Originally Posted by
Easy Street
Interesting (and ballsy, as said!). Does the book say whether the loft profile was adapted to provide a steep impact angle? I suspect that even had the codes been compatible, they might have struggled to get good guidance onto the runway with a standard loft: maximum laser reflection on a non-mirrored surface is perpendicular to that surface (regardless of where the laser is coming from) and reflected intensity falls away rapidly beyond a cone of 45 degree semi-angle from that axis. Lofted early-model Paveways came in much shallower than that and hence struggled to guide against flat horizontal surfaces like runways. From the Joint Pub you posted earlier it looks like this was well understood by 1991, so would be interesting to know if it was in 1982.
Another problem with the shallow impact angle of lofted early Paveways was weapon effects; even if it had guided you'd have to question whether the impact angle would have been sufficient for the weapon to penetrate the runway surface, rather than ricochet and detonate 'relatively' harmlessly on top. Again it would be interesting to know whether enough was known in these early days to take that into account?
According to Jerry Pook's Book, the first attack on Stanley's runway by the GR 3's were a pair doing a near vertical dive attack at slow speed from 30,000 feet with the lead being the bomber and the second doing the designation, both aircraft in full nozzle braking to keep the speed down. The SHAR mission (Flown by Clive Morrell) is not described in Pook's book, but is covered in the Falklands - The Air War publication as regards the mission flown and who flew the GR Mk 3, but not how the mission was flown. There was another attempt before that by GR Mk 3's using the same profile (high Altitude dive), but after the attempt with the SHAR, the signal came through from the UK the Self designation with LRMTS would not work.