Libya: The Costs
1. 10 Typhoon fighter and 10 Tornado Ground Attack aircraft of the Royal Air Force and several hundred aircrew, ground support and maintenance personnel have been deployed to Gioia del Colle in Italy in support of operation Odyssey Dawn over Libya. Formal Press releases presented this as a major national contribution to the NATO operation.
2. Today, at 3:38PM BST 13 April 2011, the MoD released a statement saying that the Typhoon “has fired its weapons in anger in the ground attack role [for the first time] since entering service with the RAF.”
3. In fact, this mission was carried out by a single Typhoon aircraft carrying two Paveway Mk II laser guided bombs. It flew the 600 nautical miles to the besieged city of Misurata in the company of a single Tornado ground attack aircraft carrying a Litening III targeting pod and a single Paveway Mk IV laser guided bomb. These two aircraft were supported by an air to air refuelling tanker launched from over 1000 miles away in Akrotiri, Cyprus.
4. The Typhoon had to fly in company with a Tornado because the £160 million worth of laser targeting pods destined for fitting to the Typhoon were still in their packing crates and the Typhoon pilots were not qualified or trained to use them. The Tornado was therefore used to acquire the targets for the bombs and the Typhoon pilot dropped his bombs when directed to by the Tornado crew. This can be viewed either as an innovative and sensible way of ‘making good’ serious national front line deficiencies or as a very expensive and inefficient way of doing so. The latter view seems more appropriate when Harriers from carriers remain available with trained aircrew to do a job which presently requires a Typhoon /Tornado combination which, even if either aircraft performed to desired specification, would be at a markedly higher cost.
5. Let us examine this mission in more detail.
6. In an article in the Telegraph by Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent 6:00AM BST 13 Apr 2011, (9 ½ hours before the MoD/RAF press release) he states that ‘Four of the 10 Typhoons based at Gioia del Colle in southern Italy were to be sent on bombing missions until the RAF realised that pilots were not qualified to drop weapons,’ He goes on to say that ‘A senior RAF officer said: "The guys are not considered safe to drop live bombs on live targets”.’
7. So it appears that the deployment of 10 Typhoon fighter aircraft to southern Italy provides four which are capable of dropping (but not targeting) iron bombs. Presumably the other 6 are earmarked to act as fighter escorts for any Tornados sent on Ground Attack missions in spite of there being zero ait-to-air threat from Libyan forces.
8. The basic costs of this mission can be broken down as follows:
Typhoon: three hours flying time £240,000
Tornado: three hours flying time £105,000
Refuelling tanker: five hours flying time £150,000
Fuel costs: approximately £100,000
Total cost of the single mission £595,000
8. Harrier aircraft from a carrier could have completed this mission for less than £80,000 and without this cost of deploying Typhoon, Tornado and tanking aircraft and associated ground support to Italy and Cyprus.
9. Those are the basic mission costs. The support costs are more difficult to estimate but suffice it to say that running RAF Marham for one year is more than four times the cost of running HMS Ark Royal or HMS Illustrious for the same period.
10. This Typhoon/Tornado mission raises the further issue of why the Tornado was carrying only a single laser guided bomb when it should have been able to carry several more. It is apparent that fatigue problems associated with the wing configuration of the Tornado prevent it from dropping ordnance (weapons) from its two outboard wing pylons. Neither aircraft is well-suited to the tasks set.
11. Finally, the closing comment in Thomas Harding’s article was that an MoD spokesman said: "We have sufficient Typhoon aircrew with appropriate training for all the systems and weapons to undertake the current tasks." It is not clear quite what “current tasks” means – presumably, providing escort for Tornadoes and dropping bombs as directed by them because Tornadoes cannot carry enough themselves. MoD/RAF is saying that “without more money it cannot support the operational and training tasks facing it in Libya and in Afghanistan”. This would hardly be surprising when it is using such ineffective aircraft. Whether more money is worth putting in their hands to perpetuate this kind of inefficiency is another matter altogether when the jobs required can all be done much more cheaply by the Joint Force Harrier operating from aircraft carriers.
