US and coalition military forces continued to attack Islamic State, conducting 20 strikes consisting of 30 engagements in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.
Officials reported details of the most recent strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports. The details are listed below.
Strikes in Syria
— On March 8 near Abu Kamal, coalition military forces conducted two strikes consisting of two engagements, destroying an Islamic State supply route and an unmanned aerial vehicle.
— On March 7 near Abu Kamal, coalition military forces conducted two strikes consisting of two engagements against targets, destroying four motorcycles.
Strikes in Iraq
There were no reported strikes conducted in Iraq on March 8.
On March 7 near Qayyarah, coalition military forces conducted a strike consisting of one engagement, destroying a tunnel.
The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.
We understand that ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to “one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect”.
For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.
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The recent article on the cost of air ops in Syria /Iraq reported the cost / hour of a Typhoon was £80,000 while a Tornado was quoted at £35,000. I was not the only one that expressed surprise at the difference. Following the links a couple of things became apparent.
1st the article was based on data from a group called “Drone Wars”. Their mission is, quote “is a small, UK-based, NGO working towards a long-term goal of an international ban on the use of armed drones.” They then continue with a list of objectives that could have been written by Corbyn’s Stop The War Coalition. Far from presenting objective data this group may have at best a conformation bias and at worst, possibly a deliberate intention to distort data. Their use as an objective data source is questionable.
I then follow the links to track where Drone Wars had obtained the £80,000 / hr Typhoon cost.
The figure quoted was from written evidence provided to the House of Commons Defence Select committee by the MOD and Treasury, in, 2011.
Obsolete data from 2011 completely discredits the accuracy of the article. But it also leads to another question.
The MOD’s / Treasury cost quite obliviously includes all sorts of smoke and mirror figures, with the apparent intention of obfuscation, aimed at avoiding providing an accurate and practical cost per hour figure. This is not just my conclusion. The committee noted on the data provided, quote, “that “official figures” are not a true and realistic calculation of the costs of operations.”. The actual Defence Select Committee does not believe the MOD / Treasury evidence, but appears resigned to accepting there is nothing that can be done to obtain realistic data.
From this I am left with the uneasy suspicion that the UK public is being deliberately mislead on the real amount of Defence spending.
If this tactic of including every possible duplicitous, double counting and fanasty cost is replicated in all the calculations to arrive at the total spent on defence then the reported figure bears little relation to the real world sum.
If a policy of fabrication and inflation is the case the £45 billion defence budget is a fiction, we are failing to meet our 2% NATO commitment and we are being lied to about the real state of UK defence.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmdfence/950/950we05.htm