Operational flying in GW1

[andrewn]

It must be significant that, of all the Types involved, the GR1s had a Loss Ratio almost an order of magnitude higher than the next worst!
KB

I don't think anyone can argue that the GR1 loss rate in the first week or two of GW1 was unsustainable. What's never been clear to me is why this was the case, particularly versus other types that appeared to be flying similar missions - F-111's being a good case in point.

• Plain bad luck?
• Poorly devised tactics?
• The fact that the RAF was tasked with taking on some of the most heavily defended targets (that perhaps others weren't able or willing to do)?

Whatever the reasons behind individual losses (and I know they were varied) it is a fact that the change to ML profiles reduced the loss rate substantively - of course that could have been co-incident with the threat level reducing and/or the return of lady luck.

A sad time for those that lost friends and family - lest we forget and all that.

[Scruffy Fanny]

GR1

GW1 only highlighted some of the shortfalls in the GR1 as a weapons system. RAF senior officers were actually expected worse losses on the initial JP233 attacks. As i have posted earlier no aircraft was lost due to a JP233 as such. The delivery of the munitions was designed for a Soviet style Airfield very different to an Iraqi airfield. Those of us that have flown over Iraqi airfields know too well they are as big if no bigger than most international airports. Trying to render them "out of action" is a huge task but the Tornado did its job no question. As to the issue you of loss rates the RAF undeniably had some bad luck- an aircraft bomb fused prematurely, and a GR1 was lost near the end of the war shot down in a large formation- that was poor planning. The Tornado has grown from the lessons of GW1 into the most capable mud mover the RAF or indeed many other air forces have ever had.

[Dengue_Dude]

I think most of us started to take it seriously when we found out that Kate Adie was in town . . .

The hardest thing to find out was WTF is going on. I bought a World Service capable radio downtown Riyadh and learnt more from that than the Int Briefs.

Most of us felt sorry for the Tonka guys as that loss rate was a nasty surprise. Getting shot down by your 'own' side doesn't help morale much either.

[barnstormer1968]

KiloB

I would say that yes it is significant!

The GR1's attacked airfields...... Which are just about the highest defended targets in any country, so, by attacking a set point that the Iraqi's knew would be attacked, and new which part of the target would be attacked, and thus filled them with modern anti air weapons the GR1's were going to get a rough ride.

It was early in the campaign and so the defenders were still at their strongest which also played a part IMHO.

You will also be aware that airfields are flat places and leave no where to hide when flying over.

One other important point (again IMHO) is that any aircraft that can stop at least one opposition aircraft from flying is doing well, and that even the likes of a modern F22 cant guarantee taking out more than one opposition aircraft before it itself is loset. These GR1's that flew over these super hostile sites may have kept more than twenty Iraqi aircraft on the ground for each strike. That is a bloody good result in my book.

It is significant that GR1's were lost in very demanding raids. I wonder if the losses would have been the same if they had entered the conflict five days in, and then attacked sparsely defended targets!

I come from a green background, and think the tanka isn't exactly a sexy looker, but do understand bravery, and especially bravery in using a denial weapon designed to suppress the soviets after flying over very different terrain.

[orca]

Scruffy,

Given the size of the Iraqi airfields how did you set about weapon to target matching and what did you actually attack? What was the feeling in the flying units about attacking a target with a weapon optimised for a smaller target?

I imagine the QWI to CAOC phone was in constant use. How much 'push back' came from the units themselves - or was the move to ML reached by consensus elsewhere?

I watched the war from the safety of secondary school. Hat doffing where it's due - the GR1 community must have been very brave indeed.

One more question if I may. Did the higher command actively seek out hard targets for our boys?

[chickenlover]

To back up what SF says above, and I have no vested interest, I was a pax on a rotary into Talil and Jalibah (Excuse spelling) to look into viability of getting FW assets in there to rescue some kit. It was very early on and there was still fighting going on around the airfields. Those fields were trashed. Good and proper. As if to make the point, the second helo with us was wrecked by a jp223 mine let? ( a little known blue on blue ) I reported back that you couldn't pay me enough to try and land there, even in Mr Lockheed's finest short field landing shopping cart. There wasn't a square metre of airfield that didn't have a bit of shrapnel, lump of concrete or bit of JP223 in it. The GR1 boys did a number on them. I had the pleasure of showing the pictures to some of the artists years later. Amazingly, they had no idea what success they had achieved in taking out those airfields. (not a million miles away from you, SF )
Cheers
Cl

[KiloB]

1968 You seem to think I was knocking the Tonka guys in some way. Far from it; if anything I was suggesting the "Lions lead by Donkeys" Syndrome. A Loss Rate 10 times higher should not have happened and other posts comment on other Types tasked to similar profiles (initially) without taking such losses.
KB

[barnstormer1968]

KB

I thought you were knocking the tanka. I had no thoughts on you knocking the crews at all. I still don't go along with the lions led by donkeys theory though, but am happy think about lions entering another pride of lions, but using weapons and tactics designed to sneak past elephants

Edited, to overcome my poor typing on my ipad.

