From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #472 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Sunday, 22 October 1995 Volume 05 : Number 472 In this issue: Defending the SR-71 (SR & U-2 aren't rivals) SR-71 -- Titanium Bullet? Re: Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] Re: Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Art Hanley" Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 00:01:24 +0700 Subject: Defending the SR-71 (SR & U-2 aren't rivals) Becasue Andreas tok hte time to send a detailed response, I'm going to try to tickle him some more. What do others think of our positions? Please bear with me, I started this at work and that mailer doesn't echo real well, so I'm going to try and do this in word processing and import. Hopefully my editing of the original won't change Andreas' meanings. >First, I believe that the SR-71 ... is not a tactical aircraft. The role or mission is what is tactical or strategic, not the aircraft itself. For example, the B-52 has always been proudly proclaimed as a Strategic Bomber. Yet, when used in Vietnam to collapse tunnels, or hit troop camps, etc. it was clearly operating in a tactical role. Its role in Desert Storm was similar. The B-1 is being modified to carry an awful lot of non-strategic weapons to perform tactical roles, but it's still a B-1. One might argue that if you've got to go all the way to Washington to get permission to use it, then it's a strategic system, but the whole idea of the SR-71 revival is that this isn't going to happen. Like I alluded to in my post, the Navy used to have a system, the RA-5C, that operated almost exactly like the SR-71 (right down to specialized interpretation equipment and spaces), and it was clearly a tactical operation. >As the editorial the AW&ST of October 16 -- which btw sucked IMHO -- >you compare the ... SR-71 with satellites and UAVs, but not with its >closest competitor -- the U-2R. >The U-2R is not only very versatile, strategic and tactical, in PHOTINT, >SIGINT/COMINT and even target designation, but she has >satellite (OTH) data-link, and she can loiter for quite a while. Additionally, she flies relatively high and is relatively stealthy. All AW&ST said was that we should make sure we compare various systems to insure that we use the best for the given situation. In other words, compare the new UAVs against all the stuff they're supposed to replace to insure we're doing the right thing before we spend all the bucks and time. One of the other things the UAVs should be compared against is the U-2R. The SR-71 and the U-2 really don't compete. Almost everything you said about the U-2R I would agree with. However, they can (and in some cases already have) put that stuff in a SR-71. I discussed why it wasn't in my other post. How long a SR-71 can gather intel, given the same sensors, is a function of how far it is to/from fuel. U-2Rs have good loiter, but no one wants to fly them into defended airspace. The SR's forte is speed (valuable for perishable intelligence opportunities) and survivability for just those situations. It flies high AND fast. The only part I would question is the U-2R being "relatively stealthy". Relative to what? Large things like Mt Rushmore? A 747? My ego? It isn't stealthy enough for covert operations, certainly, and neither is the SR. The difference is if you spot the SR, generally there's not much you can do about it. >How can 2 or even 5 operational aircraft be useful in any way worthy >to be called tactical? The same way 2-3 RA-5Cs on a carrier or 2 to 5 U-2Rs in an area can. In fact, 2-5 aircraft with tactical recon systems of any type would be 2-5 more than USAF had in Desert Storm (the majority of tactical airborne imagery came from F-14 TARPS). Hopefully, we'll see the SRs operating from more Detachments than in the past. Yes, I'd like more to be available if we need them, not that long ago we had them. This only reiterates how, to be charitable, premature [i.e. wrong], the termination of the program was. >...but what can an SR-71 see (for example in Bosnia), that a satellite >can't? >The Bosnian war parties don't have any (or at least not much) intel >regarding >satellite overflights, the weather often does not permit >optical high-altitude reconnaissance and an UAV (loitering below >the clouds for 8 hours) can provide much more information to field commanders than a 5 minute sweep by an SR-71. The general case first (what a SR can see), then the specific (Bosnia example). The orbits of satellites are well known. There are a number of public organizations, notably in England, that provide orbital data and times freely. Flight International does a satellite log semi-annually and you can often turn on the network news and see when they put something up from Vandenberg. We have numerous examples of relatively "primitive" organizations knowing when to throw blankets over stuff for the few minutes the satellite's overhead. What the SR offers is surprise (by the time you know it's coming, you generally don't have time to hide everything even if you do detect it), and the ability to go overhead whenever you need it to ("Hold it, no fair! The orbiter