RAF considering suicide flights

[Xenocrates]

Air Vice-Marshal David Walker put it to newly qualified pilots that they should think of flying suicide missions in a "worst case scenario" when a terrorist attack was imminent.

The head of the RAF's elite One Group who is in operational control of Typhoon, Tornado, Jaguar and Harrier fighters and bombers, is reported to have asked the pilots: "Would you think it unreasonable if I ordered you to fly your aircraft into the ground in order to destroy a vehicle carrying a Taliban or al-Qaida commander?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/military/story/0,,2048967,00.html

I can imagine an Al Qaeda leader saying "would you consider it unreasonable if I ordered you to blow yourself up in a scenario where we have no airforce and no tanks?"

I don't know what to make of this; is it normal military training?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Jeesus, when I saw that Subject line, I thought this was for the History forum, I wasn't expecting that

 

[Wilhelm Kaleva]

So this is where we have come to?

Then again if the function of the military is to protect the citizens ramming the vehicle to stop an attack on the people he is to protect he would only fulfill his mission with utmost commitment and valour.

The question could also be put as "Are you willing to die for your country?" To me you reply yes the moment you sign in the military.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Classic moral question:

The scenario was fighter plane having competed a mission and having no more munitions is radioed that the enemy leader is located in a train and you could end the war by driving your aircraft into him in a suicide attack. Would you do this ? is this moral ? would suicide by legitimised in war ?

 

[Bugfatty300]

Reminds me of "suicide missions" considered during 9/11 since many of the responding fighters weren't armed. The pilots were supposed to crash their fighters into hijacked jet liners before they reached their targets.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2222205.stm

Colonel Robert Marr was Commander of the North East Defence Sector and remembers the words that came over the secure phone "we will take lives in the air to preserve lives on the ground".

"If you had to stop an aircraft sometimes the only way to stop an aircraft is with your own aircraft if you don't have any weapons.

"It was very possible that they [the pilots] would have been asked to give their lives themselves to try to prevent further attacks if need be."

 

[Verbose]

One might also ask: "What's my survival expetancy even under normal circumstances?"

Iirc in the early days of the WWII Barbarossa offensive Soviet pilots had this tactic called the "Taran", i.e. you take your obsolete aircraft and try to ram it into a quality German plane, as you're getting killed up there anyway.

Desperation makes all manner of things seem acceptable. It's not as if Japanese WWII pilots had survival expectancies to brag about even before volunteering as kamikazes. The way they saw it, they were inevitably gonners, whatever they did.

Even regular armies occasionally ask for volunteers for a "mission de sacrifice", as the French put it. It hasn't been that uncommon. Maybe it is becoming so? The expetancy is that war is supposed not to be a desperate business anymore in some western countries?

 

[Stylesjl]

Lets put another scenario in- Nuclear War has just begun and you shot down several enemy aircraft. You are out of ammo. You see a submarine surfacing and it's about to launch a nuke- Do you crash into the submarine and stop it from launching?

Sometimes sucicide missions are needed. But mostly, there are much better options

 

[Stylesrj]

If I saw the submarine preparing to fire, I'd probably ignore it. A jet plane with no ammo is probably not going to do much damage to a submarine. Besides, it'd probably have some kind of anti air gun on it and you can't risk being hit by a stray shot and crashing beyond your target.
Yeah, so if I saw the sub, I'd radio it's position and ignore it because I'm not risking my life to destroy it if I miss it on my crash.

Seriously though, suicide missions are NOT good. It takes away good pilots and then you have your crappy pilots to do your missions which is BAD

 

[nivi]

If I saw the submarine preparing to fire, I'd probably ignore it. A jet plane with no ammo is probably not going to do much damage to a submarine. Besides, it'd probably have some kind of anti air gun on it and you can't risk being hit by a stray shot and crashing beyond your target.
Yeah, so if I saw the sub, I'd radio it's position and ignore it because I'm not risking my life to destroy it if I miss it on my crash.

You'd rather save you're life then the life of millions? Thats quite selfish (understatement) .
Anyway a jet with no weapons is still something whighing tons moving at high speed, I doubt it would just bounce off the sub.

 

[Kozmos]

Lets put another scenario in- Nuclear War has just begun and you shot down several enemy aircraft. You are out of ammo. You see a submarine surfacing and it's about to launch a nuke- Do you crash into the submarine and stop it from launching?

