The Complete Book of Defenae Weaponry ----, ...---, ..----. ---.

DEALING TECH FIREPOWER:

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Finall COMBATON AMERICA'S DOORSTEP Will Central

America Spark WW III?

IEYIID RHETIRIC The Trans-Atlantic Cruise: Challenge to the Alliance.

T()MA ON TARGET: 1 A nd attac:k

TOMAHAW~ntionallY armeda are1ntorced HAWK con:\le approachel e ot a ware-cru\1e "'':tructure, thectrnente 111and, concrete ted on San et. The n,\11lle t,ou1e, 1oca e warhead tel r ed iubrna durln& a '~ed trorn a ~ur:!n\a coait, wa1 1aunc h southern a c1emente 11 nne ott t e coa1t ot san ck n,\ss\on cro111ed thfl fteW a \and ::h degree ot land, then target wlth a wa1 n,ore itrikln& th;he n,\11\on ftow;oMAHAWK accuraCY \lel wlth the Matchtnl than 400 "'1erraln con~r~ n,\sslle to u1\n& ~';) sy1tern to ~ 01g1tal Scene (TER!;.rget area an!,a:or (DSMAC) to the Are Cor et Matchln& 111\le In on tar& ad \nstalled In xero the :'ventional warhhe d n,\s11es 11 a

The eo K sea \aunc e

By John Tillman

T housands of Europeans have taken to the streets to demonstrate disapproval o f their governments' de-cisions to dep loy American cru ise and longer-rang ed tactical ball istic mis-siles in Western Europe to counter the new, highly capable SS-20 IRBMs be-ing deployed by the Kremlin to the tune of one a week fo r over six years now.

Signs of anti-Americanism and

Whether you feel deployment fuels the arms race or makes meaningful reductions in theater nuclear armaments more likely, depends on your view of Russian psychology and goals.

Kremlin disinformat ion are easi ly traced in the motivation and argumen ts of some groups actively fighting the Euromissiles. Sti ll , most opposition

A U.S. Army Pershing II missile test launch at Cape Canaveral. The Pershing II is the only ballistic missile with a termi-nal guidance system that incorporates an all-weather radar-correlation unit which compares the live radar return with a pre-stored radar Image of the target area.

ror11 FAcrs springs from the genuine fears of dis-Para_te Peop/es living in a cramped cont,nent With a history of horrible wars Who fee/ they Jack comp/ete con-tro/ over their own fate. Yet govern-ments of the Western democracies have risked being voted out of Office (though none has been) to stay on this controversia/ course.

Why Use Cruise?

ain have foregone independent nuc/ear armaments, and German contro/ of the missi/es wou/d have provided the Krem/in With more grist for its Propa-ganda mills. Germany is still not we11-lik_ed in some corners of Europe, an

att,tude KGB disinformationists have cashed in on by dubbing the GLCM the German-/aunched cruise missi/e.

Tomahawk 's two land attack computer-i:ted aids to navigation are compared. o. SMAc (Digital Scene Matching Area Cor-re/ation) Provides high/y accurate t ermi-nal guidance for the conventiona/ land attacl( Tomahawk. TE:RCOM (Terrain Contour Matching) is used by both nu. clear and conventiona/ land attack mis-si/es Periodical/y to correct errors in their basic !ne_rtia/ syste_m. This Updating gets the miss,les to the,r targets with a mini-mum of deviation from a low./eve/ flig ht Path Pre-programmed to take advantage of natura/ terrain cover and to avoid hosti/e air defenses.

The main function of the Euromis-si/es is Politica/ and symbo/ic. Their dep/oyment announces not that we are Planning a Preemptive strike but that the Western alliance Will not allow the Soviets a monopo/y on any c/ass of nuc/ear weaponry. The missi/es Show continuing unity ot Purpose among the NATO governments. They are a form of commu~ication easi/y understood by the Sov,et leadership, though some Europeans fear the Krem/in may mis-read them.

Their tactica/ app/icalions are aJ-most secondary, but lhey do streng-lhen and modernize NATos theater deterrent forces. The U.s. Air Force (~nd Army, in the case of Pershing II) w,11 operate the missi/es, Which unfo r -tuna te/y has made fearfu/ Europeans nervous. There really was no alterna-tive. All our mi/itary allies except Brit-

The military rote of the Euromis-siles is as mob,Ie, hence /ess vu lner-able, longer-ranged, tactica/ (theater) Prompt reta/iatory,or counterforce (nu-clear alert) weapons. This means they Wou/d ?e used against key mi/itary targets 1n the Btocs rear that required fast, accurate and re/iab/y-penetrating attack as soon as lhe Soviets had mounted an assau/t on Wester.r, Europe.