already went by. Can't you wait until tomorrow when we image this angle again"?). In Bosnia specifically, even if they don't know when the satellites are overhead, I doubt if they care. After all, they know there's a war on. They don't really seem to be trying to hide too much. The kind of fluid situation over there doesn't really lend itself that well to what satellites do best, anyway. The SR isn't limited to visible light intel anymore than the other platforms are, and that's what all these systems really are, platforms for sensors. How long a SR can stay over Bosnia depends on how far it has to go for more fuel. Multiple passes are certainly possible. Since we're launching warplanes out of NATO countries there, I doubt if we'd have had basing or overflight rights problems if SRs had been available for use. UAVs certainly loiter longer (although one might argue that the SR could "loiter" on the ground), but how fast can they get to an objective they don't happen to be loitering over and then get the data out to the tactical commander? UAVs have to also make sure they are not seen or they become high-grade missile magnets. A possible scenario might be a SR coming out of a NATO country, making multiple passes at high speed, zooming back to where the results can be datalinked to the ground and then without landing, going back in for more from a different angle or covering a different site. Not only can the SR get to something far away quickly, it can also examine an Enormous amount of territory in a hour (over 60 times what Tier III minus is reported to be going to do). Remember, this puppy is moving at more than 5 times UAV speed. Many objectives it would be sent against would be specific and often wouldn't be appropriate for UAVs. One thing we wouldn't have gotten with the Blackbird is a 40% loss rate. >Also, during Desert Storm, the U-2s, together with the two E-8s >were used in the Scud hunting role -- and I don't believe an SR-71 >would have provided any better results. U-2s and the E-8s pulled off the DEMVAL program were used, but our use and tactics just weren't that successful. Of course, the E-8 wasn't even in service at that point. After the war, the E-8s went back into development and used data from the war to further perfect them One person on the program told me they would be working to insure that [paraphrased from memory here] "We can verify that what we actually saw was what we thought we saw". The U-2 did its usual sterling job. however, we just weren't getting the locations often enough and the data back soon enough to get the strike forces there in time often enough. Both the U-2 and the E-8 were seen coming, and the Scuds were hidden and/or moved before the strike forces arrived in too many cases (thank goodness for special ops!). That's where the SR would have made a difference. >Anyway, I like the SR, but I don't think that it will ever be a >useful tactical reconnaissance aircraft -- it wasn't designed to be >one! I can remember another aircraft clearly designed for a strategic mission (recon, come to think of it) that went on to do extremely well in the tactical role. I think they called it--the U-2. >I think that for some reason, U-2s are somewhat underestimated and >ignored in this debate of reconnaissance. They are working in the >field even longer than the SR and as far as I am concerned, with an >outstanding record. You'll get no argument from me there. The U-2 isn't glamorous, it just keeps on doing a hell of a job, quietly, without too much fanfare. I can think of another plane whose career was much the same, the A-7. This was a fantastically successful aircraft, arguably the most successful armed fixed wing aircraft of the Vietnam War. It never really made the news, never was the mount of the Blue Angels, never starred in a movie, just quietly did what it did better than anything else for its entire career and then just faded away. The U-2 is much the same. I can understand why those who know the Dragon Lady don't think it got its time in the sun. Under wraps for the first part of its career, it became famous as the plane that Francis Gary Powers got shot down in. Then, just when it was starting to get known for its own merits, what appears...? THE FASTEST AIRPLANE IN THE WORLD But, because the SR quickens the pulse doesn't mean it's a bad thing, and it really doesn't compete with the U-2R. There are things it does that you just can't do with a U-2, and recognition of the U-2 or unfair lack of it doesn't change that. Besides, They're Paid For. Stealthy UAVs may be the future in part or total, but they ain't here yet and what do we do in the meantime? Actually, most of the arguments in favor of UAVs versus the SR are actually stronger arguments against the U-2. It'll be the two Tier aircraft that may send the U-bird into the sunset. I hope some get preserved. You know, as the time to deploy the systems gets closer, I wouldn't be surprised if the Tier II and III camps don't lobby to take over each other's mission and only have one built. It wouldn't be the first time. Art ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 08:49:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SR-71 -- Titanium Bullet? I guess my biggest concern about the SR-71 and its new role, is the fact that only so few of them exist. If you have just 1 aircraft available, even if it has incredible abilities, it is a Silver Bullet weapon -- in the SR-71's case, probably more a Platinum or, better yet, a Titanium Bullet. One or two aircraft stationed at Edwards AFB, CA, can only accomplish a very small amount of tactical reconnaissance in Bosnia, for example. Lets see -- an I-FOR commander in Gorazde wants to know what the Bosnian Serbs are up to behind the next hill, and he wants to know it now, not tomorrow. You could base one of those two SR-71s (or better both of them) at a base nearby -- say in the UK, together with the U-2s. Now you can fly daily sweeps over the Adriatic Sea or even Bosnia -- and you may not even have to be concerned overflying Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria or Albania, they might even allow it. But you always get only a snapshot of the situation, while a loitering platform has actual, current data, whenever you want it. Most sensors, including those on SR-71s, U-2Rs, UAVs, and satellites, are stand-off sensors, and not overhead sensors. This is true for SLARs as well as optical systems. The biggest secret about satellites are not their orbits, which can be followed (at least by larger nations, like Russia etc.), but its capabilities concerning how far to the side, ahead or back they are able to look. U-2s and UAVs (as well as SR-71s) don't have to fly over denied teritory to get information in many instances. If you have a U-2 loitering all the time (as well as E-3s and E-8s and a handful of UAVs), the enemy will not be able to hide the Scud missile launchers when detecting the threat -- because the threat is permanent. The SR-71 on the other hand, needs a lot of luck to get some tactical information. There is quite a difference between photographing stationary SAM sites or other immobile (strategic) targets, and finding that single 155mm howitzer in the next valley or the mobile Scud TEL somewhere in the woods, (tactical targets) with which the commander on the ground is concerned about. My major point is the availability. How long does it take to prepare an SR-71 mission? How often can a single aircraft fly such a mission? How fast can a mission be retask if the situation changes? I don't know the answer to those questions, but it seems to me that they won't be so favorable, compared with those other available systems. Silver Bullets are just not practical nor affordable, basta. If you would be able to revive a whole wing, lets say 25 SR-71s -- now that would be a formidable reconnaissance force! In a nutshell: I want to see all of those SR-71s fly again! :) - --Andreas PS: The UAVs in Bosnia are in the same situation that the F-111s were in Vietnam, they are tested under very real conditions. One should expect some problems with the hardware as well as with tactics and operations. - --- --- Andreas & Kathryn Gehrs-Pahl E-Mail: schnars@ais.org 313 West Court St. #305 or: gpahl@raptor.csc.flint.umich.edu Flint, MI 48502-1239 Tel: (810) 238-8469 WWW URL: http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~schnars/ - --- --- ------------------------------ From: "Stefan 'Stetson' Skoglund" Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 14:45:59 +0100 Subject: Re: Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] >>>>> "Rick" == Rick Pavek writes: Rick> I'll go you one better. Rick> In the book Zanek (about the Israeli Air Force) there's an Rick> account of an Israeli Fouga Magister bringing down a Mig-21. Rick> He flew around in the canyons and goaded the Mig until the Mig Rick> went in after him... and couldn't make the grade. Literally. Yes, the ground have an awful high kill ratio. An unhappy Mig-23 pilot experienced the same thing some year ago. He tried to follow an low-flying Viggen over the baltic and hit the sea. ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 18:21:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] I've heard USAF fighter pilots call that a "ground mort" and USN fighter pilots call it a "Fox Four". (Is the Fox code a thread here, or was I reading it somewhere else?) Ground mort seems more widespread than Fox Four, though. Regards, Mary Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com URL http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end.... On Sat, 21 Oct 1995, Stefan 'Stetson' Skoglund wrote: > > >>>>> "Rick" == Rick Pavek writes: > > Rick> I'll go you one better. > > Rick> In the book Zanek (about the Israeli Air Force) there's an > Rick> account of an Israeli Fouga Magister bringing down a Mig-21. > > Rick> He flew around in the canyons and goaded the Mig until the Mig > Rick> went in after him... and couldn't make the grade. Literally. > > Yes, the ground have an awful high kill ratio. > > An unhappy Mig-23 pilot experienced the same thing some year ago. > He tried to follow an low-flying Viggen over the baltic and > hit the sea. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #472 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". 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