My monthly perusal of Drone Wars, while always entertaining, this time contained some proper Sit-Up-Straight-and-Pay-Attention news.
It was, in summary, this little insight. Throughout the UK’s air campaign over Syria and Iraq, between October 2017 and September 2019, the RAF’s Tornados, Typhoons and Reaper drones attacked 499 ISIS targets.
The cost of the ordinance detonated came to almost £ 313m. That includes 2,795 Paveway IV laser-guided bombs at £70k each and 887 Hellfire missiles – also at £70k each. Sadly, the RAF only used four Storm Shadow 2900lb cruise missiles, (I wonder if the French measure these in Kilos?), but then at £800k each I suppose it’s not surprising. I also noted that 499 ISIS targets were targeted with 123 buildings struck, while airstrikes were also conducted against 110 of the terrorist group’s fighters. 6 snipers and 6 heavy weapons were also targeted during the above period.
The next time however that someone starts bleating about an MP claiming for a Chicken McNugget you might want to point out, that the total of all expenses claimed by all MPs over the same two year period was around £190m.
A number of things suddenly seem like really good value – and I’m including whatever HM Forces wants to chuck around.
