Latest news with #BomberCommand
Atlantic
29-06-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
How to Assess the Damage of the Iran Strikes
In August 1941, the British government received a very unwelcome piece of analysis from an economist named David Miles Bensusan-Butt. A careful analysis of photographs suggested that the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command was having trouble hitting targets in Germany and France; in fact, only one in three pilots that claimed to have attacked the targets seemed to have dropped its bombs within five miles of them. The Butt report is a landmark in the history of 'bomb damage assessment,' or, as we now call it, 'battle damage assessment.' This recondite term has come back into public usage because of the dispute over the effectiveness of the June 22 American bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities. President Donald Trump said that American bombs had 'obliterated' the Iranian nuclear program. A leaked preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency on June 24 said that the damage was minimal. Whom to believe? Have the advocates of bombing again overpromised and underdelivered? Some history is in order here, informed by a bit of personal experience. From 1991 to 1993 I ran the U.S. Air Force's study of the first Gulf War. In doing so I learned that BDA rests on three considerations: the munition used, including its accuracy; the aircraft delivering it; and the type of damage or effect created. Of these, precision is the most important. World War II saw the first use of guided bombs in combat. In September 1943, the Germans used radio-controlled glide bombs to sink the Italian battleship Roma as it sailed off to surrender to the Allies. Americans developed similar systems with some successes, though none so dramatic. In the years after the war, precision-guided weapons slowly came to predominate in modern arsenals. The United States used no fewer than 24,000 laser-guided bombs during the Vietnam War, and some 17,000 of them during the 1991 Gulf War. These weapons have improved considerably, and in the 35 years since, 'routine precision,' as some have called it, has enormously improved the ability of airplanes to hit hard, buried targets. Specially designed ordnance has also seen tremendous advances. In World War II, the British developed the six-ton Tallboy bomb to use against special targets, including the concrete submarine pens of occupied France in which German U-boats hid. The Tallboys cracked some of the concrete but did not destroy any, in part because these were 'dumb bombs' lacking precision guidance, and in part because the art of hardening warheads was in its infancy. In the first Gulf War, the United States hastily developed a deep-penetrating, bunker-busting bomb, the GBU-28, which weighed 5,000 pounds, but only two were used, to uncertain effect. In the years since, however, the U.S. and Israeli air forces, among others, have acquired hardened warheads for 2,000-pound bombs such as the BLU-109 that can hit deeply buried targets—which is why, for example, the Israelis were able to kill a lot of Hezbollah's leadership in its supposedly secure bunkers. The aircraft that deliver bombs can affect the explosives' accuracy. Bombs that home in on the reflection of a laser, for example, could become 'stupid' if a cloud passes between plane and the target, or if the laser otherwise loses its lock on the target. Bombs relying on GPS coordinates can in theory be jammed. Airplanes being shot at are usually less effective bomb droppers than those that are not, because evasive maneuvers can prevent accurate delivery. The really complicated question is that of effects. Vietnam-era guided bombs, for example, could and did drop bridges in North Vietnam. In many cases, however, Vietnamese engineers countered by building 'underwater bridges' that allowed trucks to drive across a river while axle-deep in water. The effect was inconvenience, not interdiction. Conversely, in the first Gulf War, the U.S. and its allies spent a month pounding Iraqi forces dug in along the Kuwait border, chiefly with dumb bombs delivered by 'smart aircraft' such as the F-16. In theory, the accuracy of the bombing computer on the airplane would allow it to deliver unguided ordnance with accuracy comparable to that of a laser-guided bomb. In practice, ground fire and delivery from high altitudes often caused pilots to miss. When teams began looking at Iraqi tanks in the area overrun by U.S. forces, they found that many of the tanks were, in fact, undamaged. But that was only half of the story. Iraqi tank crews were so sufficiently terrified of American air power that they stayed some distance away from their tanks, and tanks immobilized and unmaintained for a month, or bounced around by near-misses, do not work terribly well. The functional and indirect effects of the bombing, in other words, were much greater than the disappointing physical effects. Many of the critiques of bombing neglect the importance of this