Вопросы

>>кстати когда o'грэди завалили над боснией кубом на его ф-16 рвр даже не пискнул. забавно получилось.


Так его же инфракраской завалили. У Куба вроде есть ИК канал.:)


да как бы нет. был ведь немаленький скандал т.к. даже если сопровождали телевизором (оптика, ик там нет) то подсветка для полуактивной головы ракеты все равно была (как будет работать передатчик команд у с-75 и 125). уверяли что проблемка с rwr была но была сразу же выявлена и устранена (ну естественно), однако было тут же принято решение без поддержки еа-6 больше летать не пущать.

Super Tomcat>Посмотрите ВВС всегда поддерживаются флотом и морпехами, так что можно обойтись и без дублирования самолетов.

ну да, особенно такого бесполезного в наше время назначения, как рэб. вот 4 типа истребителей да 3 типа бомберов это меньше типов никак нельзя. то-то еа-6 вынуждены и не с авианосцев летать. а реальной замены ф-4джи так вообще не видать.

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есть вопросы к Конструктору (а то он совсем на объяснеие азов перешел)

- каков ожидаемый горизонтальный маневр у харма т.е. если скажем рлс включается за 10 км и выясняется что нужно на 3 км в сторону довернуть он это смогет?

- взрыватель у него заявлен неконтактный, это как - на заданной высоте что ли

-почему ему не сделали кассетную бч, это уж всяко лучше чем куча мелких осколков

-как соотносятся дальности полета харма с рдтт и х-31 с прямоточкой? вторая же вроде эффективней, но на нее заявлено 100км

-используется ли противорадиолокационная 31 по кораблям

-ну и, до кучи, не маловата ли бч у противокорабельной 31

ФИ>Просто харм метровые волны не принимает, антенна маленькая.
>Тем не менее, в какой-нибудь П-18 про такую защиту не говорят. А насколько реально навестись в УКВ диапазоне - самому интересно.

так ее вроде и не производят давно. а навестись - так это как обычно - в принципе реально (ну типа как у Никиты - все что в голову придет, все и могем), а для конкретного изделия это конкретный разговор. но вот в ираке в первую ночь приграничную п-12 долбали апачи, а не туча хармов.

>Да хоть 50 метров. Вы опять забываете, что главная задача HARM'а подавить, а не уничтожить.

это сейчас так говорят, по принципу - зеленый виноград. а так поглядим на ирак. первая волна - беспилотники, а за ними ф-4джи с хармами (без помех кстати - чтобы свои приемники не забить). так если они ничего не уничтожат, то как раз третью волну - ударную - эти средства пво и встретят.

воспоминия хармовца - переводить увы некогда.

LTC Jerry Cummin, USAF

I STOOD BY MY JET AT OH-dark-thirty, January 17, 1991, and watched the first package of F-4G Wild Weasels takeoff. Afterburning engines are always impressive to watch at night as the blue flame extends twenty feet behind the tail and the vibration seems to shake your whole body. You feel the intensity as well as see it. We were going next.

Our package of eight was to protect the first strike package to Baghdad. The George boys taking off in front were purposed to "give a black eye" to those Iraqi Integrated Air Defenses (IADS) before we got there. (On a side note, George AFB is now closed.) We shook hands with our crewchiefs, sort of saying, "Good-bye, thanks for everything, hope to see you soon," and climbed into the jet, our minds on a hundred different things.

Takeoff, rejoin, and tanker-rendezvous were uneventful, and we pressed up north to cross the border. Although the F-4G had a digital inertial-navigation system, there was no moving map display like on the sexy jets of today. The old "time-distance-heading" applied when we crossed into Iraq. Spock's sensor report on the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Wrath of Khan came to mind: "We are now entering the Mutara Nebula." (I can't quite remember what I actually said, though. It was probably more like, "Well, we're in.")

I looked down over the side to see if anything could possibly look different in the pitch black and was surprised to see a series of glowing red "dashes" arcing behind and well below us. "What could those be? Shoulder-fired SA-7s?" Turns out it was anti-aircraft artillery (AAA). I always thought AAA would look like dots not dashes. Everybody was yacking on the radio, to the point where I finally transmitted, "BREVITY!" (the com word for keeping your radio transmissions minimal). "What? Have we not briefed, re-briefed, practiced, and chairflown this mission a hundred times?" I thought. We were sneaking up on Saddam with a loudspeaker.