[just another jocky]

F-111 boys went against much less-well defended targets than the GR1s, probably why they stayed at low level for so much longer. ML only became an option for many a/c types when some specific SAMs and the IAF were taken out of the picture.

@orca - the JP233 had a min & a max length of stick and mostly the Iraqi airfields were too big to go down each surface capable of landing or take-off (you don't have to use just the runway for that), so most of the runs were planned across each surface at an angle such that even if your aiming was out (GR1 did not have GPS so there was quite a margin for error) you would get at least 3 (I think it was 3) cratering submunitions into the surface. Minimum Operating Strip lengths were calculated for each a/c type operating at each airfield and then the maths done giving the number of runs you needed to do. We calculated the number of runs for Tallil and it was more than the number of GRs that we had! So at best it was always going to be a deterrent, which did appear to work.

I believe the move to ML was dictated by HQ not by dets themselves. Unfortunately, the GR1 was designed as a low level bomber and so had little in its inventory at that time that could be accurately dropped from ML. The Buccs were sent out to provide a designator capability and Paveways 2 were dropped by the GRs very successfully. TIALD was rushed into service; it had been foreseen in '90 that this would be needed and a lot of accelerated trials work done by XIII Sqn led to deployment of 2 pods (Sandra & Tracey) to Tabuk. The result was the highest success rate after the F117A and as a bonus the bomber crews finally got to see the effect of the weapons they had dropped.

Yes, there's loads of stories out there. I've just bought the Thunder & Lightning book sugggested earlier and look forward to reading more of them.

orca, your last point is one I don't believe anyone except those directly concerned can answer, however as has been mentioned already, there were no other airfield denial weapons available so the GR1s walked into that job. Yes they were hard targets but no-one else could do the job (not until ML became a realistic option anyway). I can't deny that a little Force pride didn't work its way in there too......no other platform in the world could do what the GR1 could do, and it was done outstandingly. The losses, whilst not directly attributable to the specifics of a JP233 attack, were disproportionate but actually far less than the planning assumptions for war in Central Europe. Few others were put in harms way as much and as often as the GR1s (the rotary boys & a few very brave C130 chaps did an outstanding job too - not trying to claim otherwise).

[Pontius Navigator]

jaj, speaking from no particularly detailed study, but given as you say a huge landing area, that the actual tactic was to cut the taxi tracks from the HAS complexes - runway denial in a different way?

[Scruffy Fanny]

JP233 attacks

I think PN the formations briefed the attack profile Pre flight - On night 1 for example one formation of 4 ( which became 3 due to an aircraft going U/S en route) had decided to attack the airfield in different directions some flew down the runway length whilst others cut obliquely across to take out as you say Taxy ways . The Has sites were different to the UK with entrances at the front and back making them more difficult to immobilise. What is often not known is the airfields were softened up with GR1s tossing air burst 1000 Lbs bombs prior to the main JP233 attacks - which actually just annoyed the Iraqi defences making the JP233 aircrafts job more difficult

[Easy Street]

...and it was those 1000lb toss attacks which accounted for most of the losses, partly because of the increased risk in going high within a MEZ.

If any of the casual readers of this thread are still wondering why the Tornados stayed at low level as long as they did, consider this... if popping up to 2000 feet in a dynamic toss attack makes you more likely to get shot down after releasing your bombs, what do you think would happen if you attacked the same target from 15,000 feet or so? Shot down before releasing your bombs is the likely answer.

The suggestion that the Tornado crews were 'lions led by donkeys' because they sustained some losses in the teeth of the Iraqi air defences is risible. The total-avoidance-of-risk approach to 'war' eventually leads to more death, just not where you expected it, and over a longer period. Hard-hitting offensive action carries risks and it's the commander's job to weigh those against the benefits. We shut down the Iraqi airfields. We took some losses, but not enough to stop us contributing to the subsequent stages of the conflict, and not enough to break morale. Job done.

