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.
Well, 2024 really started out strong didn’t it
Pretty much…..😒
..its Putins mates kicking off in the middle East to distract the west from Ukraine
With China watching on no doubt.
Indeed!
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.
100%
Correct no doubt Putin and China . Must make Putin real jealous seeing real high tec weapons in action .
It’s only going to get crapper unfortunately.
Cue the pictures off a devastated ‘fishing village’ later🙄
I doubt it, we have been hitting targets in Syria like this for years with virtually zero collateral damage.
Yes I know but the Houthi PR will now go into overdrive and watch the bedwetting begin🙄
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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
Love this. 😃
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.
So true bravo
😂 You my man are a genius 😂
That’s from Yes Minister…
Yes it is . I would love to put some original comments but it would no get printed.
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.… Read more »
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
Sorry – should be ‘explained’.
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.
Yes but also Israel is illegally occupying their land in violation of international law.
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… Read more »
Err… No.
It’s just nobody cares about dead civilians unless the appropriate marching orders have been given to mass media.
Houthis say, according to the Times, that six were killed and 5 injured.
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… Read more »
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.
Don’t forget yankie aircraft took part as well 20+ in air.
Plus sea launched missiles from their ships in the region.
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.
Yes
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).
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.
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.
Paveway can’t be jammed either in laser-guided mode, so that fills some gaps
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.
Forces news today said Paveway IV is around £30K, that’s about the same price as JDAM.
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.
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
“Akritoni” Is UK Sovereign Territory, we don’t have the same in Oman or SA.
We have Diego Garcia to the south in the Northern Indian Ocean
This is a UK base (at the moment!)
It was used by the US in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars
Nearer to the old North Yemen (Houthi land) than Cyprus
Yes that was my point sorry if not clear.
Better still, we should have had MK41 VLS and TLAM on the Type-45 – there would then be no need for the Typhoons.
Would not be able to get those new SeaCeptor silos if we had the mk41 though.
Look up the new MK70 launcher. A deck mounted , angled MK41. Would allow T45 to have 2, so 4 Tomahawk. A token capability, but useful nonetheless.
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.
Fair point Jim, political interference aside, Oman is perfectly geolocated as a base of operations.
Yes agree, just those pesky political issue. We should have leased the large island of their coast when we had the chance.
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… Read more »
Oh lord, not back to Aden, best dig up and reanimate Mad Mitch!
😂 I know….. lol
Argyll Law 😉
Argyll Law indeed, not so much hearts and minds, more boot and SLR butt!
Joking aside guys, lets hope to hell this doesn’t end up in another bloody unwinnable, counter insurgency Sandbox campaign.
He wasn’t mad, he came from Croydon. I lived there for two years and it has an effect. Even though both his parents were Scottish, and it was the identity he adopted, it’s hard to rid yourself of Croydon.
🤣🤣🤣😂
No wonder he was so hard 💪🏻😁
Yes army and navy only, Airforce is in Qatar
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.
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… Read more »
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.
These countries are afraid to author a letter and we expect them to send ships into harms way?
The US and UK really are cut from a different cloth.
Takes 300 years to make such cloth 😀
NZ is in 5 eyes that’s why it has to back it.
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… Read more »
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”.
oh deary me
Oh dear. Troll alert. And what nation do you profess to be from Mr Yes man. Me thinks China or maybe Russia. The answer for both responses is “you can bog off”!
Ah, we’ve been due a new batch of St Petersburg Troll farm graduates…..
Absolutely, down with West and it’s decadent ways, it’s downtrodden people will soon be clasped to the chest of the dear leader and enveloped in Mother Russia’s embrace…
Another Russia troll
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… Read more »
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
Can you share the link Farouk please?
I did, yesterday, it was put up for moderation and still hasn’t been published
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.
Tory and Labour, they have both primarily utilised Mod procurement very poorly over the years.
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 !
Keeping taking the meds and make sure your tinfoil hat is screwed on tight LOL
No need for that sort of language, everyone knows tin foil hats have chin straps, not screwed on……
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… Read more »
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?
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.
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… Read more »
No doubt the bias media will be on the houthis side,
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.
Oh dear. Please check your facts first before commenting. You clearly are a troll.
Ergo…you can bog off.
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)… Read more »
A Nuclear Strike on Tehran would solve the problem..only kidding 😜..but its something I would whisper in their ear
Iran is a Big Country though.
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.
use a bomb with a bigger yield!
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 OK Hun ?
He’s new to trolling Frank, so give young Stalin a break, he’s got to find his feet….
Exactly… You’ve got it in one. Well done Yes. Your intellect and wisdom knows no bounds.
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 ?
Kudos to everyone involved for a safe and successful mission!
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.
Ok, so let these guys shut down the busiest sea lanes in the world. Then what?
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… Read more »
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
The image shows EPW IIs!