I was number eight of the eight-ship, a great place to be for maximum attention from Iraqi gunners. Fuel was so tight to get to Baghdad and do our business that it was more or less a straight line north from our refueling tanker orbiting in Saudi Arabia to the target area. The F-111s and F-117s we were protecting had enough gas to offset behind us and enter from the east. AWACS, I later learned, had offset itself so far to the south that we were out of its coverage. In other words, it couldn't help us if an Iraqi MiG came up after us. HHQ had also decided there would be no F-15 Eagle coverage for our mission either. They were back protecting the HVAs [higher-value assets]. We were on our own. Each jet was armed with two-AIM-7 radar guided air-to-air missiles, two AGM-88 HARMs, and a jamming pod. No one turned the jamming pod past standby, because it interfered with our ranging-location system for taking out the Iraqi IADS.

Almost there. My pilot, Capt Pat "Curly" Pence, and I remarked on how crazy it was that the airfield we were nearing still had all its lights on. Someone said over the radio, "Hey, I think someone is taking off down there!" The USAF Thunderbirds couldn't have coordinated a better maneuver as eight jets, in pitch black, single file behind each other, flipped upside to take a look. There we were, hanging in our straps, straining to look at our impending predicament. "Uh, no, it's just a truck," somebody else said. I reached over and turned the adrenaline switch from Overload back to Max.

My attention returned to my ranging display to see what was up ahead. The F-4G has (notice the tense) an unmatched tactical radar-detection capability that gives it a 360° field of view (FOV) for launching HARMs against enemy radars. To my amazement, my system was picking up an SA-8 100 miles away! "Why would that [short-range] guy be radiating now? We're the closest thing coming." What I had forgotten was that, close to the Iraqi border, an elite squad of AF folks (affectionately known as "Pumba's Party") had launched a number of BQM-74 drones especially for our package. They were just now starting to stimulate those Iraqi SAMs. Their "sacrifice" gave us the look that we needed to start targeting. My priorities were an SA-6 and SA-8 providing point defense for the Salman Pak nuclear/bio facility. The big guys at the top wanted the strikers to take these kind of sites out first so that Saddam would have a tougher time responding with weapons of mass destruction.

Up in front, Capt Derrick "Bo" Knight transmitted "M-m-m-magnum!" announcing the first HARM fired that I heard about. I knew others had fired before him; he was just the first to say it over the radio. "Whew, I think he's nervous!" I thought. Our targets were coming into range. It is difficult at this point to write about how busy it was. Everybody was blabbing on the radio. AAA and SAMs were flying everywhere, and I was having a, shall we say, intense time with my higher tasks at hand. They were, in no particular order:

maintaining radar trail with my flight lead (5-7 miles in front)

navigating to keep SA on the target area

opening up a radar search for incoming Iraqi MiG aircraft

ranging on the prioritized Iraqi SAMs to ultimately fire HARMs at them

talking to What's-His-Name in the front seat

In the F-4G, an electronic- warfare officer (EWO) cannot see out the front of the cockpit, because his electronic gear takes up the entire panel. He sees only "historical events." The front seat, tasked to do that pilot thing, gets an eyeful but tends to miss out on the Big Picture. Eight-ship lead, Maj. "Black Bart" Quinn, remarked to me later, "I had taped my flight glove over the repeater scope of what the EWO was seeing en route to Baghdad, because the display was too bright at night. In the target area, with everything flying about, I lifted up my glove once and peeked to see what was going on. Shuddering, I returned that glove to its rightful position."

It was my turn to fire, but as we swung our jet to fire face on, the computer dumped all the information I had gathered. Mystified, I redirected our flight path to regather the necessary information for launching a high-quality shot. Closer to the threats now, we turned hard to face them again. Just as my thumb closed over the red pickle button on the stick, the information dumped again! (Reminds me of our network here.) I yelled to Curly that we had a problem and directed him to offset again. This time, just before the threat came to the nose, I fired off the missile.

Now, an 800-pound, Mach-3 missile does not leave its residence politely, but at that moment I was concentrating more on our next threat. My secret handshake with Curly was that he would get to fire the second missile. I toggled to the next priority target and yelled, "PICKLE, CURLY!" The next HARM ignited and chunked off the rail into the black and fire below. We had no time for BDA [battle-damage assessment]; it was time to go.

As we passed out of the enemy threat rings, Curly and I let out a collective sigh of relief. It was then that I noticed that my arms were almost violently shaking! Curly had turned the air conditioner to Full Cold, and it was only now that I realized I was freezing! "C-C-Curly! T-t-turn up the heat!"

Four-and-a-half hours after takeoff we returned - all unscathed. The maintenance folks were jumping up and down, waving their arms. I unbuckled and stood up on the ejection seat and waved back at them. We were delirious with exhaustion and joy. I remember pumping hands with my maintenance officer and thanking him profusely as we all laughed and said what words we could. The next mission was only six hours away.

Lt Col Cummin is currently 453 EWS Operations Officer at Kelly AFB (San Antonio, TX).