The Blackburn Buccaneer played a key role in the First Gulf War (1990-91).
Originally bought for the Royal Navy in the 1960s to fly from its carriers as a solution to the Soviet ‘Sverdlov’ class of light cruisers (it would conduct fast, low level attack runs against the enemy cruisers, exploiting their radar horizon), the Buccaneer proved its abilities as a land-based ground attack aircraft too.
It was a tough aeroplane, ideal for penetrating Iraqi defences at low level and dropping guided bombs onto enemy runways, limiting their ability to get their own fighters airborne.
It also conducted ‘laser designating’ duties for the newer Tornados which, though able to drop laser-guided bombs, did not yet have laser-designating pods needed to guide them. (One Buccaneer would fly alongside every two Tornados, ‘painting’ the target with a laser pod, after which the Tornados would release their bombs). They had developed this tactic in West Germany in the 1980s to target key bridges if the Cold War had heated up.
In the background we see the more modern Panavia Tornado GR variant which later took on all RAF long-range ground attack missions (it received the Litening III laser targeting pod), before being replaced by the current Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4.
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