Qymaen

Airbag!!!

serhi

I did not say that.
I said that the planes are about equal. Different concepts. In principle, these planes for different indicators outperform each other. Su-25 very well in combat, particularly its survival maneuverability and firepower.
And yet, I like it that it can perform all maneuvers that can not be said about the A-10A, at the turn at 45 degrees it loses speed because of its increased mass and inertia

Tham

The Frogfoot is generally more survivable than the Warthog,
largely due to its higher speed and better all-round armor,

After the Russians added a titanium plate between the engine
housings, there were no further Frogfoot losses to Stingers in
Afghanistan.


Six A-10s were shot down in the Gulf War. Note that at least one
was due to the SA-9, a shoulder-fired small missile similar to the
Stinger.

2951 CLSS A-10 Warthog ABDR of the Gulf War


The A-10 would have had far heavier losses if it had
taken part in the then Eastern European or Russian
theater, where point defense SAMS like the SA-8 Gecko,
were far more numerous than what the Iraqis had in 1991.

Both the SA-8 and Roland has its tracking radar slaved to an
automatic CLOS guidance, with backup optical tracking ,
virtually impossible to evade once it has you in its crosshairs,
let alone know that you are being fired on, unless you have a
missile approach warning system (which none of the coalition
aircraft had in 1991).

Desert Storm Part 1


Many people do not know that of the 7 Tornados shot
down in Desert Storm, three were taken down by Roland.

Initially I thought that only one had been lost to Roland, but talking to
Euromissile executives at the Defence Services Asia exhibition in
Kuala Lumpur in 1994, they confirmed that their missile had taken
out no less than three Tornados.

As one of the executives mentioned .... "It's a missile system which
we are veyr proud of."

He related that after they realized that their both their search and
tracking radars were being jammed, the Iraqi Roland crews resorted
to the optical tracker, which, as its name implies, is actually a lens
with a narrow field of view meant only for tracking the target, after
the search radar had found or aquired it.

However, the Iraqis managed to search, locate, track and shoot down
the Tornados with this optical tracker alone.

Tham

Most designers of ground attack aircraft and helicopters,
while placing priority on steel, titanium or ceramic armor
on the frame, forget that the canopy with its large exposed area
is probably the most important and vulnerable part of the plane.

You can have the best armor surrounding the pilot all round
the plane's body, but a single small calibre bullet hitting the
pilot thru the Plexiglass from the side or above and killing him
is more than enough.

Apart from an armored windscreen in from of the pilot, almost
all close air support planes and choppershave nothing more
than thin Plexiglass for the rest of the big canopy and windows,
the only current exception being the Mi-28 Havoc.

In this respect, the Henschel Hs 129 is actually more survivable
than both the Warthog and Frogfoot, with similar armored glass
all round the pilot.

Unfortunately, the Hs 129 is underpowered and difficult to fly.
I wonder why they never considered the Junkers Jumo 211 engine.

Henschel Hs 129*Close-Support / Anti-Tank Aircraft - History, Specs and Pictures - Military Aircraft

The Henschel Hs-129: Aerial Tank Killer of the Luftwaffe

Attached Images

HS129.jpg (44.5 KB, 3 views)

Leccy

3 RAF Tornados were shot down by SAM (The Roland was not the most common type of SAM in Iraq service so seems odd that it claims all three, maybe some hype as according to the RAF the type of SAM's were not known).
2 RAF Tornados crashed after having flown through heavy AAA fire (neither was inspected as they crashed outside the coalition zone so enquiry relied on other crews testimony)
1 Italian Tornado lost to AAA
1 RAF Tornado lost due to premature detonation of 1000lb bomb.

Tham

Why should it be odd that Roland accounted for three of
the Tornado losses ?

The Tornado bore the brunt of the low-level strike missions,
particularly when delivering JP233 on the Iraqi airfields, where
both missile and flak defences are at their most intense.

When you go down low, that's where losses are the heaviest.
Just look at what happened to the Typhoons in WW2.

The more numerous SAMs in the Iraqi inventory are naturally
SA-2 and SA-3s, medium to high level types. Roland, SA-8,
SA,-9 SA-13 , the MANPADs SA-7, -14 and -16, as well as
flak guns like ZSU-23 are tasked with low to very low level
air defence, so it should not be surprising that Roland took
out a few of the attackers.

You can't jam or deceive an optically-tracked missile like
Roland and the SA-8 with radar jammers, IR jammers or
flares.

That was why one of the GEC-Marconi (now BAE Systems)
executives, a former Vulcan pilot, told me at the DSA that, had
he gone to war then, the SA-2s, SA-3s and SA-6s were not a
threat - his main concern was with the MiG-31 Foxhound with
its lookdown-shootdown phased array radar, and .... the SA-8.

Another GEC-Marconi executive, an electronic warfare expert
and a former Phantom pilot, remarked - "Roland .... that's very
hard to beat."

The final Tornado loss of the war was to an SA-2, on a high-level
bombing mission in partnership with the Pave Spike pods on the
Buccaneers.


