Answer yes or no to the RAF bombing Syria this coming week.

[Pontius Navigator]

OAP, that might seem obvious but not necessarily true. I can't remember the F4 but think there was some issue with AIM7.

Winchester isn't the issue but balance might be for carriage of other stores.

[Onceapilot]

TBH Pontious, I am not privvy to the Typhoon RTS. But nowadays () incompatible stores fits are not de rigueur.


OAP

[Hangarshuffle]

MODs please lock this thread.

The votes done, the bombings started, this thread is history. Look how its decaying..Please, put it down, its sad now. Take it to Threadnitas...strap it to Brimstone and fire it at a Technical, just stop it.

[Above The Clouds]

Hangarshuffle

As you are the OP you can delete the whole thread if it no longer suits your purpose.

[Flugplatz]

Courtney Mil. Thank you, I think on reflection you are right. The ROE flow from the policy. Pity the policy sometimes seems to be built around the PR campaign and a wish to make warfare seem a pick-and-choose technological game. I really hope we have learnt something and if Chilcott had got off his backside, the recent MPs' debate might have used his report to be better informed.

I still truly hope the RAF are getting the right policy and suitable ROE, otherwise we have pretty much sent them on a fool's errand. The public now have a perception that airpower can make a difference (if not actually decisive). This time next year I think people are going to want to see a quantifiable difference made by all of the bombing. The fact that we seem to be going for the oil wells gives me some confidence that we're not just stuck on first base.

I was serving during the Blair/Hoon years, and now I tend to have very sensitive skin and an over-developed 'bulls..t detector' when it comes to the claims of politicians and some of our senior officers.

Flug

[Just This Once...]

Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator

OAP, that might seem obvious but not necessarily true. I can't remember the F4 but think there was some issue with AIM7.

Winchester isn't the issue but balance might be for carriage of other stores.

No particular issue with weight and balance at any fuselage station, nor are they required to help offset wing stores. The forward right is rather close to the gun vibration / acoustics, which is pretty much the only consideration if you don't need a full missile fit.

If a missile is fitted it can only be for defence.

[Courtney Mil]

Originally Posted by flugplatz

Courtney Mil. Thank you, I think on reflection you are right. The ROE flow from the policy. Pity the policy sometimes seems to be built around the PR campaign and a wish to make warfare seem a pick-and-choose technological game. I really hope we have learnt something and if Chilcott had got off his backside, the recent MPs' debate might have used his report to be better informed.

No, Sir. ROE is not PR. Not in the slightest way. If you think that politicians use their influence to shape ROE then I could almost understand that - although that is not the case.

I have just deleted my explanation because nothing about this is appropriate here.

If you are here to do harm or you think that your opinion is more imoportant than the safety of those doing their duty, then take it up elsewhere.

[racedo]

Reports on Newswires about US bombing an SAA position just before ISIS launch an attack.

Apparently position has always been in Syrian hands so difficult to claim confusion about who in control.

Is someone looking to start WW3 ?

[Thelma Viaduct]

Makes sense, Turkey are on ISIS's side.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-releases-proof-turkey-is-smuggling-isis-oil-over-its-border-a6757651.html

[TEEEJ]

Racedo wrote

Reports on Newswires about US bombing an SAA position just before ISIS launch an attack.

The US has said that the Coalition did not carry out the strike. News just breaking on Sky News that the US believes that it was a strike/accident by the Russian Air Force.

How will this be spun? If it was a Russian strike will they own up to it or will we see a bit of propaganda spin? The Syrians are already firmly blaming the Coalition so will we now be seeing staged footage with the remains of US munitions at the site?

[GlobalNav]

"Makes sense, Turkey are on ISIS's side."

Repeat a lie often enough, someone might believe it.

If any country has a stake in the defeat of ISIS, it's Turkey and any suggestion that Turkey is pro-ISIS is total and absolute baloney, and likely has its source in the kitchen of dear Valdimir the terrible.

[glad rag]

Originally Posted by Onceapilot

Well done glad rag! Underlining the caveat on my post and being abusive to me shows something!
There is NOT going to be an inter-coalition dust-up out there. The TURKS will have been given an internal red card and all other NATO players will be on an air to air self-defence weapons hold (or very similar).
Now, pray tell your opinion?

OAP

Well you have certainly had time to re align your thoughts; anyone who says we send our aircrew into that cauldron...without the means to deter and defend themselves ...




took long enough for the anvil to arrive...

[glad rag]

Originally Posted by GlobalNav

"Makes sense, Turkey are on ISIS's side."

Repeat a lie often enough, someone might believe it.