12. A further inefficiency has been revealed by a BBC World News video clip which showed a Tornado attacking a Libyan artillery piece with the Brimstone missile. The warhead exploded on impact approximately 30 feet away from the artillery piece leaving the latter apparently unscathed. It sadly appears that Brimstone deployed by Tornado is nothing like as effective as claimed. Approximately £250,000 for this single aircraft mission with no result! Perhaps that is why the Tornado is now dropping laser guided bombs – again something that the Harrier had been doing very successfully for five years in Afghanistan before the RAF recommended it be taken out of service in order to retain the less effective and less reliable Tornado.
Like your son, I to have served in afghan, on helicopters and taken rounds. What Service I am in is largely irrelevant as we are all working for the same cause, to get boots on the ground. I have witnessed lots of paranoia about the CHF in the papers recently, mostly from the RN, but some from the RAF aswell. Bitter in-fighting between the Services doesn't do any of us on today's frontline any favours. It is letters to newspapers, and blogs like yours that undermine and seek to divide our effort in Afghan and Libya. The politicians who like to divide and conquer must love reading this. You are someone to whom the media turn for a comment from time to time. Please comment responsibly, and remember that we are all on the same side.
ReplyDeleteAnon, your comment seems a fair point but seeing as we have retired the Harrier in favour of a clearly less capable orbat of aircraft I think the infighting, which is clearly not in the national interest, has been started by the RAF. Libya is proving that the loss of the Harrier/CVS capability has been a mistake perpetrated by the former RAF CDS after SDSR had been agreed upon by the heads of each Service.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what your problem is here?
ReplyDeleteIsnt this exactly the sort of improvisation you praise the plucky underfunded FAA for?
The decision has already been made. As PM and Fox have already commented, they are not going to reverse it. The decision was made to forgo carrier strike capability by the heads of the 3 Services not the RAF. As RAF i wish the decision did not have to be made at all as it affected our aircrew aswell. But the rest of us who are left fighting and flying have to put up with this constant bickering that is undermining the overall effort and playing into the hands of the beancounters. It just means that I go on ops with one hand tied behind my back as the in fighting continues. Sharkey, you know what it is like to fly and fight. Have a heart, think about the rest of us, and quit playing media wars. It's not worth it.
ReplyDeleteIronic isn't it, back in the first Gulf War was it not the Bucanneer that was called upon to help the Tornadoes to get on target, now it's the Tornadoes turn to do the same for another cost-hungry, incapable & unfit-for-purpose aircraft.
ReplyDeleteOther than the increased costs it seems like nothing much changes with the same bad decisions being made at the top and the blatantly obvious fix simply being cast aside in a misguided attempt to save face.
Don't get me wrong here, I have met Mr Ward and he is without question the most unpleasant men I have come across, but he does make an extremely valid point based on nothing but fact. The clear fact that all commenting RAF individuals are simply saying 'stop arguing, it's just the way it is', leads me to believe that they know his points are spot on and his facts are correct. Once again the RAF have shown their extreme skills in self preservation, spin and tenuously positive PR, and once again the RN have been left lacking in leadership and drive up top when arguments have been laid down for the government to consider.
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope Mr Ward keeps introducing these facts to the public, I hope they continue to be discussed in an ever expanding circle, but most of all I hope that someone in a position of power takes the RAF to task on the lies and miss-information they fed the government in order to further their own petty self preservation.
If Sharkeys inaccurate and misleading stats and Lewis pages whining are all the RN has left then the once great Navy is doomed. The reason that the Navy higher ups cannot argue back is that the RAF are the most capable. Why else are they not speaking out??