" By the summer of 1990, Iraq possessed 16,000 radar-guided
and heatseeking surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), including the
Soviet SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-7, SA-8, SA-9, SA-13, SA-14, and
SA-16, and the Franco-German Roland. Additional air defense
was provided by Air Force interceptors and organic Army assets,
including the SA-7/14, SA-8, SA-9/13, SA-16 missile systems, and
the ZSU-23/4 self-propelled AAA system .... the combined arms
air defense could prove lethal to aircraft operating below 10,000 feet. "


" The Iraqi air defense system was formidable, combining the
best features of several systems. The multi-layered, redundant,
computer- controlled air defense network around Baghdad was
more dense than that surrounding most Eastern European cities
during the Cold War, and several orders of magnitude greater than
that which had defended Hanoi during the later stages of the
Vietnam War. If permitted to function as designed, the air defense
array was capable of effective protection of key targets in Iraq. "

Iraqi Air Defense Equipment


" .... low-level with Hunting JP223 runway denial systems. This
was undoubtedly the most dangerous of all missions, with the
Tornadoes suffering the highest loss to mission ratio and these
aircraft were withdrawn form this mission shortly after to conserve
aircraft and their crews ... "

" The British lost 10 Tornado Gr.Mk 1s in the Gulf War, Six to
surface-to-air missiles, two to anti-Aircraft artillery and the loss
of the tenth remains unknown. "

Gulf Air War


" .... 7 RAF Tornado IDSs which were shot down. "

U.S./Allies Losses In Desert Storm — Military Forum | Airliners.net



The kill by Jameel Sayhood in his MiG-29 is that of a Tornado IDS,
with an R-60MK (AA-8 Aphid) missile.

He was himself shot down later by an F-15C.

Jan J. Safarik: Air Aces Home Page

http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories...q-gulf.war.pdf

Leccy

UK Military Aircraft losses Gulf War 1991
UK Military Aircraft Losses

These say the losses are a bit different.

The reason I said strange to the claimed Roland kills is that with all the other SAM's how come only the Rolands hit.

Tham

The "other SAMs", such as the SA-2 and SA-3,
are older generation radar-guided SAMs, meant for
medium to high level defence as previously explained,
safely away from the Tornado's low level attack envelope..
with the exception of the final loss when they switched
to a high level laser guided bombing mission, using
the Buccaneer's Pave Spike laser targeting pods.

The SA-2 and SA-3 have relatively predictable docile
flight paths, and can be easily evaded. As the Vulcan pilot
told me, all the B-52s in Vietnam had to do to evade the
SA-2s were to bank away in a gentle roll when they saw
them coming.

If they can't be avoided, radar missiles, as the
name implies, can be jammed, even if they employ
ECCM measures like frequency hopping. That is
where the Tornado's Sky Shadow jamming pod, and
the EF-111 Ravens come in, for a "soft kill".

"Hard kills" of these missiles' radar stations are
taken care of by the F-4Gs.

As for the other low level SAMs the Iraqis had,
the SA-7, SA-9, SA-13, SA-14 and SA-16, these
are all heat seakers which can be defeated with
flares or IR jammers.

The SA-8 and Roland uses an optical automatic
command-to-line-of-sight tracker to lock on and
guide the missiles, much like the SACLOS wire
guidance for antitank missiles like Milan and Tow,
except in those cases, they are semi-automatic,
requiring the firer to keep the target in the crosshairs.

These antitank missiles have data transmitted to them
from the tracker with the thin wire unreeling from the
tracking unit to the missile as it launches out. Obviously
you can't use a wire

You can't jam the optical tracker with a radar jammer,
nor can you fool these missile with flares, since they
do not use radar nor heat-seaking guidance.

The only way I can think of would be to jam the radio data
link between the tracker and the missiles, but this is usually
secure and difficult to jam.

What is more remarkable is that the Iraqi Rolands were
first generation, and the optical tracker is meant for day
use only. The Iraqis used this small tracker (not meant for
searching) to search, find and lock on to the Tornados in
darkness.

The British Rapier is similar.



Roland Short-Range Air Defence Missile System - Army Technology

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-9K33-Osa.html


End of Cold War AD systems - Tanknet

Tham

The "other SAMs", such as the SA-2 and SA-3,
are older generation radar-guided SAMs, meant for
medium to high level defence as previously explained,
safely away from the Tornado's low level attack envelope..
with the exception of the final loss when they switched
to a high level laser guided bombing mission, using
the Buccaneer's Pave Spike laser targeting pods.

The SA-2 and SA-3 have relatively predictable docile and
predictable flight paths, and can be easily evaded. As the
Vulcan pilot told me, all the B-52s in Vietnam had to do to
evade the SA-2s were to bank away in a gentle roll when
the saw them coming.

If they can't be avoided, radar missiles, as the
name implies, can be jammed, even if they employ
ECCM measures like frequency hopping. That is
where the Tornado's Sky Shadow jamming pod, and
the EF-111 Ravens come in, for a "soft kill".

"Hard kills" of these missiles' radar guidance are
taken care of by the F-4Gs.

