If I see something of
interest on the ground,
an explosion — something’s
obviously happened that
we’re going to be interested
in — I can rapidly move the
sensor to it in a matter
of seconds
RAF Typhoon pilotFinding and fixing
With the RAF now down to just two
Tornado squadrons, it’s very much
the nal few months of action for the
seasoned GR4 crews, which are typically
out in theater for three-month rotations.
The summer months prove to be
particularly grueling, the groundcrews
putting in a rolling series of 12-hour
shifts with only one non- ying day per
week. There is little respite.
This mission has evolved signi cantly
over the past four years. The Tornados
and Typhoons now work in concert
with other fast jets and concentrate on
tackling the nal IS enclaves in the mid-
Euphrates river valley (MERV). Dickens
says, ‘The biggest challenge is nding
the enemy. The Sentinel [R1] helps me
with the nd function. I use the county
of Lincolnshire as an example [of scale].
It’s a large area that they will look at,
around 50 square miles at a time, and
they are looking to establish a pattern
of life, what is going on on the ground
so that we can build up over time an
intelligence picture of where friendly
forces are, and also where are people
going and why are they going there?
‘Once we have an understanding
of the pattern of life — and that will
involve communication with our partner
forces on the ground — we will [...]
then build up on that picture, using the
Litening pod or the Reaper. Once we
have established where Daesh is, that’s
where combat air comes into play in
terms of our attack capabilities.’THESYRIANAIR WARSyria is one of the most complicated
air campaigns of recent times. The
Syrian regime has a web of surface-
to-air-missiles, and Russian forces
are present with advanced weapons
systems such as the S-400 (SA-21
‘Growler’) along the Syrian coast,
meaning that aircraft getting airborne
from Akrotiri are almost immediately
in this lethal system’s missile
engagement zone (MEZ). Gp Capt
Dickens says, ‘Because we decon ict
our activity with the Russians, my
main concern is Daesh’s ability to use
small arms, heavy machine guns and
MANPADS [man-portable air defense
systems], against my aircraft. So we
need to make sure that our tactics,
techniques and procedures (TTPs)
mitigate those risks and threats. There
have been surface-to-air res against
my aircraft, and we have had to adapt
our TTPs based on the threats that are
presented to us.’
Referring to decon iction
procedures with Russian aircraft, he
adds, ‘It is something that we have
used over a number of years and it’s
e ective. That hotline is available
between the CAOC and the Russians
and we will use it on a weekly basis
to try to decon ict our activity. We do
not want to escalate the campaign.’The Typhoons and Tornados y long
missions. It’s about an hour’s ying time
to the current area of operations and
it’s not unusual for the aircraft to be
airborne for six to eight hours.
‘Daesh has been severely degraded
over the last four years but is not yet
defeated,’ Dickens continues. ‘We need
to disrupt their networks and we need
to disrupt their ability to resupply, and
that will take time. So in the future,
though they won’t hold land to stop
them becoming an insurgency, we need
to stop them being able to mass.
‘Our main focus is on clearing the last
elements out of Syria, but we are still
providing security and overwatch in Iraq
and when needed we are doing strikes
in Iraq whenever Daesh masses.’Below: A Typhoon
FGR4 returns to
RAF Akrotiri at the
conclusion of the
fi rst mission of
the day.
Jamie Hunter88 November 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
COMBAT REPORT // OPERATION ‘SHADER’