The Pershings Wou/d attack hard-ened, sma11 or mobile targets that needed to be destroyed within minutes for taclica/ reasons or before they moved. Their most Obvious app/ication is for hard command and contro/ cen-ters. but lhey cou/d also direct1y lhreaten any SS-20 launchers wecou/d locate WhiJe standing still, for instance

cated on San Cl~m;~MAHAWK detona head detonates e 1) TOMAHAWK mlj'~j ::;,o~::~,~;~~:~::t~~t~~:::~~ E0:,

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:::~~:~ t:~~l:g":1te, whe,d det~ Photo ~.:.~ ....... "N'~"o1D lb. """ ""' ~!bris, lndwllng ,on,re (nose of m t 4) Explosion of t I the air. 5) Heavy pact of targe ed hundreds of fee f f:et in the air. being scatter d hundreds o b Ing scattere nates e

A General Dynamics Tomahawk cruise missile flies low over the Utah Test and Training Range during a test flight.

to reload. GLCMs would be assigned more vulnerable or fixed targets such as airfields, temporary or "softer" com-mand, control and communications centers. fi eld HQs and resupply or attack staging areas. Thus cruise mis-si les help to conserve much more ex-pensive str ike aircraft and their irre-placeable c rews, and to supplant those lost in the first wave o f the Soviel onslaught, prosecuted according to Red Army doctrinewith maximal feroc-ity.

ls No Cruise Good Cruise? Opponents of NA TO's decision to

deploy Tomahawks and Pershing ll s in response to the SS-20s ei le three gen-eral arguments. These are that the Eurom issiles are preemptive first str ike weapons, that they increase c ivi l ians r isks of exposure to deadly nuclear weapons effects and th at their deploy-ment escalates the arms race.

The ground- launched Tomahawks are tactical missiles. This means that their programmed targets do not in-clude strategic objectives. They could, however. be reprogrammed, so must be considered counterforce weapons. since they are capable of destroying hardened strategic targets such as ICBM si los an d command. control and communications centers.

But "counter force capability " is only a necessary , not a sufficient. qual-ification for a firs t strike weapon . Cru ise missiles are unquestionably too slow and probably too vulnerable to air defenses to be used in a preemptive first strike. in which any del ivery time over 30 minutes and success rate short o f 90% could be suicidal. They are retal iatory (second strike) weapons. and as such actually a stabilizing factor in nuclear arms equations.

A General Dynamics/ U.S. Air Force Tomahawk Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) is fired from its operational mobile launcher.

lt would take the 96 GLCMs scheduled for deployment in Germany 52

four tim es longer to reach Soviel ICBM si los than it would U.S. ICBMs launched from Arizona. In any case, the 464 Tomahawks in Western Europe cou ldn 't be used by themselves against th e thousands o f strategic targets in the Soviel Union. and we don 't have anywhere near enough other counter-force warheads to augment them.

Similarly. although Pershing ll's are fast and unstoppable. hence usable

in a preemptive strike. there are far too few o f them to moun t such an attack alone. There are at least 2400 primary strateg ic targets in the Soviel Union, about 1900 o f which would requ ire two counterforce warheads each to be de-stroyed reliably. In the entire U.S. stra-tegic nuclear arsenal there are present-ly only 900 ballistic counterforce war-heads.

Even with all scheduled Pershings

Soviet and American cruise missiles are shown approximately to scale and in or-der of appearance. SCAD is the target drone from whic h the Boeing air- launched cruise missile was developed. Some major new Soviet deployments are not displayed- AS-6 , SS-N-14, -22, and -21, the latter a long-range strategic cruise miss ile.

deployed. we'd still have only 1008 " first strike" warheads. That's su bstan-tially fewer than one fourth o f th e number wed need for a comprehensive strategic counterforce at tack . let alone th eater targets like SS-20s and the short- and medium-range (560-mile maximum) rockets (FROGs. Scud, SS-12. SS-21. SS-22 and SS-23) that are capable o f leveling Europe. north China and Japan.