phenomenon. The pounding of German cities and industry during World War II, for example, did not bring war production to a halt until the last months, but the indirect and functional effects were enormous. The diversion of German resources into air-defense and revenge weapons, and the destruction of the Luftwaffe's fighter force over the Third Reich, played a very great role in paving the way to Allied victory. At a microlevel, BDA can be perplexing. In 1991, for example, a bomb hole in an Iraqi hardened-aircraft shelter told analysts only so much. Did the bomb go through the multiple layers of concrete and rock fill, or did it 'J-hook'back upward and possibly fail to explode? Was there something in the shelter when it hit, and what damage did it do? Did the Iraqis perhaps move airplanes into penetrated shelters on the theory that lightning would not strike twice? All hard (though not entirely impossible) to judge without being on the ground. To the present moment: BDA takes a long time, so the leaked DIA memo of June 24 was based on preliminary and incomplete data. The study I headed was still working on BDA a year after the war ended. Results may be quicker now, but all kinds of information need to be integrated—imagery analysis, intercepted communications, measurement and signature intelligence (e.g., subsidence of earth above a collapsed structure), and of course human intelligence, among others. Any expert (and any journalist who bothered to consult one) would know that two days was a radically inadequate time frame in which to form a considered judgment. The DIA report was, from a practical point of view, worthless. An educated guess, however, would suggest that in fact the U.S. military's judgment that the Iranian nuclear problem had suffered severe damage was correct. The American bombing was the culmination of a 12-day campaign launched by the Israelis, which hit many nuclear facilities and assassinated at least 14 nuclear scientists. The real issue is not the single American strike so much as the cumulative effect against the entire nuclear ecosystem, including machining, testing, and design facilities. The platforms delivering the munitions in the American attack had ideal conditions in which to operate—there was no Iranian air force to come up and attack the B-2s that they may not even have detected, nor was there ground fire to speak of. The planes were the most sophisticated platforms of the most sophisticated air force in the world. The bombs themselves, particularly the 14 GBU-57s, were gigantic—at 15 tons more than double the size of Tallboys—with exquisite guidance and hardened penetrating warheads. The targets were all fully understood from more than a decade of close scrutiny by Israeli and American intelligence, and probably that of other Western countries as well. In the absence of full information, cumulative expert judgment also deserves some consideration—and external experts such as David Albright, the founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, have concluded that the damage was indeed massive and lasting. Israeli analysts, in and out of government, appear to agree. They are more likely to know, and more likely to be cautious in declaring success about what is, after all, an existential threat to their country. For that matter, the Iranian foreign minister concedes that 'serious damage' was done. One has to set aside the sycophantic braggadocio of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who seems to believe that one unopposed bombing raid is a military achievement on par with D-Day, or the exuberant use of the word obliteration by the president. A cooler, admittedly provisional judgment is that with all their faults, however, the president and his secretary of defense are likely a lot closer to the mark about what happened when the bombs fell than many of their hasty, and not always well-informed, critics. *Photo-illustration by Jonelle Afurong / The Atlantic. Source: Alberto Pizzoli / Sygma / Getty; MIKE NELSON / AFP / Getty; Greg Mathieson / Mai / Getty; Space Frontiers / Archive Photos / Hulton Archive / Getty; U.S. Department of Defense
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The British military base preparing for war in space
In a fake village in Buckinghamshire, several members of Space Command are huddled around a computer screen watching a foreign missile approach a Ministry of Defence communications satellite. It is just an exercise, but it is a scenario that is increasingly worrying military chiefs, who fear space is now the most important theatre of war. With satellites controlling everything from EasyJet flight plans, to Amazon deliveries, to army advances, targeting them would cripple society. Russia took down Ukraine's satellite communications hours before it began its full-scale land invasion in 2022. China and Russia have both tested anti-satellite missiles, while Moscow is allegedly developing a programme to arm some of its satellites with nuclear warheads, meaning it could destroy enemy networks while