As for the other low level SAMs the Iraqis had,
the SA-7, SA-9, SA-13, SA-14 and SA-16, these
are all heat seakers which can be defeated with
flares or IR jammers.

The SA-8 and Roland uses an optical automatic
command-to-line-of-sight tracker to lock on and
guide the missiles, much like the SACLOS wire
guidance for antitank missiles like Milan and Tow,
except in those cases, they are semi-automatic,
requiring the firer to keep the target in the crosshairs.

These antitank missiles have data transmitted to them
from the tracker with the thin wire unreeling from the
tracking unit to the missile as it launches out. Obviously
you can't use a wire for an anti-aircraft missile, so radio
command is used instead for communication between
the tracking unit and the missile.

You can't jam the optical tracker with a radar jammer,
nor can you fool these missile with flares, since they
do not use radar nor heat-seaking guidance.

The only way I can think of would be to jam the radio data
link between the tracker and the missiles, but this is usually
secure and difficult to jam.

What is more remarkable is that the Iraqi Rolands were
first generation, and the optical tracker is meant for day
use only. The Iraqis used this small tracker (not meant for
searching) to search, find and lock on to the Tornados in
darkness.

The British Rapier is similar.



Roland Short-Range Air Defence Missile System - Army Technology

9K33 Osa/Romb Self Propelled Air Defence System / SA-8 Gecko / C????????? ???????? ???????? ???????? 9?33 ???/????

End of Cold War AD systems - Tanknet

Tham

I had noted right away in 1991, when Desert Storm
started, that trying to put the huge Iraqi airfields out
of action was a total waste of time and pilots' lives.

Some of the airfields were bigger than Heathrow, and
all had extremely heavy missile and gun defences, not
to mention the probably hundreds of soldiers (and some
civilians) who would be firing everything from AK47s,
PKs, RPKs, heavy KPVs, DShKs to sniper rifles at you.

A JP233 attack against an Iraqi military airfield in 1991
was nothing short of suicidal, requiring the Tornados to
fly straight and low across the vast runways.

The damage done by the small 75 pound bomblets was
small, easily and quickly repairable, and in any case the
huge airfields had redundancy with alternative runways.

The Iraqi combat aircraft were not coming out to fight
anyway, hiding in the very well hardened bunkers, and
even if they did, most would have been easily taken out
by the Coalition fighters. The airfields might as well have
been left alone as they were.

Quite a few aircrews lost their lives for virtually nothing.


" Deployment was rather frightening for the flight crew,
since it required the aircraft to fly low, straight and level
over an enemy airfield ... "



" The Iraqis quickly found that challenging coalition pilots
was tantamount to suicide and essentially remained inactive
throughout the remainder of the war. The runway attacks
apparently complicated Iraqi air base operations, but there is
little evidence to indicate they severely hampered sortie rates.
The JP233 submunitions were quite small, creating quickly
repairable scabs,24 and the redundant taxiway system
provided ample alternatives to reach the runway. "

" During the war's first week, Tornado aircraft attacked
daily to hinder Iraqi airfield operations. But proper delivery
of the JP233 required the aircraft to fly low across the
Iraqi airfields, allowing antiaircraft artillery and short-range
shoulder-fired missiles to take a disastrous toll. In the
war's opening phase, at least four Tornadoes were lost
during ineffectual airfield attacks, and about 100 JP233s
were expended. "

Ignorance is Risk



" It was my impression that RAF fighter/bomber losses
during the first Gulf War had more to with the
characteristics of the JP-233 airfied denial weapon
than they did with low flying per se - namely the
necessity to fly straight and level for extended periods
over heavily defended airfields at low altitude in order
to deliver the bloody thing. "


" The key issue on the Tornado / JP233 wasn't the JP233 suicide
special, which is a symptom, rather than the main issue. What
did the RAF in 1991 was that its entire doctrine was quite insane
- and had been since the 1970s. "

" In 1991 all of the RAF casualties were operating against
Iraqi airfields. "

" Sadly for the RAF pilots who died in practise over 20
years the entire thing was a failure. It turns out that in real
life, somewhere in the middle of the low-level airfield
attack, loads of people armed with everything from rocks
to AK47s and SAMs are going to be shooting. Imagine that.
The RAF had an entire battalion of infantry that specialises
in defending an airfield so its unlikely that the RAF didn't
know that this might happen. "

" The numbers are grim - the RAF Tornadoes took 10 per
cent casualties within seven days of the start of their
anti-airfield operations - an overall loss rate of 0.15% per
sortie (and most sorties were simply stooging around).
The entire Coalition air force, 0.05 per cent casualties
per sortie in the entire Desert Storm operation (and that
includes the massive RAF casualties). The two numbers
are frightening when compared. Bear in mind this doctrine
was intended to go against a real Soviet air defence
mobilised for World War 3 in East Germany, not some
3rd world nation listed until 1901 under "where?". The RAF
casualty rate was unacceptable even against the Iraqis -
against the Russians the RAF would have been completely
ineffective. "


Israel suspected of 'hacking' Syrian air defences ? The Register Forums