As I thought, the GR4s would be laser designating the Typhoon bombs in.

Foghorn Leghorn wrote

Why did you think that though? The Typhoon can self designate. If the GR4s assisted then it is simply team work rather than a deficiency on type. See following page discussing the issue.

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...onkers-28.html

TJ

TEEJ, it would appear that you have misunderstood me. I questioned whether the Tornado GR4s were laser designating Typhoon bombs. It would appear to be the case that Tornado GR4s are target marking. I was not saying it was a deficiency of the Typhoon, merely that the Tornado GR4s were laser designating for them.

Possibly for very good reasons as well

What are the reasons engineer(retard)? It would be interesting to know.

Foghorn, you lost me 3 posts back.

is a statement of the truth?

TEEEJ said:

which is what I thought.

you replied:

Where is it stated that the GR4s are marking for the Typhoon? I missed that somewhere.

Then Retard appears to back this up with:

I can suggest that a split marker/bomber solution can work well if the marker has to go low to designate as the bomber can remain high, have a reduced fuel burn, and achieve a greater TV.

If you can, I suggest that you talk to aircrew that have done co-operative designation and ask why in certain circumstances it is the method of choice. It is not a topic I would post on in open forums.

PN, sorry if I confused you, I might have been reading between the lines a little from the other thread that's running with this too, the bonkers harrier thread, and thought that the Tornado GR4s were laser designating for the Typhoon bombs.

Thanks for your suggestion of split designating bombing. If the designator is low level, would this not put him in the high threat area and, additionally, would it be a problem with a bomb coming through his height/exploding on the target with the laser designating aircraft getting close to the target? Just some quick thoughts. Is co-operative designation bombing what PN wrote about? I assume it also increases the comms and timing workload between the aircraft and potentially cause more errors? It seems it would be wiser for the Typhoons to self designate their own bombs

FH, fratricide is an issue but one easily avoided. The low man can remain above manpad height and the ML SAM is probably neutralised by now. While EO is capable of high resolution at altitude low cloud can negate that thus offering a better eyeball effect.

The Typhoon prefers much higher altitudes than the Tonka.

Certainly it would result in more comms and higher workload except that it would relieve the Typhoon pilot from doing the search and acquire bit - a 3-man or 1.5-man cockpit :)

and a disclaimer, I am purely speculating and have no direct experience except from the weapons course 30 years ago which went into laser techniques in great detail.

Foghorn Leghorn,

Apologies if I misunderstood your post. Thanks for the reply.

In regards to Typhoon and Litening pod. The MoD has released some images of Typhoon in Italy carrying Paveway II.

Interesting that no Litening Pod is fitted on Typhoon, serial ZJ924? The centre-line stores position is empty. Usually a fuel tank or Litening pod is carried.

Link to Typhoon images that are too large for the forum.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafi...llery8_big.jpg

http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafi...llery9_big.jpg

From

RAF - Typhoon and Tornado

Enhanced Paveway II is dual mode with GPS and Laser guided.

http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/fea...s01_055757.pdf

Looks like they were doing buddy-buddy targeting on a joint Typhoon/Tornado mission? So far there is no footage of the other Typhoon involved in the mission.

RAF - News by Date

TJ

Flight international is reporting that tornado is designating for typhoon due to the lack of ground attack qualified typhoon pilots. I guess the extra training to allow the the designation and identification of targets within the ROE is whats limiting factor.

Somewhat tongue in cheek, it all appears to me to be an inefficient method of delivering LGBs by using two expensive aircraft.

How about fitting a big long rack in the back of a Herc, and filling it with LGBs (think about images of WW2 destroyers and depth charges). The Herc then pootles around the area of choice at altitude, waiting for a designator aircraft to find a target. The designator aircraft marls the target, the Herc flies over at great altitude and they roll a bomb out of the back and into the basket!

Allegedly the precedent was set during the Falklands when dumb bombs were dropped by a similar method. Think of the benefits, loiter time on a Herc is considerably greater than the designator aircraft, so you can put one up and sortie the designators. Also the number of LGBs the Herc could carry would be greater than any other single aircraft.

Only one drawback, we don't have any spare Hercs!

Hang on, what's that black car pulling up outside my house.......

So, to clarify, your suggested method substitutes one of those "expensive aircraft" for a cheap, dirty, smelly Herc? Have I got that right?:E

Abbey Road

Exactly, instead of using a two souped up touring cars racing around to deliver a limited payload, we use several touring cars to spot the delivery points and an articulated lorry to make the deliveries.

Ogre, and even before the Falklands we had the Argosy bomber. IIRC it could carry 4x1000lb under each wing.

Getting airborne was something else again.