in orbit. In recognition of this new orbital battlefield, Space Command was established at RAF High Wycombe in 2021, to 'protect and defend' UK interests in space. It is now home to the UK Space Operations Centre, opened officially by government ministers this week. The RAF base is the former headquarters of Bomber Command, a military unit responsible for strategic bombing during the Second World War. With its winding streets, faux church towers and manor house office blocks, it was designed to look like a quintessential Home Counties village, should the Luftwaffe be passing over. The Bomber Command motto 'Strike Hard, Strike Sure' has been replaced with Space Command's 'Ad Stellas Usque' – Latin for 'up to the stars'. While Bomber Harris's team had its eyes fixed firmly on the ground, Space Command's are turned skywards. Maria Eagle, minister for defence procurement, who helped open the operations centre this week, said: 'From a national security point of view, space is a contested and congested and competitive domain, and we need to make sure, as our adversaries advance their capabilities, that we're able to deal with what that throws up.' She added: 'It's an extension of the more earthbound worries that we've got. The usual kind of things that you worry about on Earth, it's just extended upwards, because that's now a domain that is as important as land, sea or air to the potential of war-fighting or defending national security. 'The National Space Operations Centre does vital work in monitoring and protecting our interests. It's a recognition of the fact that our adversaries are active there, and we need to know what's going on.' Although the United States performed the first anti-satellite tests in 1959, space warfare has largely been consigned to Hollywood and science fiction until recently. Fears began to ramp up in January 2007, when China shot down one of its own ageing weather satellites with a ballistic missile creating a cloud of space junk, which is still causing problems. In November 2021, Russia conducted its own direct-ascent anti-satellite test, destroying the Soviet intelligence satellite Kosmos-1408, and generating a debris field that forced astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter. However it is not just anti-satellite missiles that are causing concern. According to the latest Space Threat Assessment, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, nations are developing evermore elaborate space weapons. These weapons include electro-magnetic pulses, microwaves and lasers to fry electronics, dazzlers to blind optical sensors, and grapplers to latch on to satellites and pull them out of orbit. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea all have the capability of jamming and hijacking satellite signals and launching cyber attacks. A 10-second delay in Google Chrome loading may seem like a domestic internet glitch, but bad actors could also be behind it, Space Command has warned. Space Command is particularly worried about China, which in the past year has launched increasingly advanced and highly-manoeuvrable satellites for purposes that remain unclear. CSIS believes Beijing may be creating a 'formidable on-orbit counter-space arsenal' and that manoeuvrability testing is allowing Chinese operators to develop 'tactics and procedures that can be used for space war-fighting'. US Space force commanders have also warned that Chinese satellites have been spotted 'dogfighting' in space, moving within less than a mile of each other. 'China continues to develop and field a broad set of counter-space capabilities,' a member of Space Command told The Telegraph. 'It's certainly one of the more capable adversaries. Space is no longer a sanctuary, it's a space of contest. It's the modern battlefield.' Russia's Luch satellites have also been spotted stalking European communications and broadcast satellites, moving close to their orbits for reasons not fully understood. Space Command fears they are probing the systems to find out how best to disrupt signals. Although Russia continues to deny it is developing an orbital nuclear anti-satellite weapon – which would breach the 1967 Outer Space Treaty – US intelligence suggests otherwise. Chris Bryant, minister of state for data protection and telecoms, said: 'There's a lot of stuff up there now … and the risks from deliberate bad actors, in particular from Russia and China, and the havoc that could be created either deliberately or accidentally, is quite significant. 