Tipo de deporte practicado

At this stage it is useful to examine the bombing and strafing systems employed in the close support mission, and how the technology has evolved. In many respects, the actual tactics employed date back to the days when RAF Typhoons and Tempests dived down from the stacked echelons of aircraft circling above the clouds, or zoomed in at low altitude, to knock out panzers with rockets and bombs. All that has changed significantly are the weapons at the crews' disposal, and the technology in the cockpit which has gradually taken much of the guesswork and luck out of getting ordnance smack on target.

From a CAS standpoint, there are two fundamental methods of attack: strafing and bombing in dives, or near-level laydown attacks at low altitude. High-angle, high-altitude dive-bombing may also be used (as was practised by some Afghansti on anti-bandit COIN strikes), but the release heights above the terrain (necessary to avoid ploughing into the ground in a fast jet) seldom provide the sharp target discrimination required, particularly in the thick of the smoke hanging around the FLOT, when friendly and enemy forces are in close proximity. Hitting the enemy behind the FLOT where there is less scope for confusion - BAI - is an altogether different mission, which customarily relies on a degree of mission-planning akin to INT.

CAS bombing is much more of an ad hoc affair, based on the pressing requirements of battle. Crews tend to just familiarize themselves with the working sector and draw up a rota to keep enough air power aloft to meet the Army's needs. Previously, navigation was thus traditionally rudimentary, and usually revolved around timing with a stopwatch and a fixed groundspeed (usually rounded off at 60-knot increments for ease of use, such as 420 knots in a Harrier GR.3) to judge time and distance to target. For example, initiating the stopwatch over the prominent VIP known to be 3.5 nm from the target at a bearing of 090°, meant turning East towards it at 420 knots groundspeed, and the pilot would reach it when the clock read 30 seconds. (Mental arithmetic works best if you round things up, so the pilot would probably instinctively think of this arithmetical problem as 420 knots 4- 60 seconds = 7 nm/minute, and thus 3.5 nm = 30 seconds to the target.) He would then factor-in the

TARGET INGRESS 107 delivery profile of his bombs or rockets, and let them

loose using depressed sight-line (DSL) techniques, described presently. Before the advent of computers, this often required quick mental arithmetic in the cockpit.

In emergencies, CAS planning might simply comprise jumping into a bombed-up, gassed-up jet, setting radio frequencies and heading off from an Alert 'hot pad' at 5 minutes' notice to deposit their weapons on FAC-directed targets unknown to them until a couple of minutes into the flight. To use the description oft quoted by the 'flying grunts': 'It was boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, in turn punctuated by moments of math.'

The term 'bombing' is a slight misnomer owing to the cornucopia of weapons used nowadays. These not only embrace cannon, rockets, and iron bombs (steel fragmentation bombs containing tritonal explosive) but also a more grisly range of weapons that includes napalm and fuel-air explosives. For low-level work, iron bombs utilize steel airbrakes or 'ballute' canvas air-braking devices to retard the weapons so that the attacker does not get caught in the blast of its own ordnance during straight-and-level or low-angle deliveries. Napalm B canisters erupt in a ball of suffocating flame. FAE munitions spread large clouds of atomized liquid explosive (such as propane or ethylene oxide) over a wide area, which is then detonated. A wide variety of tactical munitions

dispensers (TMDs), each packed with purpose-designed cluster bomblets are also available.

The purpose of all this weaponry is to spread as much firepower as possible over a large area to disrupt, destroy and demoralize enemy ground forces, without having to resort to overkill. Western European models of TDM include the British Hunting Engineering BL755 and French Thomson Brandt Armaments BLG-66 Bélouga optimized for high-speed low-level delivery. The US has created huge families of weapons offering broader delivery parameters, from as low as 250 ft, up to a staggering 40,000 ft. When released from this height a wind corrected munitions dispenser kit flies the bomb to the desired mean point of impact using inertial-GPS coordinates handed off by the attacking aircraft just prior to weapons release. These would only be used by BAI or INT jets, or CAS machines possessing extraordinarily accurate nav-attack systems in high base curvilinear attacks. Submunitions-dispensing takes place at a pre-determined altitude over the target, depending on the fuze settings and the submunitions carried.

The newest and most devastating of these are built around the SUU-64/B and -65/B TMDs, and comprise the combined effects munition (CEM), Gator, and the sensor fuzed weapon (SFW). Each works differently.

The CEMs are so designed that on hitting a soft target they simply blow up like a grenade, but on contact

PRINCIPAL CLUSTER BOMB UNITS Designation

Mk 20 Rockeye Mod 2 CBU-49B/B 38 BLU-92/B Gator anti-tank mines 214BLU-97/BCEM

72 BLU-91/B anti-personnel mines 24 BLU-92/B Gator anti-tank mines 10 BLU-108 Skeet anti-armour

with a hard target, such as a tank hull, the core of the miniature warhead forms a shaped charge to blast through the thick metal. Each CBU-87/B is packed with 214 BLU-97/B CEM submunitions which strike on a hit or miss basis instantly. The Gators are anti-tank mines which arm on reaching the ground and are then set off by magnetically or tripwire whiskers when the enemy stumble into them, and are thus used as area denial devices. Each CBU-89/B is stuffed with 72 BLU-91/B anti-personnel mines and 24 BLU-92/B Gators.

The Textron SEW is the most advanced. The SUU-64/B TMD contains 10 BLU-108/B submunitions, each fitted with four Skeet warheads. After release, the 'Bloos' para-descend over the target using a vortex ring parachute which generates a swirling motion.

