RAF consider "Kamikazi" tactics

It would appear that the good old RAF have done it again. In a recent training scenario, pilots were asked to consider the option of using their plane as a direct weapon "Kamikazi" style in the event of a complete weapons systems failure.

news.bbc.co.uk...

While the RAF have stated that it was just part of a training scenario, they were not willing to state that pilots would not be asked to sacrifice themselves in this manner if the situation required it.

Pilots on the other hand condemn the idea, stating that the chance that they may be asked to crash into a threat has the potential to greatly lower morale. While this is an option considered by individual pilots on many occasions, the possibility that senior officers are suggesting it has raised a few pulses.

[edit on 3-4-2007 by PaddyInf]

Hey Paddy, I saw that at 0600 on BBC News 24 or Breakfast and I thought
'Tally Ho!'

Apparently the MoD have strenuously denied asking pilots to make such life and death decisions - not like shooting down an unarmed passenger jet then?

I think this needs to be kept in perspective. These seem to have been a series of rehtorical questions made at the end of a training conference. The notion of dropping a multi million pound jet on to a truck carrying a Taliban leader is clearly bloody stupid. But ramming a Hi-jacked passenger jet on it's way to Canary Wharf? I'm not sure. At least nowdays the fighter pilots have ejector seats and parachutes, which is more than their RFC predecessors, who were expected to ram Zeppelins over The Channel during WW1.

Sounds more like "Dying to Win" concept.

Fang, I agree that this particular scenario was just as part of a training exercise, but the fact that the senior in question would not state that the pilots would not be asked to do this is what's worrying the crabs.

Actually, the scenario that was put forward was EXACTLY what you stated - "Would you (the pilot) be willing to crash your airframe into the vehicle of a known terrorist, resulting in your own death, if you knew that it was the only way to stop an attack taking place?" or words to that effect.

As I stated earlier, these are questions that most pilots ask themselves at some stage. However the fact that a senior officer has posed this question in public has rattled a few cages.

they're talking about acceptable loss. if you were the last line of defense and your weapons went out, would you sacrafice yourself for the good of the country? they're not recommending it and they're definitely not implementing it as an active strategy.

its the same question that has been asked time and time again... WILL YOU DIE FOR YOUR COUNTRY AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES?

Originally posted by bokinsmowl
they're talking about acceptable loss. if you were the last line of defense and your weapons went out, would you sacrafice yourself for the good of the country? they're not recommending it and they're definitely not implementing it as an active strategy.

its the same question that has been asked time and time again... WILL YOU DIE FOR YOUR COUNTRY AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES?

A serviceman sacrificing themselves in that situation is one thing. Soildiers/airmen/sailers have done this many times in the past, and will no doubt do the same in the future. However, a British serviceman has never been officially asked to carry out this act, nor has the situation ever been officially discussed. This is the fear.

Servicemen that have knowilngly given their lives in the name of their chosen profession are the bravest men and women of our times. However making it policy to perform such an act screams of desperation.

"The aim of soldiering is not to die for your country, but to make the other b@stard die for theirs"

I'm sure soldiers in the british army have been asked befor to die. Like hold until the last man or something. That's just speculation on my part, but really asking a person if they would kamikazi can simply be looked at as asking how far they would go for their country. It doesn't have to be that the RAF is now adopting kamikazi tactics and such. Die trying but get the job done, similar slogan.

Regards,
Maestro

Excellent Find!

From the original article:

Pilots and commanders had to consider what they would do in a worst case scenario where they had a Taleban or al-Qaeda commander in their sights and found themselves out of ammunition or suffered a weapons failure.

Basicly they are saying, that when without any weapons - you be the weapon!

So teaching and preaching suicide attacks is not something strictly "Muslim".

Or Japanese.

And the RAF commanders have just prooved that.

I wonder what kind of tactics would they teach, if they had no airplanes...

I'm not sure they were teaching suicide attacks. As I have said the notion of crashing a plane onto a Taliban leaders truck is plain daft. But ramming a Hi-jacked plane heading for a city? As I said earlier, The Royal Flying Corp had expected it's pilots to ram Zeppelins in WW1.

Originally posted by Fang
I'm not sure they were teaching suicide attacks. As I have said the notion of crashing a plane onto a Taliban leaders truck is plain daft. But ramming a Hi-jacked plane heading for a city? As I said earlier, The Royal Flying Corp had expected it's pilots to ram Zeppelins in WW1.

I fail to see the difference;

For example:

"But there's a very real difference between somebody saying, 'I'm going to make a personal decision to sacrifice myself', rather than somebody saying, 'I want you to commit suicide'."

So - what exactly is the Real difference here?

Semantics...

Well they certainly weren't claiming divine sanction for such an action, or that by doing so they were guaranteeing themselves a place in heaven. The question was raised at the end of a seminar for Aircrew weaspons specialists who were asked this within the context of having to contend with a complete weapons system failure.

Originally posted by Souljah

So teaching and preaching suicide attacks is not something strictly "Muslim".

Or Japanese.

And the RAF commanders have just prooved that.

I wonder what kind of tactics would they teach, if they had no airplanes...

