I glanced across this thread for the first time yesterday and feel I must post a reply here to answer some of the forum’s many unanswered questions, and also to dispel a few myths and un-truths about Black Bucks 4, 5 and 6, the SEAD (suppression) missions or, more correctly, DEAD (destruction) missions. Many of you may have read Vulcan 607. The Shrike missions were not referred to in Roland White’s book and a re-release of his book last week to coincide with the Falklands 30th anniversary contains some lazy journalism and fails to report the events accurately or honestly. The following are accurate and truthful statements about these 3 missions from an impeccably reliable and authoritative source that may help some of the posters here appreciate some of the complexities and difficulties conducting a DEAD mission without the opportunity to trial or live fire the munitions being used and utilising totally improvised tactics developed by the crew the day before the actual first mission itself, Black Buck 4.
- Prior to Black Buck 4, the crew was not briefed on, or made aware of, any suitable Brazilian military diversion airfields should the final re-fuelling bracket on the return leg fail for any reason. The crew had calculated that they would have insufficient fuel to make landfall in Brazil should an in-flight emergency arise. The official brief was to abandon aircraft.
- Black Buck 4 was aborted 4 hours into the mission due to the failure of the tanker’s HDU and its inability to transfer fuel to the Vulcan (total flight time 8 hours).
- The MARTEL ARM was not used due to its predicted pK of 0.6 and relatively large warhead (330 lb), and intelligence reports that identified 3 possible locations for the TPS-43 mobile radar, one of which was in the vicinity of Port Stanley. The crew was concerned about possible collateral damage to the residents there.
- The mission was re-staged the following night (Black Buck 5) with 2 Shrike AGM-45A ARMs optimized against the TPS-43 search radar (E-H band). An improvised tactic was developed by the crew to entice the radar operators into switching the radar on. The radar was switched on and off intermittently as the Vulcan manoeuvred into a launch position and a game of ‘cat-and-mouse’ therefore ensued.
- To achieve a pK of 0.9, 2 Shrikes needed to be launched in a 20 degree dive from a precise range of 6.9 nm. A launch error of only 0.5 nm saw the pK curve diminish steeply to below 0.7. This required the Vulcan Navigator (Radar) to identify the location of the TPS-43 on his H2S and call the release range to the AEO who had in front of him an ILS type localiser meter to ensure the Shrike seeker head was aligned with the target.
- Following launch of the 2 Shrikes, their predicted time of flight was 30 secs. The TPS-43 went down after 31 secs. INTEL reported that the TPS-43 impacted some 6m from the radar damaging its waveguide assembly (the blast fragmentation warhead was only 145 lb in size) and a spare waveguide and antenna was flown in the following day.
- During Black Buck 5 the crew had also identified Sky Guard fire control radar emissions in the I band and so the following day the crew re-launched on Black Buck 6 with a total of 4 Shrike AGM-45As, this time with 2 optimised against Sky Guard.
- Black Buck 6 followed the same Hi-Lo-Hi profile of the preceding Black Buck missions but this time without the benefit of surprise! The TPS-43 did not want to play (probably due to a coordinated GR-3 airfield attack). SEAD worked! Close to BINGO fuel after 40 mins in the overhead of Stanley and with 4 ARMs still on the 2 pylons, the crew elected to enter a steep dive to entice the Sky Guard radar to attempt a lock. The Sky Guard achieved a lock and the 35mm Super Oerlikon guns engaged the Vulcan and opened fire as it descended as low as 6000ft from its sanctuary height of 12 000ft. Fortunately the Vulcan was not hit and the crew manoeuvred into a firing position for the 2 Shrikes. The Sky Guard was completely destroyed killing 4 operators and injuring another.
- On its return to Ascension Island, the Vulcan broke its probe during the final re-fuelling bracket and was fortunate to make landfall in Rio de Janeiro. This, however, is another story which won the captain of Black Buck 6 the DFC. For those interested in the tale of this extraordinary excursion, the nearest an article gets to the truth is one written by Mark Khan for the magazine ‘Falklands – a 30th Anniversary Souvenir Issue’ released last week, a sister publication to ‘Britain at War’.