Sometimes sucicide missions are needed. But mostly, there are much better options

A sub doesnt need to surface to launch SLBMs. End of scenario.

 

[Stylesrj]

You'd rather save you're life then the life of millions? Thats quite selfish (understatement) .
Anyway a jet with no weapons is still something whighing tons moving at high speed, I doubt it would just bounce off the sub.

If you were flying a jet and one of those AA guns got a stray shell into your engines or if a shell hit your plane, your plane is GONE! It disintegrates or it gets so badly damaged that YOU die and your plane MISSES the submarine because there isn't a pilot to control the crash and the pieces are flying everywhere. Flak might be bad at aim, but if you happen to be the unlucky one hit by it and your plane isn't big enough... well you wouldn't be living.
Seriously, if I were a pilot and that scenario came up, I would not risk my life for it. An anti-aircraft gun would be creating a high risk factor.

However, if the submarine did not have any sort of anti-air defence or even a cannon, just the missile launching thingy, I would do a suicide run to destroy it, if to save millions of people

A sub doesnt need to surface to launch SLBMs. End of scenario.

What if the submarine had to surface to fire for some reason?

 

[Kozmos]

It wouldnt, but for arguments sakes then you would die a painful, fiery death while the sub would remain relatively intact and still able to fire missiles.

 

[Verbose]

It wouldnt, but for arguments sakes then you would die a painful, fiery death while the sub would remain relatively intact and still able to fire missiles.

Most likely, as the only thing in most navies bigger than a sub carrying intercontinantal missiles is a carrier. They're effing huge!

 

[nonconformist]

It wouldnt, but for arguments sakes then you would die a painful, fiery death while the sub would remain relatively intact and still able to fire missiles.

Submarines are pretty fragile. You put a hole in the pressure hull, a sub's a sitting duck, and subs have little AA equipment if any.

EDIT^actually, that's not comletely true, most ocme with some sort of SAM used to shoot down sonobuoy helicopters, but against a jet, especially one moving at the sub at low altitude, the sub's pretty screwed.

 

[Kozmos]

Even if they are fragile, chances are good that the vertical launching system will remain in working condition and that the sub will remain in one piece long enough to launch them.

 

[Speedo]

Lets put another scenario in- Nuclear War has just begun and you shot down several enemy aircraft. You are out of ammo. You see a submarine surfacing and it's about to launch a nuke- Do you crash into the submarine and stop it from launching?

Sometimes sucicide missions are needed. But mostly, there are much better options

Moot point. In any non-ASW aircraft you'll never notice the sub until you see its missiles start to fly.

 

[TheBladeRoden]

I'd use the ejection seat myself.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Iirc in the early days of the WWII Barbarossa offensive Soviet pilots had this tactic called the "Taran", i.e. you take your obsolete aircraft and try to ram it into a quality German plane, as you're getting killed up there anyway.

Supposedly, a Soviet WWII ace was asked by a reporter why he had never used the taran and replied "I never ran out of ammo".

However, unlike the kamikaze the taran wasn't a true suicide tactic - you were supposed to jump out at the last moment to fly another day if possible. Some pilots apparently managed pull it of repeatedly.

 

[bhsup]

Since there seems to be arguments about the effectiveness of an aircraft vs a sub, let's take an example from Hollywood. In the movie Air Force One, a fighter pilot sacrifices himself to save the President by flying his aircraft in the way of a missile heading towards Air Force One.

F-15 Pilot: Sir, pull up! You've got one on your tail.
President James Marshall: Get him off my tail!
F-15 Pilot: Missile away. Air Force One. Break left and climb!
Major Caldwell: Sir, we've lost countermeasures.
F-15 Pilot: This is Halo-2. They've lost countermeasures. I'm going in.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Since there seems to be arguments about the effectiveness of an aircraft vs a sub, let's take an example from Hollywood. In the movie Air Force One, a fighter pilot sacrifices himself to save the President by flying his aircraft in the way of a missile heading towards Air Force One.

And what a silly seen it was. As if the pilot would have time to see the missile launch, notice that AF1 had no more countermeasures, decide to sacrifice himself, out maneuver an AA missile and finally pull his fighter into the missile's path just tens of yards from AF1.