Chubb you should become an M.P., really you should.

Errrrrrrrrrrr. How many Tornados were shot down in Gulf war 1?

Tornados shot down in 1991? Six for certain (five RAF and one Italian). A seventh (an RAF) loss is thought to have been the result of the pilot getting too low as he came off target.

Thing is though, how many were shot down in Allied Force, when the Serbs bagged an F-117? When the Serbian IADS was still active and causing bother right to the last day of the war?

And how many were shot down by the Iraqis in 2003 when the Super-MEZ was a source of serious concern to all parties in the coalition?

You said that Tornado is, present tense, too hazardous to fly against defended targets, yet your only evidence is purely based on the numbers lost at the start of Granby, without taking any account of whether the attack profiles were the most appropriate means for penetrating the defences.

Use of an inappropriate attack profile caused the loss of the F-117 over Serbia in 1999, and I assume that you're not going to claim that the F-117 was hopeless at attacking defended targets...

(With apologies to other arrsers for taking this back down into specifics again).

The attrition rate in the Gulf for Tornados was absolutely shocking, disproportionate to the damage done, caused unnecessary loss of life and was clearly unsustainable for any extended ops. Low level attack against even rudimentary air defences is madness.

As to helos - it is true the services are moving to a centralisation of assets but they are woefully short of the assets in question which are errrrrr helicopters.

It is true I have a healthy prejudice against the RAF who have been buying big shiney things for years while singularly failing to field sufficient capability to support the Army when it needs it.

Where would I cut back? Round his bloody neck

I'll certainly go with you on the sacking of diversity and equality merchants, but I have a slight problem with the cutting back on comforts in prison, not because I specifically want to be kind but woonder whether we can afford to spend even more on additional prison officers to control a now disgruntled prison population because they are uncomforatble, bored and pissed off with being in their cells for 23 out of 24 hours.

Going in at anything other than zero feet and the speed o' heat against the Fantasians wall to wall SAMs and ADA would have been suicide. You do remember that we'd just come out of the Cold War and those laser guided thingies that allowed you to bomb with confidence from umpteen thousand feet were the new thing on the block back then?

The Tornadoes were taking losses striking airfields, one of the most dangerous missions you can fly, because, rather unsportingly, the other team is rather protective of it's airfields and tends to carpet them in things to shoot you down. And in case you hadn't noticed, they were tasked with runway denial because they were rather specialist at that sort of work.

Yes cut defence. Its is as over bloated and procurement procedure is not only wasteful, but corrupt. We could equip and give decent pay if were to stop making the same mistakes.

We keep buying from the same people, we ask them for some thing they take 10 years and £3bn over budget and we go back for more.

Oh bin the RAF and their stuipd toys.