For ground attack and close air support missions, Typhoon is armed with the GPS/laser-guided Paveway IV bombs, bombs which a flight of the jets used to great effect last night.

Paveway IV offers cockpit-programmable impact angle, impact direction and fuse delay features for precisely tailored target effects. 

The Paveway IV bomb represents a significant advancement in precision-guided munition technology. Developed by Raytheon UK (previously known as Raytheon Systems Limited), it is the latest iteration in the renowned Paveway series.

This dual-mode bomb, capable of both GPS/INS and laser guidance, is an adaptation of the Enhanced Paveway II Enhanced Computer Control Group (ECCG) applied to a modified Mk 82 general-purpose bomb. This modification has notably improved its penetration performance.

A notable feature of the Paveway IV is its new ECCG, which includes a Height of Burst (HOB) sensor enabling air burst fusing options, and a SAASM (Selective Availability Anti Spoofing Module) compliant GPS receiver.

This bomb can be launched either with IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) only, provided there’s sufficiently good Transfer Alignment, or using GPS guidance. Additionally, it offers terminal laser guidance in either navigation mode.

The Royal Air Force introduced the Paveway IV into service in 2008. Its first operational deployment was during Operation Herrick in Afghanistan. The bomb was also employed in subsequent operations, including Operation Ellamy in Libya, and Operation Shader in Iraq and Syria.

In December 2015, the Royal Air Force began using the Paveway IV from Eurofighter Typhoons during strike operations in Syria as part of Operation Shader, marking the first operational use of the bomb from this aircraft.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

155 COMMENTS

        • Yeah interesting with China they came out today with quite a restrained statement emphasising that free navigation in the Red Sea must be respected, I guess unlike Russia this waterway is vital to their exports. Ironically also today a Russian ship was targeted and this is in fact the second one recently so clearly the message hasn’t quite got through. Turkey on the other hand Erdogan is really losing the plot esp as the UK has probably been its closest European supporter. They really are burning bridges.

        • The difference between us an Saudi’s is that we have very experienced Psyo opps and intelligence.

          Made up accusations of civilian casualties won’t get far

          Daesh tried much the same

          • I wouldn’t be so blasé. Netanyahu was elected in part because he claimed to be all over the international story, but it’s Hamas that are running rings around him.

          • Running rings around Netanyahu is it?
            A rather bizarre statement.
            You have a strange way of viewing the destruction of the Hamas terror infrastructure in its entirety as a winning formula.
            Sounds very much like the massive defeats of 6 Arab armies by tiny Israel since 1948 that they portray as winning.

          • Like Jim, I was talking about PsyOps, not the physical war. The war may not end with the destruction of Hamas, not because Israel isn’t capable of running the physical war, but because international pressure will stop them. International pressure has been generated by the “story” each side tells, as has the demonstrations in major cities across Europe. If Hamas are playing a strong game here in the West, just imagine how good a game they are playing in the non-aligned and especially the Arab countries.

            This is the game Israel is in danger of losing. Hamas don’t care how many Palestinians die, actually the more the better. They will scarifice a few tunnels, which they can always build again. You can’t kill the Hamas leadership by attacking Gaza, when they sit in Qatar, Turkey and Iran, watching.

          • Yeah doesn’t help when you have a cabinet minister saying Gaza needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth.

          • The Israelis have become arrogant, it will be their downfall. They are very close to loosing US public support, it’s only the old guard democratic partly like sleepy joe that still allow them to operate. That won’t last as the US demographics switches.

          • The issue is the major middle of our population is not the target and the target populations don’t believe a word western governments or major media says. ( even on this site you often hear the words the BBC are bias socialists…if you amplify that doubt 10 fold that’s how a lot of the world sees western media and government information).

          • I think he’s referring to the Hospital Bombing where BBC pretty much took Hamas’s word.

            I watched BBC world for years when living overseas and I have to say the demostic coverage is different. Domestic BBC definitely anti UK government so some would say its socialist but we’ll see if that changes next year when Labour are in power, if it carries on being anti goverment then it will be labled right wing 🙂

            During JC leadership of Labour and in the run up to 2019 election BBC was labled right wing by the those on the left. (I don’t like using left and right wing but unfortunately it’s what people understand)

            Of course what we view is subjective. If you’re a socialist then the Guardian is a centralist publication. If your capitalist then the Telegraph is centre ground. Its all to do with our in built biaises we have. Have quick look on wikipedia on confirmation bias, Its part of the Congitive bias codex, again have look on wikipedia. We all have this, its part of what makes us human and a throw back to when we lived simpler and less decadent lives and had to deal with real threats and thus shorten our decision making process. But its a very big problem today due to how we receive information and of course it can become institutionalised, so people are surrounded by those who support their confirmation bias and therefore an outsiders view has to be wrong because everyone they interact with supports their thinking.

