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RAF use of CBU87 cluster bombs in op GRANBY


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Hi,

 

I'd say "no". 

I don't think other RAF aircraft beside the Jaguar used CBU-87's. And I don't think that SAM sites were a target that they'd send the Jaguars to. 

ALARM was available even just before the 17th of January. They flew with the ALARM's on the wing pylons before the war and switched them to the belly pylons for the real combat.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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4 hours ago, bdt13 said:

Reference here and here say Tornados and Jaguars used CBU-87s. Not clear on if they were used for SEAD/DEAD or not.

Thanks, that's interesting.

I see that the links provide the total number of weapons dropped per type for the Jaguar, but sadly not for the Tornado.

 

Cheers, Stefan.

 

 

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On 4/4/2021 at 12:35 PM, Modelkeenfan said:

The Tornados flew many operations using CBU 87s and I was tod they used them for SEAD sorties.  There are quite a few photos of the tornados armed with 4 CBU 87s in the early days of the conflict.  

 

The Jaguars flew a a fair number of sorties with CBU-87, but the Tornado GR1s did not use them operationally. The weapon wasn't in the UK inventory at the start of the war, being obtained under an Urgent Operational Requirement for the Jaguar as a replacement for the CRV-7 rocket CRV-7 was itself a UOR, but there were issues with the software integration which meant that an alternative had to be found. The BL755 - the RAF's standard CBU at the time - couldn't be delivered effectively from medium level. The Jaguar force had concluded that attacking at low level, as they'd have done over the Central Front, wasn't appropriate for the war they were going to fight, and went in at medium altitude from the outset. While they could use the 1,000lb iron bomb, an alternative weapon was needed, hence the CRV-7 and the CBU-87 as a back ul.

As Jabba says, the Tornado did not deliver any CBU during the fighting. CBU-87 and Mk 84 were test fitted on the Tornado as, in what'd  become SOP for the UK, we were on the verge of running out of bombs. While it's true that the Tornados used  ombs for defence suppression during the early stages of the war, these were 1,000lb iron bombs delivered in loft attacks rather than CBU.

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