In recent years Red Army defe~tors have been trying to persuade Western analysts that the Soviets would begin an attack on NATO with nuclear strikes against both military and civilian targets.

The 27 au t11orized MX missiles and one or two Trident II su bs that might be qeployed by th e end of this decade would add on ly 654 ballisti c counter-force warheads (with 900 improved Minuteman III and 108 Pershing II war-heads) to our arsenals. still less than 40% the number needed for a compre-l1ensive counterforce strik e on the Soviel Union. In fact. wed st ill come up short even in the unl ikely event that all 100 proposed MXs were actually bui lt. Clearly. these developments are meant to strengthen our retaliatory capabi li ty rather than to launch a d isarming first strik e against the Soviel strateg ic forces.

The Sov1ets have about 5000 more effective counterforce ICBM war-heads, even though the U.S. has fewer primary strategic targets - about 1600. o f w hich 1300 would call for two war-heads. They also currently have 11 55 IRBM counterforce warheads. SS-20s are th eater f irst strike weapons back ed up. unlike ours. by all the counterforce ICBMs anyon e could ever want (the Soviets are neverth eless building two new varie ties of counterforce ICBM. 1n vio lation o f SAL T II ). SS-20 is less accurate than Pershing II . but st ill able to take out hard targets.

The Soviet SS-20: A Triple Threat

The three-warhead SS-20 began life as a mobil e ICBM. th e SS-16. lt was traded away under SAL T II : only later

CRUISEMISSILE BACKGROUND ASl_~

SSC-2b~ SSNI ~

SS-N-2a~ AS-2~

AS-3~ SS-H-7~= SSH-3c '~ AS-4~==:> SSC-h AS-5 '6=== _::,,ss-H-9~_I[:I>

SSH-2c i,;,~,--=-=--U.S.S.R. SS-N-Ja~

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1960 1965 19/0 1915 1

~RE~ I =:J REGULU~ 11~011:=-

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HOUND DOG {:s I UNITED STATES

ALCM/SCAO ~ HARPOON ~

= AGM 868 t==-=

TOMAHAWK = == AGMI09h,:==

Cl1art courtesy o l U.S Joint Crurse Mrssrle Program Of l1 ce

A ground-launched Tomahawk leaves an entrenched TEL during a test firing.

did we determine that it was less than a success as an ICBM. Minus its first booster stage. however. it does make a fine IRBM - accurate. mobil e and the onl y M IRVed theater missil e in the world. lts range- 3000 miles-means it can still be used intercontinentally. lf deployed to the sacred borders of the Soviet state. let alone tl1ose of puppet regimes. it can reach from Kenya to Quebec and Kuala Lumpur to Cal i-forn ia.

Even as present ly deployed. abou t two-thi rds of the 120 Asian SS-20s can still hit targets from Sicil y to the Heb-rides without being moved. The o thers- based in the Soviel Far East -can reach Al as ka. In response to the

Euromissiles. the Kremlin has threat-ened to deploy some in northeastern Siberia to let people in Seattle know how it feels tobe eight or nine minutes down range o f a modern IRBM. The feeling will not be too novel for any of the 120 million Americans six minutes removed from the Soviel sub-launched balli stic missiles (SLBM) on subs pa-trolling our coasts.

Although only live percen t as fast as Soviel counterforce ICBM war-heads. with fifteen percent the range, a third the explosive energy and two-thirds the odds o f survival , our less numerous long- rarige cruise missi les do have greater accuracy. l t is the combination of accuracy with relative-

53

ly low yield that makes some people !hink were planning to light a war with these "Su rgical" weapons.

The 1100-mi le range Pershing II is. as the on ly bal l ist ic missile with ter-minal guidance. also exceptionally ac-curate. This and its short !light time to targets in the Soviel Union distu rb the Kremlin. Tl1ey say it can hi t Moscow in six minutes. We say it goes neither that fast nor that far (1400 miles from Ger-many). The complaints might be more compelling l1ad the Soviets not been able to hit Washington that quickly with SLBMs ever since 1960. Short of mov-ing our capita l to North Dakota, theres nothing we can do about it.

The Kreml in and Western oppo-nents o f the Euromissiles argue that Pershings great accuracy makes it

I

At a slig htly later stage of another test from the same facility, a Tomahawk is fired from under camouflage cover.