'So we need to monitor as closely as we possibly can, 24/7, everything that is going on up there so that we can avert accidental damage, and we can also potentially deter other more deliberate, harmful activity.' Space Command currently employs more than 600 staff, roughly 70 per cent of whom are from the Royal Air Force with the remaining 30 per cent from the Army and Navy, plus a handful of civilians. Not only is it monitoring the sky for threats from foreign powers but it is also keeping an eye out for falling space debris, asteroids, and coronal mass ejections from the Sun which could wipe out power grids and satellites. When a threat is spotted, the team can contact satellite providers to warn them to reposition their spacecraft, or advise them to power down until a powerful jet of plasma has passed through. It also informs the government and the security services on the orbital movements of foreign powers. Space Command also launched its first military satellite last year, named Tyche, which can capture daytime images and videos of the Earth's surface for surveillance, intelligence gathering and military operations. It is part of the Government's £968 million Istari programme which will see more satellites launched by 2031 to create a surveillance constellation. Mr Bryant added: 'Lots of people think 'space' and joke about Star Trek and the final frontier, but actually the truth is you couldn't spend a single day of your life these days in the UK without some kind of engagement with space. 'The havoc that could be created, which might be military havoc, or it might be entirely civil havoc, could be very significant.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Otago Daily Times
15-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Honouring unrecognised airmen
Preparing for a memorial wall which will be set up later this year at the South Canterbury Aviation Heritage Centre are Sally Crook and Jeremy Talbot. PHOTO: SHELLEY INON Long-forgotten heroes are being remembered by a local organisation. The South Canterbury Aviation Heritage Centre has begun a project aimed at recording and preserving all of the names of the South Canterbury men who lost their lives while serving New Zealand in the Air Force — the majority of who served in World War 2. Organiser and historian Sally Crook said over 230 men from South Canterbury had served in different roles in the war and in many different types of aircraft. Miss Crook said some of the men served in Bomber Command, which she had read had an average life expectancy of only two weeks. "For a long time the contributions of those who served in Bomber Command went unrecognised because bombing campaigns had high civilian losses too." She said there were many airmen with no known grave, and some families had lost more than one member. "I'm certain there are people I haven't found, so we will be leaving space on the board to add to." She said the people on the wall were the "quiet stories". She was hopeful people in the region could help her along with her task by providing more photographs of the men. Whether they had been born in the area, gone to school here or worked here, they would be included. Members from the centre had felt it was important to preserve the names now as it might be the last chance to find photographs before all of the information was lost. The children born to men who had died in World War 2 would now be at least 80. Photographs of relatives from South Canterbury who served with the Royal New Zealand Air Force or other Allied air forces and did not make it home, could be sent to aviationheritagecentre@ If someone had a photograph but were not able to send a copy she asked they got in touch with the group and they would see how they could help. She said the exhibition would be opened with a memorial service later in the year. An open day would be held this Sunday from 10am-4pm. Entry was $5 for adults and $2 for children, cash or bank transfer.
Irish Independent
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Brian Keogh: PGA preview – Masterful Rory McIlroy the man to beat at Quail Hollow
Masters winner is more dangerous than ever after realising his dream of a career Grand Slam Who dares often wins at risk-reward Quail Hollow, but after receiving close to six inches of rainfall over the past 10 days, it's more likely that the Bomber Command will have too much firepower for the SAS (short-and-straight) brigade in the 107th PGA Championship. A par-71 course measuring 7,626 yards would not usually frighten the best players in the world, but so soft are the fairways in this well-heeled corner of Charlotte that it's hard to see players who don't blast the ball 300 yards through the air having much chance of being a factor on Sunday evening.
Times
08-05-2025
- General
- Times
Gwen Thomas obituary: WAAF signals operator with elite RAF Pathfinders
Gwen Thomas had just turned 18 when in September 1942 she volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). She did not want to go into the army and 'liked the uniform' of the WAAF, a view held by many young women who found the RAF blue more flattering than the army khaki. Having trained as a teleprinter operator, she was posted in June 1943 to the signals section of the Pathfinders, an elite unit established the previous August to help Bomber Command to find targets in the dark. They flew ahead of the main force, mainly in Lancaster bombers and more nimble Mosquitoes, dropping coloured flares to mark targets in Nazi Germany that would later be bombed from the air. Thomas was based at
