XIII Squadron History - The Scud Hunters
In August 1990 when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, XIII Sqn had only been reformed for seven months. It then had approximately two thirds of its complement of crews and began a reconnaissance and attack work-up to make to Squadron ready for War and some crews were placed on stand-by in August.

As the Allied Coalition began to deploy forces to the Gulf in the latter part of 1990, it quickly became apparent that the unique night reconnaissance capability of the Tornado GR1A could provide vital intelligence to the Allied commanders. In anticipation XIII commenced a concentrated training schedule including OLF (Operational Low Flying), Attack and Recce sorties by day, silent Air-to-Air Refuelling (AAR) and TFR (Terrain Following Radar) operations by both day and night. It was important that XIII were especially well practiced at night as the fully night capable GR1A would be afforded better protection in the darkness whilst flying as a singleton, alone and unafraid.

On 15/16 January 1991, immediately before hostilities commenced, XIII Sqn deployed its Recce crews alongside II (AC) Sqn. The Recce Wing's 6 aircraft arriving in Dahrhan, Saudi Arabia only hours before the conflict got underway.

From the onset of the confrontation the threat posed by attacks from Scud surface-to-surface missiles was taken very seriously. The destruction of this arsenal was of paramount importance since a possibility existed that continued attacks against Israel with this weapon might upset the balance of the coalition forces.

During the first nights of the War, the Reconnaissance Wing successfully discovered several of the elusive Scud sites, giving rise to the now famous 'Scud hunters' nickname. The majority of sorties were however, tasked into Central and Eastern Iraq to identify the disposition of the various Iraqi ground forces in preparation for the ground offensive. Although the rest of the Coalition Air Forces moved to medium level operations after the first few nights of the air war, the GR1As operated alone at night and at low-level for the duration of the conflict. By the end of the 6-week Air War, some 128 reconnaissance sorties had been flown by the detachment by only 7 crews.

However, this was not XIII Sqn's only contribution to the coalition victory, for the Sqn was also fundamental to the success of the Tornado/TIALD (Thermal Imaging And Laser Designation) combination. In Dec 90, the GEC-Ferranti TIALD pod existed in prototype form when it was decided to accelerate the development for possible use in the Gulf. Four XIII Sqn crews began the work-up from mid-Jan and, after encouraging results, four aircraft deployed to Tabuk. By the end of the War, XIII Sqn had successfully flown 72 TIALD missions with no losses.