What 's News About Cruise? By John Tillman

F or 40 years cruise m1ssi les have been in Europes backyard. The first successfu l fil ght o f a

cru1se mi sslle. the German V-1 . oc-curred on the day before Cl,ri stmas o f 1943. Between Ju ly, 1944 and May. 1945. e1ght thousand of these buzz bombs were f1 red at England-an ave r-age of th1rty a day. They killed about 2500 people. An additional l ive thou-sand of H1tler's first "Reprisal Weapons" were launched against the Low Countnes and o ther Eu;opean nations. In the interven ing four dec-ades Europe has rarely been withou t cruise m1sslies.

A cruise miss1le is a p1lotless air-craft armed with chem1cal high explo-si ves or a nL1clear warhead. (Some argue that manned suic ide planes qual ify.) Thc V-1 was a jet but the majority of subsequent cruise missi les have been rocket-propelled. Over the years they have used a variety of guid-ance systems and been launched from every imaginable land, sea and air pla t-form. Their rang es have run from under 15 miles {the earl iest Soviel anti-sh1p m1ss1le. SS-N-2 Styx) to an estimat ed 1800 (the new Soviel strategic SS-N-21 ).

The key distinction between cruise and o ther kinds o f misslles ,s their flight charactenst1cs. Other long- range self-gu1ded m1ss1les are balilstic, that is the1r !light paths descn be a parabolic arch up and down. This trajectory is mathematically similar to but usually more arched than the paths o f artillery shells. bullets. arrows. baseballs and rocks. All these pro1ectiles are subject to gravi ty acting on an initial imparted velocity and elevation, as adjusted by

54

air resistan ce and other environmental factors.

A cru1se m,ssile, on the other hand. behaves like an airplane. lt obeys the laws of aerodynamics. The technical defin it1on of a cruise mi ssile is a gu ided m1ssile that uses aerodynamic litt to of fset gravity and propuls1on to coun-teract drag. l ts fl,ght path does not need to be level. although it usually is. The cru ise does have to stay with in the atmosphere with its engine burning continuously, unlike an intercontinen-tal ballist1c m issi le. wh1ch enters space and whose boosters burn out and di-rectional motors fi re ,ntermittently.

Even wi th the recent developments in computeri zed continuous guidance that make cruise m1ssiles so appeal-ing to Hollywood. the distinguishmg feature remains t11at they are aircraft. They fly rather than rise and fal l.

The Cri.lise Through History

Turning from phys1cs to history. let's now fo llow the forty-year develop-ment of cruise miss1les.

The V- 1 was a flying bomb 25 feet long with a 16-foot wmgspan, powered by an externally-moun ted pulse-je! rated at 740 pounds o f thrust. The Tomahawk cru ise missiles curren tly being deployed by NATO in Europe are four feet shorter with JUS! over half the wingspan. powered by an 1nternal 600-lb.-thrust turbofan jet eng1ne. The V-1 was usually launched from concrete ramps on the ground, but later also from Heinkel 111 bombers. The Toma-hawk comes in ground- and sea-launched versions, but we've also be-gun deploy1ng a,r-launched cruise missiles.

more threatening to Moscow than their SLBMs are to us or their SS-20s to Europe. Th e excuse is th at Pershings can be used "surgi cally'. wit hout ri sk-ing "collateral damage"-death to civi l-ians and destruction of c ivi lian proper-ty: thus. th ey are more likely tobe used than less accurate Soviel weapons.

Collateral damage unacceptable to German Green Party spokeswoman Petra Kelly probably isn't to Red Army spokesman Marshal Ogarkov. SS-20's greater indiscrimin ate terror value may be in his v iew a plus, as much as he wou ld regret the unnecessary collat-eral destruction of facto ries that could be transported to Russia alter the con-quest.

The second argumen t is founded on European fears of havi ng more po-

Early V-1 s ranged only 152 miles, later 250. The conventionally-armed anti-sh1p Tomahawk travels 250 to 300 miles. 1tcarries 1000 pounds of modern high explosives. while the V-1 warhead weighed 1870 pounds. V-1 s were over a ton heav1er than Tomahawks. but cost less. So mu cl1 for forty years o f re-search. development and progress.