ReplyDeleteAnon at 4:15
ReplyDeleteI actualy agree that the Tornado should have been scrapped, Harrier maintained, and the £5bn that saved used to ramp up the T3b Typhoon and weapons integration programs.
I just dont get how this is an RAF fault. The government decided to delay giving Typhoon targeting pods.
Illustrious and Ark were run alongside 2 harrier land based stations. That rather shoots down your cheap carrier argument. You also fail to mention the RAS ships and AOR RFA tubs required to keep a carrier afloat. Oh and dud I mention the other surface RN vessels and helps as part of organic defence... Now you get a true cost, not some made up stat from 'Sharkeylalaland'
ReplyDeleteDo you mean air stations such as RAF Wittering (quiet but still running and still costing), or RAF Cottesmore (still running and still costing), and you probably mean the RFAs that are still at sea serving the rest of the Fleet, and the FFs and DDs still at sea doing their jobs?? Because if you mean all these things, they're in place, still being paid for meaning if the government were to regenerate the Harrier fleet, the cost and impact would be as minimal as the operational impact of the Typhoon fleet.
ReplyDeleteYep, at sea still costing etc. My point is that Sharkey ignored the need for land bases to support Harrier ops, and purely costs the carrier. Not it's supporting vessels. Hence his maths are discredited. After the demise of FA2(which should never have happened), the RN utilised RAF bases to train and support their peronnel as part of JFH, and then have the nerve to blame the RAF for a political decision based on lack of money across Defence. Get a life!
ReplyDeleteSome good discussions here, and it's clear who's RN and who's RAF! I feel the last statement is slightly unfair as no one in the RN wanted a Joint Harrier Force, let alone one based on RAF bases, as I understand it this was another decision pushed for by the RAF (and not suitably quashed by the RN) in order to put their pieces into position and finally pull off the coup of clearing the RN of a jet capability. This tactic is being seen yet again with the RAF making moves for a joint Merlin Mk3 CHF, no doubt if that happens, in years to come the RAF will once again argue that they have the RW overland support majority and begin an attempt to push out the RN green RW fleet.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed a sad state of affairs, but one that will continue until the government sacks all the inbred Tornado top brass of the RAF and listens to some genuine tri-service advice.
I've found a lot of the above comments very interesting. I've been fortunate to work in both RN Warfare, FAA and trained with the RAF too.
ReplyDeleteI know what side of the fence I should come down on and yet it seems somewhat counter-productive to do so.
I haven't done the pounds and pence calculations to work out what aircraft combo would have been cheaper for the Libya intervention; frankly I think such speculation is irrelevant given that this is yet another theatre we cannot afford to be involved in.
The bottom line is that, post the SDSR, all 3 services are having to do just as much as before but with significantly less. That the RAF has had to commit both Typhoons and Tornadoes to conduct sorties that should have required one aircraft type highlights this well.
What really needs to be done is for the UK to take a long, cool, hard look at itself and what it wants to achieve. If it wants to continue to field a world-class force for good, capable of projecting that force globally, then it needs to spend far more. If a Self-Defence force is required then it should be spending far less. But muddling along the middle ground with ill-defined headmarks and confused spending is needlessly risking lives.
Take a reality pill. The RAF have never been interested in helicopters , let alone the CHF. The agreed position was for the RAF to give up Merlin Mk3 once 22 new CH47 were on the table. Why should the RAF take SK4 crews when it all ready has capable crews who already do the job in the 'stan'. This is just conspiracy theory 'bullish!t'
ReplyDeleteWhy should the RAF just give up it's Merlin cockpits to the RN and make it's own aircrews redundant? Try looking at it from a less blinkered point of view. The RN muscled RAF Harrier pilots out of cockpits when FA2 folded. Now they are attempting to do the same with helicopters.
ReplyDeleteThat Typhoon was not equipped with Litening pod on the centerline?
ReplyDeletehttp://bfbs.com/news/raf/typhoon-pilot-describes-first-air-ground-strike-46743.html