Tornado and Typhoon jets bombed three Islamic State command and control locations in eastern Syria.
According to the Ministry of Defence:
“Our aircraft were able to attack successfully three known terrorist command and control locations on Sunday 14 October, all in and around Hajin.
Typhoons dealt with two of the targets, including one where a Daesh attack planning team were reported to be present at the time, whilst Tornados destroyed the third.”
By September 2017, the Ministry of Defence had announced that over 1,000 personnel were engaged in theatre and that the Royal Air Force had conducted around 900 airstrikes, flying over 2,200 sorties, killing 3,000 fighters.
In December, it was reported that the Royal Air Force is operating at its most intense for 25 years in a single theatre of operation which far outstripped the UK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan – RAF jets have dropped 11 times more bombs (1,276 strikes) on Syria and Iraq in the preceding 12 months than they had in the busiest year of action in Afghanistan a decade previously.
As of 14 March 2017, the MoD says the operation had cost the UK taxpayers £265 million. As of 15 April 2017, it was revealed that 129 Paveway IV bombs, 37 Hellfire missiles, 20 Brimstone missiles, 30 unspecified/other armaments were used in the operation against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Typhoon needs to be certified nuclear capable sooner rather than later with a suitable replacement for the WE-177 sadly scrapped back in 1998.
Analysts say Russia sees such weapons as a cheaper alternative to conventional forces.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45930206
Re your link, the sooner we realise that none our our foes give a damn about international agreements the better.
Or maybe we know and are ourselves secretly developing stuff. I hope so.
Well done!
Tornado still has useful life remaining.
If this leads the USA to regenerste nuclear cruise, then that makes switching off dreadnought for more astute with nuclear cruise more viable. Others have commented it would be too costly to develop. Imagine 12-15 nuclear capable SSNs. Flexibility, coverage and resilience…with for me enough of a nuclear strike to deter.
Would be interesting to know how much each missile costs for each strike. Command posts and motar teams are they worth spendings tens of thousands on??