Bes1des nuclear explosives, the most signif1can t technical develop-ments have been in guidance and con-sequently fli ght alt1tude. V-1 had direc-t1onal gyroscopes and cou ld home in on radio or radar beams, bul terminal guidance consisted of shutting oft its engine- not a very re l1able system. Fewer than a fi lth of the buzz bombs a1med at England are bel ieved to have found the1r intended targets, but as a terror weapon they worked fine. Toma-hawks, however. if they perform as advertised. are highly accurate both in convent1onal and nuclear roles (more so in the former). They use two older and two newer guidance systems that permit sea-skimming or ground-hugging, terrain-following flight, while the V- 1 cru ised high oft the deck.

N uclear Explosives: What a Difference a

Device Can Make But 11 1s nuclear explosive devices

more than a'dvances in guidance or propuls1on that make the functional and po liti ca l difference between the missiles of 1944 and 1984. Thewarhead o f a Tomallawk has been estimated to y1eld 200 kilotons. The actual figure is classi fied, but this would be about 200,000 times as energetic as the ton or so o f chemical h1g l1 explosive carried by V-1. Yet the nuclear warhead weighs only around 250 pounds. lts 1explos1ve power-to-weight ratio is thus about 1.5 mil l ion times greater. Since weapons ef fects are not a linear funct1on of

tential nuclear targets in their already militarily-crowded backyards. Aren't the 29 GLCM flights (16-missile operat-ing groups) and 36 Pershing II platoons (three-missile units) going to be just that many more grounds-zero for Sovi-et nuclear detonations, or at least pre-cision air strikes with high explosives? Won't they lead to thousands more deaths "if deterrence fails?"

But Europe already groans under the weight of 9000 land-based, tactical nuclear warheads deployed on inter-mediate, medium and short-range bombers or strike aircraft and ballistic and cruise missiles. free rockets over ground, artillery shells and mines. NATO's 4200 amount to one for every 23 square miles of West Germany, where most are located. Just three

years ago there were 6600, not count-ing French warheads.

From this standpoint. there are now fewer endangered backyards than in 1980, and still will be in 1989 even if all the Euromissiles are deployed. Among the weapons to be retired are the Pershing la missiles being replaced one-for-one with Pershing l ls. (The old and new versions are the same size, but Pershing 11 has over twice the range. lt seems improbable that the new missile could go three times as far as the old one, despite advances in rocketry since its initial deployment in 1962. This suggests that the Army is telling the truth when it says the missile can't hit

Moscow.) In recent years Red Army defec-

tors have been trying to persuade

Western analysts that the Soviets would begin an attack on NATO with nuclear strikes against both military and civilian targets. lf so Greenham Common. Mutlangen and other Euro-missile bases are already nuclear fi rst strike targets, along with the major harbors and airports of the continent. which would be destroyed in order to seal Europe oft from American aid. Small comfort. but another good rea-son for deterring Soviet designs on Western Europe.

lt had been ttiought that NATO would have to resrt to tactical nuclear weapons first in an effort to stop the avalanc;:he of Soviet armor. three times more numerous than our tanks. But the defectors and some Western analysts

(Continued on page 82) : V ; ; .,' < 1 ; -::,'

energy, however, and b.etavse jus~ this con;try afteb the, V-2 incident world anctclo.s~:toathird(over150Q)o( . . abc;,ut haU. the. energy Qf a nuclear made .if.appare,:1t)19.w vulnerabl~ our the individual. rpis~iles dep!qycep;.cir~". i , .... ': . . expl_psion.goes.,n,o airs.hc,1ck . Tonia,: high~f!,Y,i,;19cr.js~)fli~silesdt,th'~tperi:.. .$oviet.This.~ha,re.J1Jcl}Cdecre~~~/J1Q.r,''':/J\'.''..,,

. hawk'would be ,"only" onJheorder.of od-Reglus I a'rfr.fll, Snark;.Matador . that somany countries, inclu.diQtj,Bra ... _;';'\", 1000 times as blast effective as V-L and Mace,.....:were to contemporary So- zil and Israel, have ~tarted makirig ahti-

