AR1

What is pretty amazing is that someone can be so close to a detonating weapon and still have the ability to run away from it.

draken55

"fact is that 'air' has made a major difference to this conflict, saved many lives in Benghazi, and is having a decisive impact. It just so happens that the tonka is at the forefront of it and is displaying it's ability to swing role very well"

Without the US Navy surface warships and submarines firing off significant numbers of TLACM's (our Navy added a few more to the total) initial implemenation of the NFZ would have been at greater risk of some Libyan response. We also made use of Tornado to fire off Storm Shadow.

We can destroy the Colonels armoured elements if they are a threat at much reduced risk. For the RAF the tonka must then be at the forefront, as it is all that we have that can fire Brimstone.

Our efforts and those of Canada, Norway etc, take the form of land based air. France is using land and carrier based air, the USAF and Navy land based air and the US Marines their carrier based Harrier's.

Don't think anyone doubted that air would make the difference but it took the deployment of more than just air assets to make sure that this is now so. Problem might then be what other assets will be needed to conclude this UN approved intervention if the fighting moves west around urban centres like Sirte, Tripoli etc were the use of air power alone will be harder.

Igloowhite

One of the most worrying things about the media footage coming out of the Libya fracas is the number of SA-7s which one sees in rebel hands. They have obviously captured very large numbers - where these will end-up..........

MPN11

@ Igloowhite ... I read something yesterday that suggested there is already leakage of Eastern Libya armament depot stocks to 'other places'. Not a comfortable scenario, but sadly that's what happens.

500N

MPN

I thought it was more specific than that and that AQ North Africa had
specifically jumped on the opportunity to grab some weapons including SA 7's.

.

high spirits

Draken,
If you read an earlier post of mine, I mentioned the TLAMs. Likewise its 'air' that has had the decisive impact whether it launches from a ship or land(we just happen to have stupidly chopped our own capability). The TLAMs destroyed the air defences, but it is air launched stuff that has directly halted the tanks and artiller and stopped the slaughter of benghazi. I just hope that all those tonka nay Sayers are enjoying eating their words.

MPN11

Thanks for jogging the very grey cells ... yes, that was it.

Which, drifting monstrously OT, could make life disagreeably stimulating for those helo crews addressing Somali piracy.


OK, back to Libya NFZ.

500N

MPN

"OK, back to Libya NFZ."

The thing is, I think the NFZ, supporting the "rebels" and AQ are all interwoven. The talk about "arming" the rebels has me worried.

dead_pan

I think this would be the last thing they would be used for. There's far more headline-generating civilian targets flying around the Med.

The talk in the paper today was provided limited man-portable anti-armour weaponry. The air threat has been dealt with so we won't be issuing them any MANPADs etc. Still, I am worried about the true colours of some of the rebels we are backing.

high spirits

Neither am I comfy with the rebels, but the colnel has been living on borrowed time since Yvonne fletcher and Lockerbie. If it precipitates airliners having to retro fit a rudimentry DAS then so be it.

MPN11

The suggestion was surely that MANPADS had been lifted from arms depots, not that they were being 'issued' the the 'rebels'.

It's a monstrously foggy scenario ... I have no doubt the outcomes will manifest in the next few years.

As to airline DAS fits ... hmmm.

Igloowhite

DAS on airliners has been looked-at many times, both in Europe and in the US (and of course, in Israel - who actually do it).

Here and in the US the airlines have been unwilling to pass on the enormous cost to pax and Governments have been unwilling to force the issue for fear of the knock-on implications of publicly acknowledging the reality of the threat.

If one of the unintended consequences of the Libya push is a major new injection of MANPADS (did the mad Col. G have any Gimlets? ) into the hands of 57 varieties of not such nice chaps, then major rethink required.

Easy Street

Draken55,

There are plenty of doubters out there - including many of our Army brethren who stick doggedly to the notion that only boots on the ground, or the threat thereof, can have an effect on ground and territory. The only recent example where air power, unsupported by the threat of ground intervention, can be said to have achieved its aim was the northern Iraq no-fly zone from 1991-2003, which allowed the Kurds to achieve a degree of self-rule under Saddam. The southern no-fly zone didn't save the Marsh Arabs, and the air action over Kosovo was backed up with the threat of ground intervention.

The Libya conflict could finally provide a definitive example of an air-only* campaign. Indeed Gen Dannatt has been backtracking on his comments, made whilst CGS, about RAF fast jets; understandably the 2 surviving FJ fleets are enjoying the attention and perhaps allowing themselves a quiet "I told you so". Meanwhile, the politicians are appreciating the ability to make a military intervention without the accompanying daily headlines of Pte Bloggs getting blown up; a low-political-capital option indeed, but with a price tag to compensate: hopefully PR11 will account for that!

* The purist would define sub-launched TLAM and carrier-based aircraft as "air power" - strictly, "sea-based air power".

Uncle Ginsters

Perhaps in the conventional sense, but the purist might argue (playing Devil's Advocate here) that there already are boots on the ground...albeit in the form of a rag-tag army of ill-equipped and trained rebels. Nonetheless, what air is doing here could definitely be described as support to grounded forces in some guise or other.

The overwhelming use of air power in Libya would appear to be demonstrating the size off the odds facing ground forces that can be overcome, and the limited ability required of those ground troops to hold (and even take) the ground when air has done its job so well.

FB11

Easy Street,

It's not an air only campaign.

The rebels are doing the fighting against the regime forces on the ground. Air is giving them the advantage so that they can can fight the regime troops on a more level playing field.

Plinking at a few tanks would do little if the rebels didn't follow it up with decisive land action. Just because they're not our soldiers doesn't mean they aren't land forces using their supporting forces (NATO air and maritime strike) to effect their regains of territory lost.

I don't think anyone in their right mind could say that air isn't making a difference in this foreign adventure we've embarked upon but neither is it the airman's utopia of an 'air only campaign'

500N

"Plinking at a few tanks would do little if the rebels didn't follow it up with decisive land action."

And that was, until a few days ago, the biggest problem although they now seem to be getting it together.
.

TEEEJ

SA-24 Grinch (Igla-S) were photographed in Libyan Army hands at the start of the conflict.





TJ

Fox3WheresMyBanana

Doesn't look much like the rebels are getting it together; more like the eastern portion of Gaddafi's lot have fallen apart.

Muppets with AKs on pick-ups + western air power = victory.

The Girl Guides are better organised than this lot (either side).

Not FLWs I hope. Momentum could be everything here, especially if we are able to flatten any serious armour making a stand further west. Sadly for the civilians, but Gaddafi's forces are giving us every reason to take out his forces at present.