            These biases are now used heavily in politics, and this is why politicians often repeat the same thing over and over when asked questions. I’ll use a popular Labour one atm, ‘Tories wrecked the economy’, you keep repeating this to install a confirmation bias whether its true or not. Its like VWs only if everything in life was a reliable as a VW. People didn’t go and analyse VW reliabilty data but people started to beleive without any supporting data VW was probably the most reliable car you can buy because there was and ad every 20 minutes telling them so.

            Once you understand these you can start to deal with them by searching out different sources of information, stats, apply logical thinking rather emotional thinking, seeking dfiferent experinces, challenge your own thinking, don’t take headlines at face value etc. This doesn’t mean people stop being biases but probably less biased.

            I’ll probably get loads on responses from those with confirmation baises on the Tories and the economy 😀, so for the record that was an example only.

          • indeed all very true..I tend to think of our media as truthful, but you just have to look at the context of what they are reporting…both the telegraph and guardian will generally tell the truth ( except when they are being incompetent..which is not the same as true bias reporting) it’s the context and what they choose to focus on which you just need to understand…which is why I rotated my papers…from the times, telegraph, observer and guardian..( I don’t engage in the Mail, sun, star etc).

            generally I consider the BBC pretty reasonable as they tend to both piss me off sometimes and at other times agree with my views…if I had media that i constantly agreed with I would be worried I was in an Echo chamber.

            I do think we need in the west to start paying attention to the fact good media does not mean agreeing with everything we think and if you start agreeing with everything in the media we are int trouble….

            I do wonder if we need to start teaching our population critical thinking as a skill set as part of basic citizenship. especially in regards to media, the internet and information in general..after all china and our enemies are attacking us through those routes..and the best way to guard against that is an electorate and population trained in critical thinking.

          • The Times is read by people who run the country.
            The Financial Times is read by people who own the country.
            The Mail is read by the wife’s of the people who run the country.
            The Guardian is read by people who want to run the country.
            The Morning Star is read by people who want another country to run the country.
            The Telegraph is read by people who think it is.
            Yes but what about The Sun readers??? Simple they don’t care who runs the country as long as she has big Ti.s

          • That’s brilliant, but you forget about the express..

            Read by people who think it’s all irrelevant because we are going to be buried under a snowmageddon next week.

          • Well said. The ‘right wing’ and ‘left wing’ rhetoric is heavily overused by the media – to the extent where these labels have become meaningless.

          • Indeed in most cases it’s not really accurate..the so called “right wing” libertarian will actually have more in common than a left wing libertarian than anything anyone with a alt right view has ( which is more about fascism and control) and that right wing fascists world views will be so close to the communists views that the reality of their world is the same ( the Bolshevik world and third Reich looked very much the same). Then you add in extreme religious views ( which tend to look very much like the alt right/fascist and communism in the end.

            I think in reality you can simply divide into:

            1)authoritarian ( which can be extremist religious, communist or alt right/fascist) these are all essentially the enemies of the west and in reality we and they cannot exist without tension and conflict in the end). These states can pretend to be democracies such as Russia..theocracies etc

            2)moderate liberal states. Effectively any state in which power is diversified, neoliberal or market forces exist, government and leadership is in place to moderate the system not control, free press, free speech, free thought. As they come under pressure and the moderating effects change they can shift to either an authoritarian state or libertarian chaotic state.

            3) libertarian. Chaotic states..those where there is no moderation of the free market or individual or anything else..these tend to either be completely failed states or transition into an authoritarian state of some description. Without the moderation mechanisms of the moderate liberal state…some nutter always ends up gathering all power…effectively this is what happened in Russia…it transitioned to what was an authoritarian state to a libertarian chaotic state ( at one point it was described as a chaos capitalist state) back to an authoritarian state when individuals gathered all the power.