... So while .. pryise missiles anted.ate viet air defen~es~. f.\dvances rn ballistic ship crui~e missiles .. France has. 2000 nucl~?.r weapons by 19, months, it 'l{,8 . missHe!ech_nology,::al.~o leftne>r,eal role l;xo9ets .. on order .i11,the.~~kE;tg(:'.f=trv1s. :. , \''./. the cpmbination'.of nuclear explosives _fortlie'!Jes$ 'Cap&bl~"Cfise'''i'tti~s.ile.s Of .. Sheffield,'; t~~ -destrqyer fatall~'\Q~fn~ .,,;;:,;{\ with rocketiy and jet propulsion that. the 'Eisen~ower :A'dministrtion. The aged. during the.Falklands War',b~H:t'n: _:::::. made these already fairly cheap bomb only U.$. cruise missi.te to survive in Argentine air~launched .Exocet_~ l)ntil. ~ delivery syst~m~ even mor~ attractive . orjnveriJryJroajth~eraofEJvis Pres:- Tomahawk came. along, howev~r . th,~

. to. post:,War superpowersd,9oking .tor . ley te>);Jvis qsf~Ho.,Was Hound Oog, . Soviet Union had~ .. monopoly, on)on.g, .:./ tt1emost bang per buck andrubble per an afr:-launched .

AEROBATICS IN GOMBAT (Continued trom page 15)

w1th excess speed and climb or dive to safety. Next he stopped and re-as-sessed t11e situation. As did many suc-cessful aces. Hartmann recognized the unnecessary hazard of the traditional drawn-out dogfight.

1 f you can matcl1 t11e enemy and shoot him down by complete surprise. the match of aircraft has little to do with the engagement. II the enemy goes defensive. the question becomes. " Does your aircraft have the ability to conclude tl1e action?" This decision requires complete knowledge of the enemy aircraft's perlormance.

II you find yoursel f on the defen-sive. you must fly tor your life and use every advantage your machine has. In EI Salvador ou r Mustangs were up against Corsairs with 20 mm cannons. The Corsairs. 1 might add. had !arger yvings th an our Mustang and would turn ve ry weil : however. our Mustangs were faster. Our tactics were to use what World War 11 ace. General John Meyers . cal led a "slash attack." Starl-ing from a higher altitude. hopefully out of the sun. we would in i tiate a diving attack from behind. shoot quick-ly and cl imb back to altitude. avoiding a turning light.

Since engagement scenarios are almost unlimited, this is only one of the hoped for setups. In our small theatre i t was also practical to use decoy aircraft such as a low-flying B-26. Because we knew we would engage small numbers of aircraft our leader wanted to elimi-nate t11ei r leader immediately and con-centrate on the scattered formation.

Maneuverability: The Harrier Experience

Q. Th1s brings up the issue of the maneuverab1/ity ot the "vectored thrust aircraft ... the most notable of wh1ch at this time is lhe Harr,er. This a,rplane. by changing its nozzle directio11. can mechan,cally achieve var,ous flighl charac1enst1cs thal will g,ve i t the ad-vant ago. Da we now have. in lhe vec-lored lhrust aircraft. a machine which can incroase lhe vanoly of manouvors over /hat of conven/Jonal aircrafl?

A. The Hawker Harriers are loved by their pilots. Not one ai r-to-ai r loss occured in the Falklands War during combat. Tl1e Argentine pilots usual ly avoided turning figh ts due to fuel shortag es. When they did mix it up. the Harrier would vector 1ts thrust down-wa rd. allowing it to p1vo t around 1ts pilch ax is and turn in side anything.

Commander Sl1arky Ward o r 801 Squadron engaged and shot down 56

This Boeing concept of a future super-sonic cruiser and rnaneuver fighter is capable of long operational ranges through application of advanced aerody-namic, structural and propulsion technol-ogies.

tl1rec completely different types of air-craft (Mirage III. Pucara. and a C-130 Hercu les). He described the huge. four-e ngined C- 130 as h1s most d iff i-cult target. After taking missile tiits it flew on. trying desperately with its large wing to turn inside t11e Harrier which buzzed around like a l1umming-bird behind. Cannon fire would cause huge fl arning pi eces to tear off . making it q ui te hazardous astern. On his third pass he was able to shoot olf the vert1cal stabi l1zer. spinning the giant into the sea.

Q . This now dogf,ght,ng tech-niquo ra,ses a quos11on as lo whether a dogf,ght should ever be entered. I have hoard from people ot d1fforen1 back-grounds /hat a dogtight 1s always an error: !hat a proper a,r-to-air killer should approach fast trom a blmd spot. f1re. and depart: and /hat any llme he gets 11110 a tur111ng operat,on he has mado a mistako. ls that a true state-ment? ff ,t is not. is it possiblo for the aerobat lo induce a dogf,g/Jt in which h,s Opponent 1s not domg what he intendod to do?

