§ 7. Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge)Which RAF aircraft are armed with cannon; and if he will make a statement. [127262]
§ The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Spellar)Cannon are carried on Jaguar, Tornado and Royal Navy Sea Harrier aircraft. They can also be fitted to Hawk aircraft for training purposes.
§ Mr. RandallI thank the Minister for that reply. Does he share my dismay at the decision not to equip the Eurofighter with the Mauser cannon? Has he spoken to RAF pilots about that decision, and if so, what was their response?
§ Mr. SpellarMay I point out that a number of our other aircraft do not have cannon either? I draw the 12 hon. Gentleman's attention to the letter in The Daily Telegraph from Air Vice-Marshal Nicholl, who I presume knows something about aircraft. He wrote:
It is for that reason that I, not ministers, recommended to the MoD's most senior management group that we put no further effort into the gun.The role of air-to-air combat aircraft depends on short, medium and long-range missiles. Therefore, cannon are not now an appropriate weapon for such aircraft, which are not for close combat over the channel. The reason is in the world of technology. Cannon have an impact, particularly on the fatigue life of aircraft.
§ Mr. Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford)In talking about close combat, the Minister is trying to bamboozle the House. He knows perfectly well that in recent years cannon have been effective against helicopters, for ground strafing, and, occasionally, against ships. Do the Government not realise that when other European countries that have ordered the Typhoon are taking delivery of it with cannon as planned, and when the United States is fitting a cannon to its latest generation combat aircraft, the F22, and would not dream of doing otherwise, the Government are making a total fool of themselves and of this country by trying to pretend that the RAF will be better off without cannon on the nose of its Typhoon, which instead has a lump of metal as a counterweight?
§ Mr. SpellarI think that the hon. Gentleman, who managed to keep just below the excitability level today, gave it away when he talked about ground strafing. This is a very capable air-to-air combat aircraft. That is its role. If we wish to attack targets on the ground, not only do we have a number of other aircraft, we also have the extremely capable Apache.
The hon. Gentleman needs to look at what role the aircraft will have and what advice we took from technical experts in the RAF, who saw that, with increasing capability, and with the distances involved, modern missiles are the key weaponry for that aircraft. Indeed, there is a good argument that says that if a pilot were close enough to be able to line up the cannon, he would have to be head-on to the other craft, which would be detrimental to the evasion tactics and the anti-missile technology that he would want to use. It is all very well for all the amateur technologists on the Conservative Benches to make those comments. We have asked the people who know about the subject, and that is their advice.