If any country has a stake in the defeat of ISIS, it's Turkey and any suggestion that Turkey is pro-ISIS is total and absolute baloney, and likely has its source in the kitchen of dear Valdimir the terrible.

So how do you look upon that most stalwarts of allies, Pakistan then?

[Onceapilot]

Thanks for your opinion glad rag.....Unfortunately, it is worthless.

OAP

[racedo]

Originally Posted by GlobalNav

"Makes sense, Turkey are on ISIS's side."

Repeat a lie often enough, someone might believe it.

If any country has a stake in the defeat of ISIS, it's Turkey and any suggestion that Turkey is pro-ISIS is total and absolute baloney, and likely has its source in the kitchen of dear Valdimir the terrible.

Your own VP said it 14 months ago and unlikely he speaking that much out of tune.

Course he was forced to apologise for upsetting an Ally but didn't seem to be many on US side even those who dislike him who were claiming he was wrong.

[GlobalNav]

"Your own VP said it 14 months ago and unlikely he speaking that much out of tune."

Well my goodness, corrected by no less a source than Mr VP. He is an unimpeachable source, of course, just look at his political history. And from an administration with such a glowing sense of strategy and competence in the region. Practically the whole lot of the upper echelon should hang their heads in shame - particularly those in the White House and Foggy Bottom.

Just consider the wisdom of a regional government giving any thought of supporting ISIS - it would amount to abdication of its own sovereignty, a call to anarchy and chaos - anathema to all of Turkey's future international aspirations. And if there was any reason for Turkey to be a pro-ISIS player, why would they host coalition forces? Incredible.

[Flugplatz]

Okay CM, I promise not to comment on the present Syria/Iraq situation. In the coming months, I will await positive and meaningful results in defeating ISIL through airpower, because you are clearly of the conviction that our pilots have all the tools they need to do the job (including appropriate ROE).

If you think there is no link between PR and ROE then I believe that you are sadlly mistaken. Our policy is set by the politicians as to what they want to achieve and what they think will be reaction from the general public. I am not saying they are all cynical manipulators, but I think it is also true that very many of them can't seem to grasp the realities of warfare, conflict and thee proportionate use of force. Ergo, you get idiots like Jeremy Corbin saying he doesn't agree with the Police's "Shoot to kill policy" - a classic example of good, workable ROE - but the basic principle of which Mr Corbin clearly doesn't begin to understand.

So we have arrived at recent conflicts such as the Balkans, post-GW2 Iraq and Afghanistan with initial policies and strategies that are woefully inadequate but which are played up as effective, substantial and fully capable of resolving the situation. Referring back to the UN mission in Bosnia, what else but 'PR' or gross delusion can be the reason for declaring Srebrenica a 'safe area' when it was anything but? Similarly CAS was promised to deter hostile acts, but were the pilots able to be scrambled, arrive at the target and decide when and where to bomb? Only after passing up a chain of command leading to the senior UN representatives, by which time the action was often already over. Yet the public perception was maintained that our fighters were on-call and would be used effectively - not hamstrung into virtual uselessness.

We saw the same thing in Iraq with the 'Snatch' debacle. Only after severe casualties and increasingly bad PR were any changes made. There was quite a campaign about this in the UK (relatives turning up on TV etc) and it got results. Not sure that would have happened without the press taking up the cause.

As a parting shot, several of my friends from recent conflicts have commented that they would preferentially ask for US CAS since the Americans were percieved as having much less restrictive ROE and be much more likely to engage the target!

Flug

[racedo]

Originally Posted by GlobalNav

Just consider the wisdom of a regional government giving any thought of supporting ISIS - it would amount to abdication of its own sovereignty, a call to anarchy and chaos - anathema to all of Turkey's future international aspirations. And if there was any reason for Turkey to be a pro-ISIS player, why would they host coalition forces? Incredible.

You looking at this from a US perspective using rationality.
Turkey looking at this from what Erdogan wants and demands.

[Clockwork Mouse]

As a parting shot, several of my friends from recent conflicts have commented that they would preferentially ask for US CAS since the Americans were percieved as having much less restrictive ROE and be much more likely to engage the target!

But what target? Several of my friends from recent conflicts view their less restrictive ROE as the reason for so many blue on blue engagements.

[Easy Street]

Originally Posted by racedo

You looking at this from a US perspective using rationality.
Turkey looking at this from what Erdogan wants and demands.

Good point, this. Rationality is a contested concept in politics and any other "science" involving human behaviour, and the West gives it too great a credence when it starts banging on about the 'rules-based international system' and other such things. Essentially, we use "rational" to describe parties whose thinking we understand, and "irrational" to describe those whose thinking we don't. As such, our use of "rational" or "irrational" says much more about our own knowledge and understanding of the world than it does about the other side's sanity.