A. l t seems to me that dogfighting against a Harrier would not be a good idea. We now have fighters like the F14 that can engage aircraft head-on at ranges of over 100 miles. and squeeze oll s1x Phoenix m1ssi les for s1x separate ai rcra ft. Not exactly a dog fig l1t. but a figl1t nevert11eless. so wl1ere do you add the poocht? 1 figure that if both

pi lots are aware of each other and both start turning . a dogfight is on . Mistakcs always seem tobe apart or tl1e military formula and. if they result 111 a dogfight. tl11nking about what you might do 1s worthwhile.

orrensivcly. sin ce the scenarios are unlimited. the big question is how far into the f1ght you should go. l t is usually considered w1 se to have a safe exit in mind.

After every recen t war tl1e prevail-ing tl1ought has been that strategic bombing will become the nex t phaseof air warfare and dogfighting wil l fade into history. As a result every time the flag flies the figl1ter pilots have to play ca tcl1-up ball. Wl1en t11e Vietnam War started. the Ai r Force did not even have a reasonable f1ghter until it borrowed one from the N avy. Lo and beho ld. 1egardless of the phi losphy advanced for the perrect rnissile air light. tl1ere were dogf ights.

The state-of- the-art 111 aer ial war-fare is certainly being advanced 1n the M1ddle East. There is a long history of dogfight ing in the region . The United States is currently developing the ad-vanced tact1cal fi ghter for the 1990s. lt will have f1rst- look f irst-shoot weapons systems along with guns. wh1ch sug-gcst that dogfights of some natu re wi ll be around for awl1ile.

Gulf of Sidra lncident: F-14's In Action

Q. Woutd you care to comment 011 tho 1982 Gulf of Sidra mc,dent?

A. Two of our F-14 Tomcats" en-gaged two Russian-bu1lt Sukhoi a1r-cra ft appl'Ox1mately nose-to-nose. As tl1c four aircraf t approached each other. a Libyan pilot fired a missile wh1ch missed As the a1rcraft passed. the two Tomcats executed a 180-degree turn to the left. pu tt1ng them behind the L ibyan aircraft.

The American crews l1ad beCc:n through the advanced "Top Gun" pro-gram. and l1ad the add1t1onal advan-tage of the variable sweep wing of the F-14. At this point. with the two Sukhois pursued by t l1e two Tomcats astern. the right hand L ibyan elected to break rigl1t

fo r antl -aircraft defense. l ts turret is so fast. and i ts fi ring system so accurate. that its crews are confident !hat they can shoot out o f the air any helicopter which pauses lang enough to launch a missile.

With the new gun w ill come an over-pressure cabin system permit ti ng the crew to operate in a poisoned envi ronment without protective cloth-ing .

lt has become standard practice for the left ist press to rai l against all American mili tary equipment as overly expensive. badly designed, excessively vulnerable, unreliable, inefficient or any combinati on o f the above. The Abrams tank. however, has survived to embarrass its detractors. lt is not only as good as advert ised, i t is better. much better. The men who use it are in love with it-and to an outsider it is awe-some. My own major enthus iasms have always been shoot ing and driving. In the Abrams tank I discovered the ulti-mate shooting machine, in combina-tion with the ultimate driving machine. Would !hat Churchil l could have en-joyed my experience with the 11 th Cavalry and have rea lized what has evolved from his b rainchild!

RED FLAG (Con tinued from page 45)

talked. and eventually he go_t t he ear o f Gen. Robert J . Dixon, then commander of the Tactical Ai r Command, General D ixon knew a good idea when he heard one. (He was later awarded the Collier Trophy for establ ishing Red Flag.) Within a very short period o f ti me. thr ee or four mon ths. the first Red Flag was held at Nellis AFB in November 1975.

Thal was almost ten years ago, but Red Flag 75-1 was almost identical in concept to contemporary Red Flags, showing how right the idea was. Every Red Flag exercise then. as now, fo ll ows this typical pattern :

Scenario A scenario is written by the Red

Fiag intelligence peop le concern ing the

Air-to-air top left view of the F-16 launch-ing one of the AIM-9L Sidewinder mis-siles attached to its wings.