            When you look at the political landscape in the UK it’s so very firmly planned in the centre of the moderate liberal that any description of left or right is pretty irrelevant as all our parties are essentially “liberal” parties with slightly different focuses to how they think the country should be run…even the ones we think are far right or far left..are not…they call believe in the fundamentals of free press, parliamentary democracy, individual freedom, separation of power etc etc….it’s why we need to not be nasty with each other when talking internal politics…we all pretty much believe the same..only challenge hard when someone seems to be attacking a core tenets of the moderate liberal state.

          • Thanks, Johnathon. That was extremely well written and very informative. In fact, rarely have I seen such a complex issue explain more effectively.

            Kind regards,

            Edwin

          • The fact remains that when dealing with manic islamic fundamentalists they do not relate to reality but only that which fits their narrative of victim hood and the progression of Islamic terror a la Hamas in Gaza.

          • Manic or not, I tend to defer to the wisdom of General Curtis Lemay… “Kill enough of them and they quit fighting.”

            For illustration, I haven’t heard about any more small boat attacks on merchantmen since several of them and their crews were ventilated by USN helicopters. Since then they have been shooting at longer range, encouraging us to waste expensive missiles and jet fuel playing whack-a-mole!

            This latest direct-strike effort should be pursued hard – make the rubble bounce.

          • No it is NOT.
            Since September 12th 2005 Israel made all the Israelis living there, their homes, farms, everything was left to the tender mercies of Hamas and that is why we have the situation now.
            A terror entity under the cudgel of the mad mullahs of Iran causing mayhem and murder.
            GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT instead of parroting the Islamic cult Jihadist propaganda.

          • That was in Gaza not the West Bank. You do have to be carful not to loss all balance and critical thinking around the levant ( it tends to creat bias in everyone).

            I cannot stand Hamas,they are an evil organisation, that believes in the destruction of the Jewish people for no other reason than they are Jews. It will never live peacefully beside Israel and needs to be destroyed root and branch, they are not freedom fighters. I also believe the Israeli state is fighting for its life does have an existential threat over its head and the Arab response since 1947 has been one of trying to destroy Israel. But for Israel’s long term survival the solution is not more violence..Israel is a small nation surrounded by people who want to be its enemy if they can find a reason..although the governments of most of the Arab states have now moderated their response to Israel and see the extremists as just as much as a threat to them..

            This all means that Israeli missed an opportunity a while back..especially when Fatah ( which is nationalist movement not an extremist one) put down the gun and opted for peace..it’s should have embraced fatah with everything it had creating a true Palestinian state in the West Bank as an example of what could be….it then could have supported fatah in removing Hamas from GAZA..making Hamas a Fatah and Arab problem…it did not take the opportunity instead the Netanyahu government doubled down and supported the West Bank settlers..with a philosophy of divide and conquer when it came to fatah and Hamas. Now Israel is really close to the fight for its life if it’s not very careful and a lot of Jewish people and Arab people have died….Netanyahu did not cause this Hamas did..but Netanyahu enabled it by not trying to break the cycle of conflict when there was a doorway.

            The only solution to the levant is a two state solution in which fatah are supported to develop Gaza and the West Bank by Israel and the Arab states together ( the political warfare bit around removing all the drivers that provide Hamas with a base of support..killing the roots and future of Hamas ) and the Arab states ( Jordan and Egypt) work with fatah to irradiate Hamas..the kinetic operations to kill Hama in the present).

            so yes Hamas and Iran triggered this with a vile act of evil, but Netanyahu missed the chances to kill Hamas support base years ago…because he is a believer that the Jewish population of Israel has the right to settle the West Bank and did not handle the peace correctly.

      • Err… No.
        It’s just nobody cares about dead civilians unless the appropriate marching orders have been given to mass media.

  3. 4 planes and 2 targets, it feels like this was a token action. The question is now what next. Saudi tried bombing them into submission in the past and failed.

    • The Middle East is a tinderbox box at present, any large-scale reprisal could ignite it.

      It’s up to the Houties and Iran to make the next move, so the ball is in their court so to speak.

      After making the threat of action against them should they launch missiles and drones against us we had to do something.

      • Yeah agreed, and I think it was the right move assuming the targets were safely and appropriately identified which time will tell.

        The question is more what next, as this won’t be the end of the story, as I am not sure a token attack will have a big enough impact to make them think twice about their current course.

        • This is an ongoing problem that won’t go away until we make it go away and the problem is Iran.

