Posted on 07/03/2015 8:42:28 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Britain could soon be launching air strikes against Isil in Syria within months.
But as the defence budget won't be spared from the government's spending cuts drive, how easily could the RAF handle making this extra intervention?
Using official figures, compiled by the Royal United Services Institute, we get a sense of how many planes Britain's air force has available to be called in for action at short notice.
Some planes may not be immediately available for action though, being tied up in other engagements, or in other cases being repaired and upgraded. Here's how these planes break down in terms of availability.
The Ministry of Defence can be coy about exact figures for security reasons, so figures like how many unmanned aerial "Reaper" drones there are rough estimates. However, some are already conducting strikes in Iraq and surveillance operations in Syria, so they're already proving their use.
Despite the number of Eurofighters available for use, and their capability for air-to-ground warfare, they wouldn't be quite as useful as the other types of aircraft.
Justin Bronk, a research analyst at RUSI, explains: "The Typhoon would be less flexible than the tornado because it can't use the brimstone missile, which is both extremely accurate and has low collateral."
If Britain started air strikes on Isil in Syria, Bronk suggests it would expand where its existing airplanes were operating - looking at Tornado aircraft and Reaper drones - rather than devoting scores of new aircraft."
"It would be a huge change for the RAF at the moment to significantly uplift what they're doing in the region."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Well since there is no such thing as “isil” they won’t be needing many...
The answer, from the article, is only 54 planes.
I’m actually kind of surprised it’s that many.
“The answer, from the article, is only 54 planes”
Does that include British Airways passenger planes dropping “blue ice bombs” from 40,000 feet? I don’t think ISIS has anything that can reach that height. Just a suggestion, trying to do my part here. A block of...uhhh...”ice” dropping at terminal velocity from that height could do a lot of serious damage, never mind being demoralizing.
I notice 91 Tucanos in the inventory. Weren’t these developed specifically for low-intensity warfare such as with ISIS?
They could probably put some rocket pods and small bombs on them to take out a few Pickup trucks.
I would think 5 or 6 heavy bombers would be just fine to destroy ISIS. Forget this precision strike nonsense. Blow them to hell with cheap plentiful cluster bombs.
ISIL? They are just doing our dirty work in Syria, we occasionally punish them when they step out of bounds. All of our allies in the region have been assisting them including Israel with our blessing. We could easily wipe them out any time we want, and will do so when they are no longer are of use to us, or at least that's the plan.
The RAF doesn’t have a heavy bomber. Not a single one. They have nothing but a few fighter bombers. That’s it.
No — those are Tucano trainers that the Brits have, not the Super Tucanos you are referring to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Tucano
Sad, isn’t it?
Thank Lab 1997-2010, who left us with a £38B defence hole.
Seems like the Brits are waving the white flag. Especially since Islamic Fascists from Londistan are ready to take over the island.
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