82

imminent l1ostil i t ies between "Red ," "the bad guys" who live on the western side of the Nellis range, and "Blue." the allies. defend ing the neighboring east-ern part of the range.

Most Red Flag exercises last six weeks. bu t the "Players." the Red Flag participants. are rotated every two weeks. so the war effectively lasts only ten days w ith no fl yi ng taking place on the weekend. Each Player f lies ten missions. the first mission always a familiarization ride orienting the new Player to the Nellis range.

The Blue Forces consist of the "core uni!" and detachments from oth-er un its . The Red Forces consis t o f F-5Es from the 64th and 65th Aggressor Squadrons at Nellis. as well as detach-ments from other air un its and the simulated SAM and Antiaircraft art il-lery (AAA) batteries out on the range.

Each mission is coo rdinated by a d i fferent "warlord." Before and alter each mission there is a mass briefing of a ll participating Players, as weil as individual briefings among the flights and even face-to-face debriefings wi th the Red Players.

Red Flag is not a no- notice dep loy-ment drill. The Players can know a year and a half ahead that theyrescheduled to come to Red Flag. A surprise invita-tion to come to Nellis wouldn't serve any real purpose other than to embar-rass th e grossly unprepared. That wou ld violate oneof the unwritten rules of Red Flag , wh ich is to take advantage ot every action , every dep loyment, and learn something from it.

Red Flag is available for S10.95 from Pre-sidio Press. P.O . Box 892F3. Novato. CA 94948.

IS NO CRUISE 6000 CRUISE? (Continued from page 55)

see this as nonsens1cal. The Soviets. once they decide to take so big a gamble. won t mess around. In th is view, their 50.000 tanks are to occupy surrendered territory and continue holding down Eastern Europe alter the West is terri fied into capitu lation.

The Euromissiles are mobi le. so if there were su fficient wa rn ing of attack for them tobe widely dispersed. addi-tional Europeans would be killed and in jured in Soviel attempts to destroy them. This. however . assumes the Soviets know where the launchers are. Certainly the dispersal of Tomahawk fl igh ts and Pershing uni ts would in case of war lead to the destruct1on o f more woodland and perhaps small towns than would otherwise l1ave hap-pened . Yet Germany. the Low Coun-

tries. Sicily and Bri tain are densely-set tled regions in which any nuclear con flict will cause hideous rum over vas t tracts.

The third argument maintains !hat deployment needlessly escalates the arms race, scares the Russians and increases the likelihood o f war.

The Euromissiles are obviously not a sign ifican t escalalion in terms of number of nuclear wa rheads. There are now about 55,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the superpowers. About 30.000 of these are deployed, the rest stockpiled. Thus, the 572 Euromissiles consti tute a one percen t escalation in total warheads and less than two percent in deploy-men ts. In fact, we are now d isman tl ing as many warheads as we deploy, so these new, accurate weapons consti-tute vi rtually no escalation in numbers- in the usual sense of the term.

Euromissiles: Belligerent Reaction

Or Bargaining Chips? But do they escalate East-West

tensions? To a certain exten t, the mis-siles are intended to put pressure on the Krem l in. The decision taken by NATO in December of 1979 to deploy longer- ranged and more accu rate theater missiles was "two-tracked." lt. alter four years. no progress was made on the negotiation track toward r idding Europe of long-ranged, accurate mo-b ile missiles (at that t ime possessed exc lusively by the Soviets). then NATO resolved to start down the o ther track by deploying comparable weapons of i ts own. There was none. and in 1983 the alliance began to keep its ward. The goal remains the same. however- no such weapons on either side. Now even the hope of balanced reduct ions seems distant.

During those four-year negotia-tions the numberof SS-20 warheads grew from 600or 700 to 1100. The initial escalat ion in both numbers and capa-bil it ies was Soviel. NATO waited six years to respond- from late 1977 to December of last year. Even now. more new SS-20 warheads are being de-ployed than Euromissiles. and th ere is no thought of matching Soviel num-bers one- for-one.

Finally . let us remember that the U.S. offered to forego all Euromissile deployments in exchange for the So-viets dismantling the SS-20's. The So-viets refused, and Reagan was seen as inflexible by Europeans. strangely more worried about 572 wa rheads tobe pointed east against the enemies of freedom than the approximately 850 now aimed at them from European Russia.