You really are an obnoxious individual aren't you? Would you find anyone with an ounce of decency to brand the RAF Tornado loses an embarrassment? From one who soon cries about "personal attacks "and "abuse" by members of this forum, it is a bit offensive to the memory of those dead aircrew to say their efforts and sacrifice was an embarrassment.
One aircraft was shot down on a JP mission, the others lofting bombs at low level, but it wasnt just the RAF that went in low in the first phase, and it wasnt just the RAF that suffered losses and damage from AAA and SAMs at low level, the french Jaguars did, the USMC AV-8B, F15E's and A6's.
As usual your grasp of context and history leave a lot to be desired, "flying low and fast rather than using stand off guided munitions". Less than 10% of weapons dropped in GW1 were smart weapons, the vast majority of aircraft types and numbers dropped dumb bombs, those options didnt exist for the RAF in 1991, the numbers of targetting pods was small. Even the USA was limited in the numbers of platforms that could drop LGB's, the USAF had three types the F117/F111 and F15E and the majority of F15E ordnance was dumb due to the limited number of LANTIRN targeting pods, only one-quarter of the F-15Es deployed to the Persian Gulf had the
capability of autonomously delivering LGBs. (source FAS.org). If the US was limited in how many smart weapons it could deploy, how was the UK in the time period going to do any better?
I suppose your wisdom is greater than the RAF who spent decades figuring out how to strike at WARPAC airfields, hence why your application of hindsight is so clearly correct. In the 1970's and 1980's it was never an option for the NATO RAF by means of budget or technology to have moved away from low level strike, again your alternative history of how UK forces should have been structured has little to do with the contect or reality of the time. It was entirely expected that the RAF were given the tough task of low level airfield attack, a job that had to be done, by aircrew who knew they would take casualties. Applying hindsight now is unfair, all the pre war planning anticipated far higher air loses , if the computer simulations come out at 10% attrition to allied forces across the board, then why wouldnt the RAF train and practice at low level? Sharkey Ward writing various outlandish claims about the GR1 and crew is a disgrace, but frankly not a surprise that someone like you would repeat it, "embarrassment" ?!!!
Once the Iraqi air defence network was knocked out, it was also logical that the air war would change altitude, the deployment of buccaneer was needed not for any embarrassment but because the target list had changed to HAS, bridges and other hardened targets. You are suggesting the RAF somehow scurried away from a mission that they had failed at, they didnt, over 100 JP223's delivered, im not sure there are any accurate assements in the public domain of the actual damage caused by those raids.
