British navy joins missile bombardment

The blinding flash and plumes of smoke marked the moment when British Royal Navy submarines joined the missile bombardment of Iraq.

The Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines joined US warships in launching the deadly Tomahawk cruise missiles on Baghdad.

Seen through the periscope of the firing submarine, the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile begins its short journey to the Iraqi capital.

The pictures make official previously unconfirmed reports that the Navy’s subs had joined their US allies in launching the missiles.

The Tomahawk, the military’s most advanced missile, is able to reach its target with pinpoint accuracy, map-reading its course and negotiating the varied contours of the landscape.

The hugely expensive Tomahawks cruise at low altitude and follow a complicated route to avoid being tracked by radar.

They have a range in excess of 1000 nautical miles and can be fired from a submarine, ship or B-52 bomber, carrying nuclear or conventional warheads.

They blast off with the aid of a rocket, then switch to a small turbofan engine to cruise to their targets.

In the first Gulf War the US-made weapon had to be programmed carefully because the landscape in both Iraq and Kuwait is very flat.

Since its debut in April 1991, the missile has been deployed in a number of conflicts, including follow-up operations against Iraq in January and June 1993, in Bosnia in 1995 and in Iraq again in 1996.

At least one Tomahawk was launched by a UK sub against Afghanistan in operations against the Taliban in 2001.