[99 Change Hands]

My memory of ML in the GR1 is that the Main Computer got very lost very quickly and you then had to decide whether to keep fighting the Kalman Filter or not. The weapons calcs fell off pretty rapidly with height too. And then you didn't even have a TACAN to get you home.

[just another jocky]

Originally Posted by Easy Street

The suggestion that the Tornado crews were 'lions led by donkeys' because they sustained some losses in the teeth of the Iraqi air defences is risible. The total-avoidance-of-risk approach to 'war' eventually leads to more death, just not where you expected it, and over a longer period. Hard-hitting offensive action carries risks and it's the commander's job to weigh those against the benefits. We shut down the Iraqi airfields. We took some losses, but not enough to stop us contributing to the subsequent stages of the conflict, and not enough to break morale. Job done.

Well put m8.

[just another jocky]

Originally Posted by PN

jaj, speaking from no particularly detailed study, but given as you say a huge landing area, that the actual tactic was to cut the taxi tracks from the HAS complexes - runway denial in a different way?

Not a bad idea, but SF makes a good point. Also, you don't know in advance if IAF a/c are airborne and so NOT denying landing surfaces (as opposed to access to landing surfaces) may allow them to land and park/re-arm/refuel elsewhere. Some of these airfields were HUGE, and dispersal plans even had them towed out into the desert miles from HAS sites.

There was never an attempt to "guarantee" closing down each airfield....that would have taken too many a/c or sorties, but they were harassed enough to effectively close them down, so as ES says, "job done".

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by just another jocky

may allow them to land and park/re-arm/refuel elsewhere. Some of these airfields were HUGE, and dispersal plans even had them towed out into the desert miles from HAS sites.

If you look at the Russian airfields you will see this wide dispersal system. It is only the lack of land that caused the RAF to build HAS complexes within the landing area.

I accept the point about aircraft landing elsewhere but you admitted yourself that closing all the MOS was impossible anyway.

I think the hope we to bottle up as many aircraft as possible in a HAS complex and then plink each HAS in turn. Time consuming but a bit like Schartzkopf asking why his aircraft were only destroying one tank at a time

[just another jocky]

PN.....the plinking of individual HASs only occurred once we all moved to ML and had a PG capability. That along with Paveway'ing every intersection too.

Closing all MOSs was virtually impossible at many of the fields, but I think once the first couple of nights were over and the IAF saw the damage that could be done, they bottled out, if indeed they were ever likely to turn up for Met Brief.

[Pontius Navigator]

jaj, of course. The plinking from ML had to follow the pinning down

Pin it down, then swat it. I still remember the ITV video that was NOT broadcast when the Bucc put a bomb in the cockpit of a Cub while it was taxying - proof positive that the IAF still had functioning assets well in to the war. It may well have been a lame duck and trying for a runner.

[just another jocky]

I don't recall having any JP shots either, though I do recall a night formation prior to the war from Tabuk. The Lord was unloading the worst electrical storm I had ever seen with huge lightening bolts lighting up the whole sky. The Boss couldn't manage to plug and went home but the rest of us managed. 8000ft amsl, one engine in burner and the rad alt reading whilst plugged in! Then into low level; first time I had tried 200ft Hard Ride on the TFR (and with no NVGs) - it was only cleared to 500ft by night/350ft by day. We were sat, fat dumb & happy then all of a sudden, the sky lit up and we saw that we were buried at the bottom of a very deep gorge with huge mountains on either side (I mean really huge). That was all it took and I stepped the autopilot up to 500ftMSD and kept my eyes in the cockpit.

It's amazing to see the difference between that event and Afghanistan in the GR4, with NVGs, FLIR, HOTAS and easily able to rack the jet around at low level high up in the mountains and be able to flick quickly into manual and then auto-TFR when the weather deteriorated. Hugely impressive capability.

[Abbey Road]

Pinkfin, lovely pic of Mr Handley-Page's finest V-tailed, crescent winged, 4-engined jet! But what is the dirty little jet at the bottom of the shot?

From elsewhere on this thread:

The Royal Air Force Historical Society is holding a seminar at the RAF Museum on 13 March entitled "Operation Granby - The RAF in Gulf War 1 - 1990-91".

Speakers will include Marshals' Hine, Johns, Alcock, Macfadyen and Wratten.

Hmm, if I could be sure that the last listed speaker, was actually going to speak last, I would attend, listen to the others and then leave pronto. Having seen his supercilious performance in Muharraq, during the war (never mind what happened long after ...), I sure as heck would not go listen to that chump!