          Dealing with them will be far easier than China sending a very clear message in the process that the West will act to protect the freedom of navigation no matter where that happens to be in the world.

          Destroying their drone factories in the process would be an added bonus and a kick in the balls for Russia.

          • The only way to deal with Iran is remove sanctions and open their people up to international products and luxuries. Cuba has shown sanctions do sod all. Unfortunately its too political in the US to achieve it, we were insanely close until trump undid it all.

          • This was the case pre the sanctions, I have shopped in Debenhams and GAP in Tehran, it didn’t stop them funding Hamas or Hezbollah or developing nukes. Iranian government is completely disjointed from its people they have tried protesting but are met with harsh crackdowns. Iran is controlled by the Mullahs and a minority of Basij who will never give up power, they’re far more ruthless than the Shah they over threw.

            Elections in Iran are a sham, Iranians can vote for a president of the rulling elites choosing. So no, opening it up will do nothing, it just allow them to sell more oil and gas at high prices and further fund these groups.

          • Things got a lot worse after the sanctions though. Change takes time. At the time Iranians were annoyed with the west due to them replacing the previous elected ruler.

  4. Leaving aside any doubts that one may have in trying to be objective, the key question is-what if we take no action against the Houthis? The question answers itself but that part of the world is an equivalent of an Arab Wild West. Remember when we British left and the chaos that remained. Apart from any Houthi attacks on shipping, what about the never ending civil war in “Aden” !

    • It was the Arab Wild West before the British got there as well. That was the main reason for establishing Aden in the first place because they kept grabbing ships coming through Suez.

      • The only time these countries progressed was when they had a strong man dictator in charge.
        Take that away and it all falls apart due to tribal and religious infighting, there appears to be no sense of national unity.

        • Yemens did pretty well in the late 19th and early 20th century when it was a colony.

          Aden could have been the Dubai of the region

          Been a disaster since independence.

          Fortunately Oman went the other way.

          • Most of the Levant, Red Sea region and gulf has always been a bloodbath of competing empires and religions..sort of what Europe was before we got massive dose of war trauma.

          • Wasn’t Oman close to going the wrong way, but we intervene. I think there was some special force deployed, defence of Mirbat was a famous SAS op.

        • I kid you not.
          If country x’s leadership keeps getting killed the country will fall into disarray.
          It matters not what country it is: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Germany or France.

          • I think it matters because most Middle Eastern countries did not experience post-feudalistic and Renaissance periods like Europe did.

            These important periods brought forth national identity (one country/one ruler, one set of laws …etc, More importantly, Europe began to move away from belief systems more toward science.

            Hence when Germany was destroyed in WW2 they did not break up into feudal factions, instead, they rebuilt their nation.

            The same could be observed in some Asian countries, post-war (Japan, and Vietnam).

  5. A job well done, and if Iran responds to the strikes a few Paveway lVs dropped on their drone facilities would kill two birds with one stone.

  6. The Typhoon has pretty much the best weapons load out of any fighter aircraft on the planet

    Meteor
    ASRAAM
    Brimestone
    Stormshadow
    Paveway IV

    All best in class weapons with SPEAR and FC/ASW to come in the next few years.

    Atleast we got something right.

    • It would be nice to field JDAM as it’s substantially cheaper for operations like this that don’t require EW/jamming resistance. Nothing stopping the UK either, it’s license built all over the world.

      • Indeed.

        I’m always suprised that we don’t have that.

        But NIH is a thing…..and there is an upper limit to the number of types and systems to purchase, integrate, store, upgrade, test & maintain oh and dispose of at EoL.

        • 🤔 Always presumed that cost of integration/test phases dictated JDAM decision, but now agree the logistics tail would also be a factor. However, the purchase price per copy should appeal to accountants and auditors of HM Treasury.

          • Said today on the news Paveway IV is only £30k and it’s made in UK. I believe that’s a similar price to JDAM I was surprised thought it would be more.

          • Have never seen an internal cost estimate of less than $21K for a JDAM equipped GBU; would presume UK would be entitled to the most favorable export price available, either as a member of this coalition, or perhaps AUKUS. Sorry, uncertain re the fully wrapped rate–anyone able to provide a SWAG?

      • I would I agree it’s a sensible upgrade given the likelihood of war and the shortage and expense of PGM’s.

        I think the RAF has gotten use to being the snipper of coalition operations with weapons like Paveway IV and Brimestone but some times you just need to f**k a lot of s**t up which JDAM is great for.

