Is it really possible that someone from Rome has seriously thought of sending the Italian Tornados to Iraq (not to Syria)?
Is the desire to participate in the conflict against ISIS so far, almost as if we were to participate in the invasion of Russia, even at the cost of sacrificing the lives of our pilots?
And how do you think it would end up if one of our Tornados were to face, at low altitude, one of the hundreds of MANPADS (both from the Strela and Stinger family) stolen first from Saddam's arsenals and then from those of the regular loyalist army?
Or if it were to fly over an area where one of the more than a thousand vehicles abandoned by regular troops and obtained by ISIS without a shot being fired could be operational, many of these equipped with additional anti-aircraft weapons at medium range?
The indiscretion, leaked in the Corriere della Sera, has been coldly commented by the Ministry of Defense that it has entrenched itself behind a sentence of circumstance: "it is only one hypothesis".
The Tornados, according to rumors, would pass from the recognition and illumination of the targets to the bombardment of sensitive targets. The Tornados of the sixth flock of Ghedi would act from Kuwait to hit targets in Iraq. Therefore, Italy would go to war against terrorism even with its own aerial platforms.
There are many doubts about this. The reasons? As is well known, there are no Western units on the ground in Iraq that can detect safe targets, but only local troops that more than once have demonstrated their true value and their loyalty. But the main problem is only one (and beyond the capacity of our pilots, among the best in the world): the enemy. We are in the 2015, not during the Cold War.
The Tornadoes, big beasts that entered service at the end of the 70 years and cost just under 30 thousand euros per flight hour, had the task of penetrating Soviet airspace at very low altitude and at very high speed, bombarding the areas of interest with nuclear weapons. This characteristic, the low flight at low altitude and at very high speed, deep penetration capacity called in jargon, has failed with the end of the Soviet bloc and the spread of increasingly efficient anti-aircraft missile systems.
In these years also the military philosophy has changed, which imposes, in the early stages, air supremacy and bombardment with stealth aircraft. In short, the Tornados, having reached the end of their life cycle, have been designed for low-level flight thanks to their radar, the Tfr, which has the ability to follow the ground. Summarizing to the maximum: the radar maps the area below, guaranteeing a constant altitude avoiding obstacles.
During the Cold War the losses, in what could have been a first or second strike, were considered "acceptable". In the 2015 no more. To solve these "inconveniences", we wait for the F-35, the Tornados have been converted to operate at medium, medium-high altitude, but only in permissive contexts, with a relatively poor enemy in terms of air defense. But he has forgotten too hastily, perhaps, that ISIS has shot down at least two F-16 and an unknown number of helicopters. Platforms with different operational tangency, but equally demolished. This is because in Iraq a massive carpet bombardment has not been carried out to eliminate defenses that are not on fixed positions, but single targeted attacks that have, albeit slightly, reduced the anti-aircraft power of the Islamic State.
Not even the Americans know what is on the ground, the same people who rely on the locals to get the targets they hit with the F-16 and the F-18, aircraft far more modern than the Tornados (despite the updates) . The questions are legitimate, in the hope that this hypothesis is not a legacy that we drag on from intervention in Russia.
Our politicians, if they really decide to do so, God forbid, should also prepare themselves for the extraction of the downed crews. It would be reprehensible to abandon others (the thought goes to the still uncertain fate of the marines) only because we promised it to Uncle Sam.
(photo: Online Defense)
