Airstrikes Could Happen Minutes After Vote
Updated: 12:31pm UK, Thursday 25 September 2014
By Alistair Bunkall, Defence Correspondent
In theory, British airstrikes on Iraq could start within minutes of parliamentary approval, should it be given, on Friday night.
Realistically, if RAF Tornados are given the order, they will be in the skies in the very early hours of Saturday morning, at the earliest.
They will deploy in pairs, taking off over Akrotiri Bay and climbing northeast over the Mediterranean and towards the Turkish coast.
The butterflies of anticipation will be churning away inside, they will be aware of the television cameras at the end of the runway, they will know that within a few hours, as dawn breaks, they will be headline news.
Hugging the Turkish border with Syria at 25,000 feet, the jets will meet an RAF Voyager refuelling aircraft en route, before dropping down into northern Iraq.
Flying at 400mph (643kph), they will reach the theatre of operations in a matter of hours.
What happens next is a decision for US Centcom, which is co-ordinating the overall operation.
The jets might fit into a holding pattern to perform an "x-cas" role, the military acronym for "emergency close air support".
Because this isn't a traditional conflict against a rogue state, there will be fewer major installations to destroy.
The coalition wants to destroy Islamic State, they don't want to destroy Iraq. Instead it will be dynamic, hitting the rats as they pop their heads out of the ground.
The Tornados, one of the best ground-attack aircraft in the world, will be fully loaded with the equipment specific to the task they've been given.
A Listening III pod will be attached underneath. This gives the crew the ability to examine the immediate area and then laser-designate the target.
The final decision to fire will be down to the pilot himself.
The payload will probably be four Paveway bombs and two Brimstone missiles.
Paveways can be programmed by the crew to explode just before it hits the target, or on impact or with a small delay so it can bury into a building.
The Brimstone locks on to its target the moment it is fired. It is a "fire-and-forget" weapon, meaning that it can be used in all weathers and at distance from the target.
Designed especially for armoured vehicles or similar, a small warhead explodes first to soften up the armour before a larger warhead detonates creating more destruction.
For the British, this will be a twin-pronged operation: from sea and air. A Royal Naval submarine is also moving into position.
Her exact identity and location is top secret but she's most likely in the eastern Mediterranean.
She carries Tomahawk cruise missiles - TLAMS - which have a range of about 1,000 miles (1,600km).
Guided by GPS, these are effective against static objects: buildings, military instillations, weapons dumps and oil refineries.
The submarine can also watch live images from a camera on the TLAM as it flies over the battlefield and strikes its target.
Job done, the crew will turn for home. Landing back in Cyprus, the news will just be breaking.
Within hours, footage recorded on board the aircraft will be released to the media to be broadcast and analysed on 24-hour news channels around the world.
As the crews eat some food and get some sleep, another team will be getting ready for their mission, ready to fly at a moment's notice.
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