I think MOR probably means "HALO" the computer game. That's about as war-like as the NZDF would get anyway...:rolleyes:

The best quote I ever heard regards the Kiwi Defence Force (Post "Hullun" of course) was that "...in terms of Defence capability, New Zealand is now the Bangladesh of the South West Pacific!!!":ok:

Last time I was in Chittagong & Dhaka, I noted some pretty nasty looking Bengali Mig 29's & light Chinese made fighter bombers.

But just to the north of Bangladesh, is the tiny state of Bhutan. Friendly, simple hill folk. Perhaps, New Zealand, with it's simple hill folk, is the Bhutan of the South Pacific.

I think it's a pretty good use for the PONG SU, she sat (round the corner from us seeping oil) in Snail bay for 8-12 months and then re-appeared at Clifton Gardens - where she resideded for another 4 odd, seeping more ballast and just looking like she was ready to decompose.

Would it not have been worth it doing a few live 20mm passes from f18's or similar before the coupe de grace, a 2klber GBU from a pig seems a little too easy ?

Reminds me of a similar event a few years ago, where F-111 was planned to sink ex-HMAS Bowat with same weapon, but had the common decency to offer a few young Hornet guys a chance to practice first with 2 x tiny 500 pound bombs (are they mk 37s?) each first...needless to say, said Hornet pilots dropped their mk 37s, and reduced HMAS Bowat to a rapidly descending extra from 'Finding Nemo' in a matter of 6 seconds. F-111 sortie cancellled on the ground, before nation's elite media. Gut wrenching.:{

Nice work Kiwi
 

Ironic that the lead Pilot for the mission is a Kiwi....nice work A.F. :ok:

As someone said earlier - nice bit of dramatic PR. Sinking a vessel owned by a foreign country running drugs in our waters. Shame it wasn't done during the chase...
Video footage is also on the ADF website

Very Tom Clancy like really isn't it. A 'Clear and Present danger'....

Should be more of it! :E

500lbs the weapon of choice against Japanese merchant and naval shipping by 1SQN a long time ago. And isn't the Harpoon a similar sized warhead?

2000lb for killing battleships?

very simple ROT:

500lb'ers for frag

2000lb'ers for blast - blast is what you would need in this case. They would have been slightly delay fused (milli-seconds) to allow detonation on the inside of the hull, possibly the reason it sank to the left (i.e underwater holes on the port side).

From the IR footage, it looks like different trajectories for the two bombs, which suggest 1 bomb each from 2 x F111 dropping near simultaneously from a wide formation. (mind you, have only had one quick look at it so could be wrong).

Disclaimer: having said all above, 500lb'ers work great on tanks due to better manoeuvreability, smaller target and can carry more.

Also as an aside, the F18 will finally be getting 1000lb'ers which is basically what the aeroplane was designed around - only taken 20 years!!