        I’m surprised HM Treasury has not caught on yet to the price difference 😀

        • F**king a lot of s**t up is not something we like to be seen to be doing, which is why it’s all expensive precision, smaller warhead stuff for us. I agree with you though. We need the club in the gold bag.

          • F**king lots of s**t up is what we have the USAF for 😀

            Remember the A10 squaddie killer or B52 Arc light 😀

            UK a is not very good at this type of mission. The treasury would be counting every bomb.

            We never had an automatic rifle in army service until 1982 to stop us shooting too many bullets 😀

        • Sadly we haven’t got a platform that can carry a shed load of JDAMs like the US has. No B52, B1 or B2 equivalents. Like they say quantity has a quality in its own way.

        • We know that. The point is JDAM is substantially cheaper, though slightly less sophisticated and accurate. The Houthi’s aren’t jamming anything, and frankly neither are the Syrians or most other countries not named Russia or China. Italy and South Korea are both license producing thousands of them.

      • 1000 lb JDAM for UK F-35B could be a cheap interim heavy weapon. 500 lb JDAM-ER with its wing kit, would be a useful, cheap stand off weapon for UK F-35B + Typhoon. Shame Paveway IV never got the proposed wing kit.

        • Paveway 4 gives 80% of the bang of 1000lb weapon due to clever fusing and impact angle options. The warhead can also be tuned down. So you can target an individual sniper, for example, without blowing up half the hospital next door.

      • MBDA will soon be producing Silent Spear. This is Spear 3 minus the jet engine. It’s to compete on cost directly with the smaller JDAM but also the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB).

        Which means there’s going to be three Spear 3 derivatives. The powered mini cruise missile, the electronic warfare missile and the glide bomb version.

    • Agree. Would be nice to have another batch of 36 aircraft on order. Then and only then would I agree to scrapping the tranche 1s. Which are still chuffing effective as QRA aircraft and easily able to match any crap the Russians put up.

  7. Four Thypoons from Cyprus makes for a very long winded logistical tail.

    I would have thought basing in Saudi Arabia was the preferable option ( if Oman won’t play ball) can’t see that being an issue.

    I bet they are really regretting not fitting the Phalanx mounts and gun systems to the QE class now!

    On that subject, I fail to see the point of deploying a Carrier, because the 2 T23’s and T45 will have to become the defacto Carrier Task Group and will be riding shotgun, instead of protecting convoys….

    Better off basing a handful of Thypoon in Saudi with the three escorts on station.

    That way you can protect with one arm and retaliate with the other.

    • Saudis are officially against the attacks, they won’t allow use of bases, same for Oman.

      Bahrain is the only country in the region that’s officially supporting.

      Akritoni already had the aircraft good to go with the right training and weapons that are based there to support operation in Syria and Iraq.

      Quickest easiest strike option for the UK to send a message and support US operations with no need for host support although clearly Egypt allowed overflight as they are the ones loosing the most money over this from Suez transit fees.

      If operations are stepped up in the medium term then Cyprus is a long way away and a carrier deployment makes sense.

  8. I know we have discussed this before here, but to me it proves beyond a doubt, we should have a facility in Oman with a bare Airbase, harbour and SF mounting capability.

    Gibraltar, Cyprus and Oman are absolutely the right places to forward deploy assets.

    • This issues with having bases in countries like Oman is you need host permission to use them.

      Having bases in Akritoni and Diego Garcia means we can conduct operations without permission.

      In this instance Oman can pretend to sit on the sidelines and not open up a new target for the rebels to attack.

    • We have a joint logistics base in Oman at Duqm, but I think it’s Army and Navy only (someone can correct me there if I’m wrong). As Jim said, Oman isn’t going to let us fly missions against the Houthis.

      You know who might? How about the rump “Yemeni government”? It only controls about 20% of the population, but it has territory. I don’t know much about the new(ish) President. he’s reportedly in bed with the Saudis who effectively gave him the job, but might he be independent enough to give a scratch airbase somewhere in the middle of nowhere if we needed it. It would really test our austere capabilities!

    • Port – We can use Al Duqm and have agreements and infra in place.
      SF mounting – The SAS have a long history of training there.
      Our PJOBs – Permanent Joint Operating Bases overseas, Gib, Cyprus sites, Ascension, are amongst the most vital real estate we have.