This enables the Skeets to scan a spiral sector of the ground during their descent. Skeet uses passive infrared sensing technology to search for targets. The instant it locates a tank or armoured vehicle beneath it (such target signatures are held in the Skeet's memory), the warhead fires a shaped charge directly at the target, which is sufficient to blast through tank hulls and cause all sorts of other mischief. Newer brilliant anti-tank (BAT) munitions, dispensed from a

variety of delivery canisters, will combine acoustic as well as dual-infrared sensors to seek out their quarry.

Target ingress - setting up each aircraft for the attack pass - typically begins in one of two ways. The fighters may peel off from cruise altitude and nose straight down onto the target in a roller-coaster dive, using the initial point (IP) like an imaginary maypole to swing onto the required heading. Alternatively, the aircraft may ingress at low-level and perform a belly-wrenching pop-up, vaulting up from 200 ft to several thousand feet AGL, the height varying with the desired dive-angle to be used during the attack. Target acquisition is effected by banking 90° and turning on a wing-tip, or by rolling completely inverted at the apex of the pop, before rolling wings-level and diving down on the desired target heading. In both instances, the aircraft in the attack Flight will vary their headings to keep the enemy gunners guessing and provide adequate spacing between splashes (bomb drops on each pass), so that the wingmen avoid the harrowing procedure of flying into the debris kicked-up by their colleagues' ordnance! Spacings of half a minute or more are not uncommon.

In more evolved teamwork, two aircraft in a CAS Turning information. Before reaching the target the Flight of four will split into individual elements, each with their own heading and TOT, so as to maximize surprise. (McAir)

TARGET INGRESS 109

And bombs away . . . in a 45° 'down the chute' bomb run (although the camera angle belies this). This was the meat-and-potatoes of attack jets prior to the introduction of computer-assisted CCIP which took much of the guesswork out of the operation. (Mike Turner)

section will often use complementary ordnance on each pass. For example one Warthog, Frogfoot or Harrier will come in just above the tree-tops and fire 25 mm or 30 mm cannon high-explosive incendiary (HEI) and armour-piercing (AP) shells, alternately pushing the left and right rudder pedals to yaw the beast and spray a fan of fire about the CCIP aim point.

This keeps the heads of the enemy down while the

second aircraft arcs up and noses over to volley a couple of anti-armour Mavericks, or a canister of 68 mm rockets. Both may deposit CBUs before breaking away to freedom.

In South-East Asia, when the jets were often tasked with CAS in low-threat areas considered to be milk runs, multiple passes were a matter of routine.

While far more hazardous, multiple passes were and Zooming over Loch Ness in Scotland. A LCOSS was about as advanced as things got prior to the introduction of the true HUD. This incorporated lead - pitch correction -for shooting rockets or guns, and dropping bombs, and incorporated roll indices and a radar-ranging analogue bar which wound counter-clockwise. (Dick Brown)

still are exercised in high-threat areas when crews are providing bombing in support of Combat Search &

Rescue (CSAR) forces, keeping the enemy at bay so that a downed colleague can be snatched away to safety. To reiterate a common thread: such esprit de corps is vital to unit morale.

Further refinement of visual attack accuracy came with the advent of the raster-scan HUD linked to a digital ballistics computer, first introduced in the LTV A-7D/E Corsair II in 1971: the revolutionary GEC Avionics HUD and IBM TC-2 '4jt' computer. The A-7 was dedicated to CAS and CSAR, and introduced the CC1P method of uncanned visual bombing. This was used against unplanned targets of opportunity. It relied on the fighter's ballistics computer knowing the forward throw or ballistic characteristics of the chosen weapon, selected on a window on the WCP alongside store stations and Master Arm prior to making the bomb pass.

On more modern fighters this is accomplished using the buttons on an MFD periphery, selected alongside stores station, fuze options - nose or tail or both - and release options, such as singles, pairs or salvo. Now, as then, the computer then correlates the relevant ballistics data with aircraft speed, dive angle and height AGL and continuously recomputes the projected impact point or bomb splash point ahead.

This is presented as an aiming reticle on the pilot's HUD: the bombs will fall there if he presses the bomb release button now. Hence, on the A-7's HUD, and most modern heads-up devices which followed on its heels, the pilot is presented with a bomb fall line corresponding to the aircraft's velocity vector (where it is actually heading) with a short crossbar or circle indicating the CCIP ground impact point for an immediately released weapon.

The aircraft is flown so that the target tracks down the aiming line until overlaid by the CCIP reticle, at which point the pilot pickles the bombs, and they should tumble smack on target. Good CCIP ballistics computers uncan the procedure by compensating for all delivery angles and airspeeds, and the nature of the terrain, whether it is rugged or sloping (which would cause them to fall long or short). The latter variable is computer-corrected by comparing aircraft height versus target elevation, which can be furnished by a FAC, looked-up on a map and cranked into the system or, for greater accuracy, determined using trigonometry and slant-ranging sensors such as radar or laser. Good CCIP computers can also take into account the subtle aerodynamic nuances between weapons (for example, American 2.75 in FFARs versus higher-velocity Canadian CRV-7 rockets, or the tumbling or spinning properties of the Rockeye Mk 7 During a Greek VIP visit to HMS Ark Royal in October 1978 No. 892 Sqn demonstrated its wares, including this Phantom FG.l volleying rockets. (HMS Ark Royal via Richard L. Ward)

TARGET INGRESS