[Popeye]

POSTED: 0923 GMT (1723 HKT), April 3, 2007

LONDON, England (AP) -- British fighter pilots were asked by a military chief to consider flying suicide missions as a last resort to stop terrorists, the defense ministry acknowledged Tuesday.

Air Vice-Marshal David Walker told crews to consider the scenario at a training conference, Britain's The Sun tabloid newspaper reported.

Walker asked pilots what they would do if they suffered weapons failure as they pursued terrorists attempting to fly an aircraft into a British city, or as they chased ground vehicles carrying militants to a target.

"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 Qaeda commander?" the newspaper quoted Walker as asking the pilots, in editions published Tuesday.

Britain's defense ministry said Walker had posed questions about how pilots react to life or death situations, but did not say he would order crews on kamikaze missions.

"These are decisions which, however unlikely and dreadful, service people may have to make and it is one of many reasons why the British people hold them in such high esteem," said a ministry spokesman, on condition of anonymity in line with policy.

[Antlurz]

Never fear. Todays British leadership would be loathe to have to report to the public they actually asked someone to inflict violence on an enemy.

Ron

[DWARREN123]

Sometimes it has to done. Like the saying goes "All Gave Some, Some Gave All". It is very true.

[Rookie_Rover]

It is a novel idea, and it is fighting "on the same level with the enemy", the problem is, it is fighting on the same level with the enemy. You must fight dirty to win, how dirty is a matter of realism and common sense.

I think that suicide missions are kinda stupid though. Why sacrifice a person who has got thousands of hours (Which translated to $$$) of jet flight training in him to defeat a handful of bad guys? With modern technology, and camera technology, there must be a way to mechanically control an aircraft from miles away via remote control. (Think of it as a large RC airplane.) A pair of video cameras in the nose, one on each wingtip, and fully operable controls, and voila, you've made a highly controllable powered single use jet-fuel bomb.

I do see a problem with doing such with jets. You have an aircraft which could cost 20 million dollars to replace (Using the F-16 as an example craft), and you're going to fly it into the ground to defeat a half a handful of enemies.

Mathematically, the goal is to defeat a target that is the size of a human, potentially, you could have maybe 15 bad guys all in a clump. It still doesn't take a 42,300 pound F-16 Fighting Falcon traveling at 1300 Mph to defeat that target!

I still think this thing can be won by technology for a lot less than some of these countries are thinking about. The cost to retrain a pilot, and replace a jet is simply too much expense for no more damage than it could do. You're sacrificing millions of gear and guys to defeat the enemies one at a time.

"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 Qaeda commander?"

In a way, I would, even as someone who doesn't fly. You're throwing a multi-million dollar aircraft into a vehicle full of terrorists, when an aircraft fitted missile could do similar damage while saving not only the jet, but the trained pilot as well.

In a war where you could end it with a few precision missions, it is a bulletproof plan; kill these guys, lose a few good men during, and it's over. In a war where the enemy has seemingly non-ending resources and manpower, you can't be wasting supplies like that. I don't think we've yet seen 1/10 of the abilities of those we are trying to defeat. since there have been terrorists linked in virtually every civilized country, we could be attempting to defeat as many as 15 million enemies or more. To replace that many jets, you're talking about numbers that could crash a calculator.

The low road would hit closer to home with the enemy, the high road would actually help sustain your forces to fight longer. Once you get into the Japanese kamikaze mindset, it isn't hard for the commanders to start handing out suicide orders to several more pilots than initially decided on. After all, it is not them who would be putting a loaded jet to their heads and pulling the trigger.

[Olys45]

With modern technology, and camera technology, there must be a way to mechanically control an aircraft from miles away via remote control. (Think of it as a large RC airplane.) A pair of video cameras in the nose, one on each wingtip, and fully operable controls, and voila, you've made a highly controllable powered single use jet-fuel bomb.


It's already done. The US uses the Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) adapted to carry air to ground missles. I think it uses the Hellfire missle.
We have taken what we have learned and just released the first UAV for Air to Ground combat, it is actually designed to carry the weapons, unlike the Predator that was adapted.

Oly