  9. If I saw it correctly, the strikes were announced by american press before they had happened. This alone is telling – it was a political message, no all out attack. Yet.

    Regarding the planned mission to protect the seas, Germany is leaning towards joining an expanded, french lead, mission (this is easier due to our constitution). The mission will be robust and allow for military action, but putting it under EU umbrella is making it easier than putting it under Prosperity Guardian.

    Germany wants the mandate to include the text:

    The second function will be executive (a proposal from Germany in particular). This involves being able to respond, by all possible means, in the event of drone attacks against merchant ships, or an armed attack to take possession of the ship. A task which therefore goes beyond that of self-defense, but remains consistent with existing international law without requiring a UN Security Council resolution, with the exercise of force within the meaning of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.

    The plans include to send the “frigate” Hessen, which is available at the end of February. This is one of the “better” ships, actually rather a destroyer than a frigate.

    The timeline is quite long, but the advantage is a broad political consensus.

    • France (along with Italy and Spain) pulled out of the US led coalition the other week to much fanfare by Iran and its fanbase on Social media. What isnt mentioned is France has a huge base in Djibouti and well within strike distance of the Houthi. I suspect that had a huge impact on France, but saying that I have heard rumours that the EU is going to begin its own peace mission in the region.

      • Interesting to note: 12 nations warned the Houthis, today, 10 (including, to my surprise, New Zealand) publicly stated they back the attacks. Belgium and Italy did not sign this time. I wonder what the reasons are.

      • China also has a base just a few miles west from the Fr/IT/US one in Djibouti. Even dangerously lased a USAF pilot as he came in to land not long ago.

    • It’s unfortunate that Germany continually feels the need to “act” under an EU umbrella.

      The EU has been very consistently shown to be not a military organisation and Germany is effectively outsourcing its foreign and security policy to Hungary.

      This is why we have NATO.

      People in the USA are quite rightly asking questions about why the US is spending so much treasure and potentially blood to keep a sea lane open that’s primarily benefiting the EU and China.

      France has one ship in the region, it can’t run a solo EU operation even with a German frigate.

      • Acting in international frames is one of the cornerstones of German foreign policy since WW2. This alone is not bad in itself, and the general german position to try to avoid military force in itself, having a more comprehensive, less military driven approach did work for a long time.

        Unfortunately, times have changed. Bear in mind Germany is adopting to that, but it takes time. The 100 billion investments are only coming in a few years, and when looking at the F125 project, which was designed to protect sea areas from no state actors like in Somalia, unfortunately lacks robust anti air capability. This is a clear planning deficit, because normally it would be the ideal asset for such a mission.

        Nevertheless, resources are limited, and Germany is focusing more on land military and air force, and needs to concentrate the navy. Also bear in mind that Germany is, by far, the biggest European supporter of Ukraine, even in the military,.

        What really must come up is the speed of new decisions. For example, the new F126 frigates currently being designed will be more combat capable, and the F127 will be de facto destroyers. But they will come in the 2030s. We do not really have the time for 30 year long projects anymore.

        I do agree that Germany should focus more on securing international trade lines.

        • NATO is just a polite word for a shakedown.
          Buy our overpriced stuff, learn our ineffective tactics, give us a couple of percent of gdp for “freedom”.

        • Yes I agree with all that, it’s just the need to hide behind the EU umbrella that gets me. We have the UN and NATO for Such actions. The EU should confine itself to trade and economics matters. EU mission creep is a French based initiative designed to make France relavent internationally even as what’s left of its power atrophies away.

      • Red Sea SLOC is absolutely strategic for USA trade. Between most of Asia and the US east coast (where most of the US population resides) it’s about even-stevens between Panama and Suez route.

        And the Panama canal is currently restricting traffic due to low water supplies.

        So to say maintaining Red Sea SLOC is not in USA interests is just MAGA domestic politics BS.

    • So Germany is maybe perhaps considering sending a single ship in two-three months to join a single French ship that hasn’t been doing much of anything?

      As the Top Gun quote goes:
      “ten minutes? This thing is going to be over in two minutes!!, get on it!”

      What great continental allies. Reliably undependable.

    • Why is it needed? Specifically, Chapter VII, Article 51 states:”Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a ​Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” This is what the Governments of the USA and UK based the right to attack specific targets in Houthis controlled Yemen. The statements from both Governments state that their actions were acts of self defense as defined by the UN charter.

