industry sources claimed last night.BP, the oil giant, signed a deal with Libya in 2007 to explore for gas in the west of the country and offshore."

Al-Megrahi’s release ‘would free BP’ to join the rush for Libya’s oil - Times Online

0497

Danish F-16s are are operating out of Sicily. Spanish and Canadian Hornets are apparently heading there as well.

Any word on the USMC Harriers?

Madbob

My guess on why we opted on a 3,000 mile round trip is not due to the lack of forward base options but because we are so over-stretched and under-resourced that we don't anymore have the AT (air transport/logistic) "tail" to forward deploy any offensive air assets.

OK as a one-off mission I suppose, but hardly sustainable long term. Another example of military options being sacrificed as a result of SDR.

MB

Captain Radar....

I wonder if the round trip from Markham was to provide a quicker response than maybe would have been possible by forward deploying with all the necessary support required. Not much point going to another base if you haven't got a load of Stormshadows with you and somewhere to store them etc. Maybe this gives some breathing space to get that lot set up, the AT fleet must be stretched to the limit as it is without having to start a (relatively) no notice deployment to the Med. Having said that, if you only want to launch a limited number in the first (SAD) phase this is an efficient way to do it. The follow up NFZ piece I assume would be done by Typhoon based 'locally' and is probably easier to support.

Niff naff question, does anyone know how one climbs in and out of a Rafale if there is no nice big ladder available?!! Doesn't look as if the kick in F4 type step would would work, there's a heck of an overhang! Is there a drop out internal ladder?

B_Oiledup

CNN have reported that Marine Harriers carried out ground attack operations overnight.

Wrathmonk

Or perhaps it was to show that we can respond very quickly to a UNSCR resoloution whilst waiting for the logistics "train" to get to the FOB and, once it is ready, forces will deploy and continue missions from wherever that may be (as was the case in Kosovo). In both GW1 and GW2 there was months of build up to give Sadaam time to "dig in". Perhaps Col G thought he had a few more days with which to beat his citizens into submission before the bombs started knocking on his door.

I think that apart from those 'who needed to know' both the TLAM and StormShadow attacks, in terms of response time to the passing of the resoloution, will have taken most people by surprise (particularly in terms of the speed of the air response - who knows how long the sub has been parked off the Libyan coast).

The EDP is reporting at least 3 jets. So thats the 4 sqn cdrs, stn cdr and OC Ops with a seat then....!

Martin the Martian

Were these missions the first bombing raids to be launched from the UK since 1945? I know there was the Torrey Canyon, but that was target practice rather than offensive ops.

Fly safe all involved. Your professionalism is an example to everyone.

sitigeltfel

The US raids on Tripoli in 1986 were launched from the UK. They had to go the long way round as France, Italy and Spain denied overflights.

Bettino Craxi, the Italian Prime Minister at the time, gave Libya two days warning of the raids, allowing Gaddaffi to ensure he was safe.

Operation El Dorado Canyon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BunkerRat

Easy Street deserves a prize for logic and an RP appointment for... Well said my friend

Willard Whyte

I'm sure OC Admin will get in on the act by demanding a full audit of all munitions dispensed, no doubt wishing to know why receipts were not issued by the Libyan government.

Just This Once...

Storm Shadow has different capabilities to the Tomahawk and together they have a credible spread of capabilities. The RN Tomahawk community and RAF Storm Shadow community are no strangers to each other and neither the RAF or RN are imagining a future without the RN gaining a version of Storm Shadow to fire from the T45 at some point.

No willy waving between the RN and RAF on this one.

Wrathmonk

I'm sure in good old RAF tradition they will have briefed as a 6, walked as a 5, taxied as a 4 to get airborne as a 3! Plenty of room for OC Admin in there!!

Also it's amazing how far the noise of a GR4 landing travels (even with min thrust reverse) in the middle of the night!!