With no airplanes, the Brits still would not ram a truck or car filled with explosives in blow themselves up in a mosque or a market. Nor do they ram into a couple of tall skyscrapers. The Japanese sure didn't do that. Mostly it was all military ships they crash into. Not civilians.

The very true essence of Kamakazi tactics is directed at capital class vessels,structures.

Right from the end of the WWII with zero pilots to
preparations for the same when the USN 74th task force prepared to aggressively posture itself in support of Pakistan in the 71' Indo-Pak war..

It all boils down to the actual 'target value' and the possibility of getting a successful result out of the sacrifice.

Judging by the behavior of the Royal Marines in the recent Iran confrontation, self sacrifice appears low on the list of options for UK military personnel.

WWBS (What Would Biggles Say)

Retseh, normally I would lambast you for posting what you have written.

The 15 Royal Naval and Royal Marine personnel were engaged in the Shat-al-Arab on anti-smuggling and anti-gun running operations.

They were operating on one of the most hotly disputed waterways in the world. The Shat-al-Arab has been fought over for hundreds of years and not only between Iran and Iraq, but also Qatar, the UAE and Oman.

That they were without sufficient backup is deplorable and those canny Iranians chose their moment well, to capture our troops.

There are those in the press who have recently lambasted these people for not fighting the Iranians off but I would ask you this:

Would 'you' defend yourself by opening fire with a pistol or rifle against the Boghammer [Fast] Inshore Patrol Craft that are armed with a minimum of 1 x 12.7mm heavy machine-gun and several RPG's and RPD's? No of course not!

But obviously those pratts in the newspapers would, but they would have done so, no doubt from the safety of their padded armchairs back in Blighty! the lot of them.

That was the background. Now we come to Conduct After Capture. Once these 15 servicemen and women were captured, they were subject to Article 10 of Part 1; Article 12-16 of Part II and Article 17 of Part III contained therein of the Geneva Convention appertaining to the handling of POWs.

Section 1 of Part III - Beginning of Captivity states:

Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information. www.unhchr.ch... for full details.

Now, in my opinion, the Iranians contravened the Geneva Convention on any number of occaisions. That our personnel also contravened the same Article is beyond question.

One of the very first things you are taught on POW Handling, Conduct After Capture and R to I courses, is that you admit nothing, sign nothing and agree to nothing - no matter what physical or mental pressures are applied to make you do so.

However, when all is said and done, we were not there! We do not know what pressure was brought to bear on these people, we do not know if that young navy gal was threatened with rape or other forms of physical abuse.

Something made these people do what they did and I am sorry Retseh, but we should reserve our judgement until the whole sordid story comes out.

If I am brutualy honest and look at this from the Navy Act and Queens regulations, then I would say that all 15 are guilty of 'conduct prejudicial to good order or discipline' under Section 69 of the Navy Act.

I wait with interest to see if charges are brought against all or any of the 15, once the furore has died down.

Just a quick one for PaddyInf, I do recall a similar situation during the Falklands war, the SAS Ruperts were toying with the idea, of striking within the Argentinian border to disrupt, comms etc, the idea was ditched at the last minute, as it was blatantly a suicide mission.

[edit on 25-4-2007 by DeepSixIt]

Originally posted by DeepSixIt
Just a quick one for PaddyInf, I do recall a similar situation during the Falklands war, the SAS Ruperts were toying with the idea, of striking within the Argentinian border to disrupt, comms etc, the idea was ditched at the last minute, as it was blatantly a suicide mission.

[edit on 25-4-2007 by DeepSixIt]

I heard that one too. Another alleged SAS suicide mission, was the proposed TALO directly into Stanley which, as it turned out, was exactly what the Argentinian commander expected.

Wasn't the original questioned proposed within the context of a known terrorist attack against a UK target with an airliner? If the pilots were asked to shoot down the airliner, but could not because of weapons failure, but they also knew that if they didn't bring the aircraft down then many more would die, they were asked if they would sacrifice themselves to stop the attack.

Those in this thread that seem to be equating this with attacking some decrepit, goat-herding Jihadist in Afghanistan are way off base. No way, even in the case of an imminent attack by such a person, would the RAF expect their pilot's (or even ask nicely) to fly their craft into his truck.

We're talking an attack like 9/11 on UK soil here and what the crew would do if asked to stop it b ut had no weapons.

Of course it was Stu. My apologies for straying off topic but felt that other issues were raised.

The assumption made by many people that Royal Air Force pilots would willingly die in a so called 'fail safe' suicide mission against a passenger aircraft full of people is of course, utter nonsense.

There is no reason to suppose [that] the RAF would launch a single interceptor aircraft with a view to mounting an operational sortie against any aircraft, hostile or otherwise.

Indeed, even whilst flying peacetime manoeuvres, there is always a flight leader and wingman. In the unlikely event that one aircraft has a complete weapons system faillure, the other aircraft would step up and take the shot.

Having said that, there are potential weapons platforms in existance and, if push came to shove, they could and should be used to carry out this type of mission. I refer to the BaE Raven, Herti and the Taranis projects.

I believe that both Herti and Raven are near operational status whilst Taranis is scheduled to undergo unmanned combat trials in 2009.

[edit on 25-4-2007 by fritz]