      On top of this, there is also the UN international maritime anti-piracy mandate. Which is the UNCLOS 101 to 110. By definition this is where a private actor perpetrates acts of violence, kidnapping etc against a ship for gain. The Houthis are not a recognized Nation state, therefore it can be argued that they are a private organization that conducts acts of piracy.

      In essence the UN does need to make a more specific resolution. Much like they did when Somalia became a failed state and piracy was rampant. But Chapter VII of the charter is the foundation that the resolutions are based around.

      So yes the EU action is welcome, but by the time it is finalized. There’s a good chance that this current emergency will be over.

  10. The RAF have released video of their strikes.
    Google
    Deborah Haynes New images from UK on its overnight airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. This is footage from an RAF Tyohoon jet as it launches Paveway bombs

    And it will take you to the twitter site for Sky news security editor and her tweet on the subject

  11. And in the mean time Shapps want’s the Royal Marines to justify their existence!!! The UK is down almost 8% on military strength on last year. The bloated MOD are doing their best to de demilitarise the UK.

    • The cause is the defence budget is used as a means to bung money at industry, classic tory approach to every single occasion they spend public money. Everything paid is bloated to the extreme and poor value. Its why we spend so much and have so little to show for it.

    • No landing ships why have marines ? Next cut to come I think. The Starmers\Sunaks/ Hunts are trying to diminish our arm forces so what’s little left has to join EU command. That and given Europeans living in the UK the right to vote demonstrates they just want us back in the EU. Globalisim. They make the ,Houti threat to the UK a bit of a laugh !

      • The Chinese communist party love you, honestly this sort of discussion is just what their 3 million strong political warfare team are promoting in the west. Keep discussions focused on facts and key arguments around our geopolitical best interest, find interest and common ground were we can, don’t engage in the utter trash talk against our political systems, it plays into others hands.

    • I was in the MOD (not as a CS before I take flack) when the navy publicly offered up the Marines as a saving! They know they couldn’t afford amphib shipping and Carrier strike – the fudge to avoid headlines was future commando force (which is NOT an amphibious theatre entry force like 3 Cdo Bde was). PIDs transferred to the RN to fully man the surface fleet.

      This time it was actually the politicians who said no!

      • its interesting as it promotes the discussion what is our amphibious force for:

        1) its it for the large scale ( brigade level) and swift movement of stabilisation troops or reenforcement into difficult areas to get to with good port access. ( so this is essentially what they have been used for most of the time and the northern flank type role). Or something like the Grenada in which the amphibious element was essentially supporting other arms.
        2) is it amphibious theatre entry of a viable fighting force (brigade level) into a less than benign littoral\high risk littoral over the beach but not a directly contested beach..this would be the Falklands essentially.
        3) is it amphibious theatre entry of a viable fighting force into a high risk littoral directly over a contested beach ( essentially something not done since WW2 and arguably not something anyone would want to ever do again).
        4) is it for the swift deployment of small scale intervention or stabilisation forces ( company to battalion size) into an essential low risk littoral..supporting a friendly nation or activity into a none peer dysfunctional state say rescue of nationals etc.

        I think one of the issues is that the Armed forces/MOD has not really decided what it’s amphibious force is really for..as it’s not really going to operate alone ( unless it’s for option 4) and so the Navy, airforce and army all a have to agree on it.

        • That is an excellent post and something I’ve been banging on about for a long time.

          You need to decide how you want to fight and dictate the battle space as a whole force, then organise accordingly. Separating the strategy between services results in perverse outcomes such as the Army going down a medium armour, highly deployable route at the same time as the Navy decides to get rid of Bde level amphibious.

          • Indeed in some areas like the carrier battle group you can see good close working..but around amphibious deployment of forces..which will be both marine and army backed up by the RN and RAF there does not seem to be any cohesion or collective thought…the MOD and forces need to decide what sort of fighting force they are going to be shifting, what for and where to…once they agree that they know what amphibious force, strategic sea lift, tactical and strategic airlift they actually need.

    • What? The Mod IS the UK military! And as for bloated, do you have any idea of the reductions in civil service and uniformed personnel and buildings used by MoD in central London?

