RAF Harrier jets under missile attack in Afghanistan
 

RAF Harrier jets have been fired at by surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery while supporting British troops in Afghanistan's Helmand province, a senior pilot said yesterday.

Squadron Leader Damien Killeen, 33, operational commander of the six GR7 British jets based at Kandahar, said his aircraft were regularly subjected to attack, from automatic rifle rounds through to rocket-propelled grenades, as they flew low-level sorties against Taliban insurgents....

full story at http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/68009.html

Only 1 engine and no ESF!! I take my hat off to them. Lets hope the bad guys keep missing. Fly safe.:D

Don't be a :mad: throbber Gary, unless of course you'd like to step out of your 737 & into a GR7 over in 'stan?

Well ain't it fair.....the Harrier guys are shooting at the Oppos! What kind of two way rifle range would it be if the guys on the ground could not shoot back?:uhoh:






















Hopefully, the Oppos will only see Maggie's Drawers on their end!

Man up, boys! At least YOU can shoot back!

16B

Give us a break...
 

:ugh:
Spare a thought for all the blokes and lasses away from home living in which ever dusty s***hole they may be in. Despite the fact that it isn't the easiest of jobs at the mo', few are complaining. I thought this thread may have started a discussion about official PR lines, public perception, military over-stretch, etc.
Needless-to-say, Gary seems to have taken it to a new level nicely. Bravo Centurion... (When were you last OOA? The pan at Malaga ensconced behind your armoured door and leather pilots' bag doesn't count).
:D
All the Armed Forces are on the bones of their ar***, and any positive media attention has to be a good thing. Over and out-ish...;)

No I'm sorry but I have to agree with Gary Lager.

Someone takes a few pot shots with their AK and we're supposed to feel sorry for our GR9 boys?

For God's sake guys, if it's that bad, fire back.

Think of the ground troops in the same region... Roadside bombs, and no chance to fire back. One bang and It's all over.

For once think yourself lucky to be in the cockpit... I wouldn't want to be on the ground in Kabul / Kandahar in the cities.

Let's stop whingeing and try to give some good support. It's what we're here for after all.

QFI

Agree. They're fighter pilots flying in a war zone. Why is ANYONE surprised they're being shot at?:ugh:

It doesn't sound at all like the Harrier pilot was whingeing. He was asked about operating in Afghanistan and gave an honest answer. The journo would have picked out the interesting aspects of the interview and written a story accordingly, probably spicing it up as much as possible. Are you sure that you would not have been equally scornful of interviews given by Herc or Lynx crews in Iraq before early last year?:( .

Everyone out there is playing their part and they certainly don't deserve to be sniped at by armchair warriors.

Anyone heard a rumour about a Predator jockey getting a DFC? From Nellis :eek:

Forfuxsakes, it's a story about our lads getting shot at. Nobody enjoys it, and they're not getting paid any extra (nor I suspect, getting laid by the locals).
Give them a break :mad:

I have to agree with BP. The journalist will have asked about what goes on, and will have been given the answer.

Glum - the sad thing is a sizeable minority of the Herald's readership almost certainly will be startled to learn that the Harrier chaps are being shot at.

For heaven's sake, one of the most memorable pieces of journalism during Telic was Ben Brown asking a USMC officer whether or not being shot at was dangerous. :ooh:

If someone who is supposed to have a (very) vague notion of what's going on (because he's a war correspondent) comes out with tosh like that, it seems to me to be no bad thing if some newspaper readers get a surprise over their cornflakes when learning that the Taleban shoot back and that Afghanistan is a rather dangerous place to be. Better that there's some coverage, even if slightly naive in tone, than none at all?

Interesting to note that the harriers are armed with 30mm cannon. Would that be old GR3's deployed then? Or perhaps they've suddenly deployed with the scrapped 27mm Cannon, because RAF Harriers are certainly sans gun.:ugh:

I only flew some C-130s for a while in peacetime (except when we canceled IFR from Panama and orbited elsewhere...), but a few older guys who flew helicopters in SE Asia were envious of the A-7, F-4 and F-105 "Thud Drivers" etc who streaked at 400 knots over the Ho Chi Minh trails as they sat on ejection seats.

The guys flying the very slow Huey or Chinook helicopters into an LZ to offload grunts were sitting ducks :ouch: . And the US Army was very slow to ship them armored chest protectors, based on the excellent book "Chickenhawk" (former bestseller), the first book by former Warrant Officer Robert Mason; Penguin books. How about the "Jolly Green Giant" rescue crews hovering over a downed pilot in a hot area? The book "Bat 21" will also hold your attention.

The Cobra helicopter pilots had more weapons but seem to have been fairly easy targets.

I'm not suggesting that we should feel sorry for any aircrew in theatre however, I don't think blasé comments are appropriate either. It could be any of us out there & I for one respect the guys that ARE out there enough to fight their corner on this forum.

Saddening to see the somewhat shameful comments being posted here.

Frustrating to see what :mad: the journos come up with again. The boys out there are doing a good job with the assosciated risks of flying operationally in a war zone. Of course they get shot at, as do the hercs, chinnys and everyone else in theatre. It may help people realise that war is a dangerous business but it would help if they at least got basic facts right.
30mm cannon?
Maybe he was looking at the Janes entry for AV8B or Sea Harrier:confused:

Hello folks, nice to see so many old mates about.

FWIW, I meant to illustrate that I hardly think it 'news' that flying a military aircraft over Afghanistan attracts the occasional/frequent pot-shot. I suppose the kind of folks that read the Herald need to be reminded every now and again that ops overseas don't stop for Ad breaks like Conornation Street does.

Nothing I'd like more than to see everyone back from the desert, even the Harrier crews.

Happy to see continued Lager- or Journo-bashing, as always. But no Harrier-bashing going on here!

The sad fact is that the public (and I suspect 75% of the military) assume that flyboys simply swan around in their 'planes', dogfighting each other for fun.
It's about time that someone pointed out a current reality of the theatres that we operate in.

Yes, helicopter aircrew and footsoldiers have it worse. Nobody is denying that.

True enough. But did we need to point it out on a Military Aircrew internet forum?

Lager out

QFIHawkman, your very name singles you out as someone singularly unqualified to make glib and inaccurate (GR9?!) statements about being shot at in anywhere more dangerous than Holyhead. If you bothered to read the article (as inaccurate as your post) properly, you would have noticed no whingeing on the part of the pilot in question - merely statement of fact. He was directly answering questions posed to him by the interviewer. As for firing back, clearly ROE and collateral damage are not uppermost in the mind of someone mid PFL to Mona but I can assure you that they do have an impact in operational theatres.
Stick to nibbing with red green and blue pens and let the GR 7 boys get on with their job without pointless injects from armchair warriors like you.
:*