  12. The UK replenished it’s paveway stocks 2 years ago with a £400 million order. As unit price is around £30K that should mean the UK has around 11,000 of these weapons. So a decent stockpile.
    If each Eurofighter carried 2-4 paveway 4s then it would require several thousand strike sorties to exhaust UK stocks. Seems we might be ok in this one area for now.
    Other precision munitions such as storm shadow , hellfire, Martlett/ spear 3 not sure about. Hopefully adequate stocks.

  13. Now let’s see what happens in the Taiwan elections tomorrow…that will tell you how probable a future world war is.

    The west being tied up in supporting a European war against Russia, a set of wars in the Middle East focused on attacking western interests…if Taiwan votes overwhelmingly for the DPP and they win both the presidential and parliamentary elections then china will have a decision to make as political reunification effectively comes off the table…add in the U.S. elections and what that may bring and it’s all looking very very risky indeed…2024 – 2027 may become some of the most important few years in history.

    • Excuse me, what biased media.
      The saudis are killing houthis for the past ten years with millions dead (don’t remember the casualities) yet this news hardly got into mainstream media.

      • You do realise the Houthi are a genocidal army of heavily armed nutters who plunged their nation into a bloody civil war because they refused any peace deal..as for millions the total Dead in the Yemeni civil war is 150,000, most of those killed in the ground fighting (a majority killed by the Houthi)..the deaths from the air campaign ( by Saudi and other nations supporting the legitimate government against the Islamist has killed around 19,000 people)..the ongoing famine causes by the war has killed around 220,000.

        And to be be clear the Houthi hate and want to kill;
        1) westerns
        2) Christians
        3)Jews ( especially Jews..who they would exterminate if given the oppression)
        ) Sunni Muslims
        4) Gay people
        5) women who don’t know their place ( as slave like baby making machines

        you have either been swayed by anti western political warfare and are spouting nonsense or you are undertaking anti western political warfare and live in either china,Russia or Iran .

      • It is but it consists of a very ethnically diverse population. Ripe for CIA meddling I would say. TBH the Iranian regime stinks and does need replacement. They have stirred the shit pot for far too long.

        • Yes a bit of counter political warfare would go down a treat…let’s start a bit of political warfare back at them..it’s not like our enemies are even pretending not to be doing it to us…we need to relearn those Cold War skills and mindset.

  16. Lel, evil insane houthis are trying to take over the world.
    It’s imperative to blast their dirt huts with bombs that cost like 10 mansions.
    Let’s bomb them to the oblivion – that’d teach them how to be free!

    • You do actually realise that the Houthi are a very well armed army/nation, armed with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, air defence systems etc and are attacking shipping heading to Europe on purpose…this attack was actually a response to a massed assault against UK and US warships….is it ok for them to shoot at our armed forces as long as our defences hold up and for our armed forces not to shoot back ?

  18. We need to be supporting Ukrainian infantry not worrying about another middle eastern debacle.
    Not our strong point

    • Unfortunately ships heading north and being shot at in the Red Sea is our problem as a good number do those ships are supplying the UK. Unfortunately being an island nation linked to the world economy means that any attack of key shipping lanes is an attack on the Uk also they directly targeted a Royal Navy warship…you cannot let people attack your armed forces without response.

  19. Right, it’s SailorBoy’s Blue Sky Time
    Could a container be developed as a cluster munition for Brimstone?
    As in, a glide kit that provides aerodynamics and stand-off range for 4 or so Brimstone that can be launched at range and guided by GPS or something to a point above the group of targets, when the container pops open and the Brimstone function as a swarm to take out the targets.
    Would be useful for this type of multi-fleeting target strike or Ukraine style armoured columns.

    • Yes, most definitely doable.

      If you take for example the body of 2000L drop tank. Put a set of deployable wings on it, battery, GPS, flight computer, data-link etc and include a bomb bay. You have in essence an unscrewed air vehicle (UAV). Give it a small turbojet and it now becomes more than just a gliding bomb carrier. Something of this size could easily carry four Brimstone internally, perhaps more.

      The gold plated solution is the loyal wingman. But a keep it simple stupid solution, is where something like a Typhoon could carry a glide bomb carrier that carries at least four Brimstone internally. With a data-link repeater, the Brimstone could be programmed when beyond visual range. The carrier could itself be used as a glide bomb.

      • Oh yes, I hadn’t thought about data links, that would retain the “man in the loop” option. I don’t think you would even need a “bomb bay”. The thing could break apart to release the Brimstone, while the data link parachutes down. That would make it more technically simple but reduce the ability to hit targets a long way apart

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here