Package Q sized day raids: To dangerous?

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Member for

8 years 11 months

Posts: 572

Are package Q sized day raids to dangerous even for VLO?:

1st off a litte history
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike

The strike was the largest F-16 strike of The Gulf war. Important lessons where learned.

1. The USAF needed strike packages with all the same fuel load, and fuel fraction to simplify planning.

2. Manuvering fighters that are being engaged and fired on by SAMS typically drop the weapons load to jink, or evade the threat resulting in a mission kill.

3. The fighter escorts would also have some degree of difficulty in a high threat sam environment.

There are more lessons mentioned above. But many lessons have already been incorporated in the F-22 and F-35 designs.
Followed by the J-20,J-31,and T-50.

More here

"The loss of two F-16s can be attributed to a series of stresses, the lateness of the Air Tasking Order, not enough coordination time, a tactical approach that provided the Iraqis considerable warning, fuel problems for the Weasels and other aircraft, bad weather, and insufficient attrition of the defenses combined to create a dangerous situation.

There were a number of crucial lessons from Package Q. The most obvious was that Iraqi defenses in Baghdad remained lethal: future strikes on Baghdad would be mostly assigned to F-117s, but conventional air assets with better coordination would still strike targets downtown Baghdad.

There was, however, a crucial operational turn that the mission's failure caused.*General Glosson*and his planners had hoped that destruction or at least degradation of Baghdad's air defenses would have allowed them to send large groups packages of F-16s into the capital during the daytime. Their targets, as on the morning of day three, would have been the larger command headquarters and symbols of the regime, such as those of the*Ba'ath Party,*Republican Guard, "

My question is thus:

WAS THIS A WATER SHED MOMENT FOR ALL DAY TIME AIR STRIKES?

Do you forsee any country sending even VLO fighters that cost $100 mill each over a daytime hostile enviorment? Why would you send the stealthy J-20 to a place where it can be visually aquired, and vectored?

Is the Era of day time airstrikes nearly over?
Discuss.

Original post

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

This is exactly why the F-35 was designed.

Member for

14 years 1 month

Posts: 8,850

Gulf War was 25 years ago. It's like designing a 70s aircraft for WW2 style raids..

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

Unassisted Deep penetration missions are still a relevant mission of which it is perfectly capable of doing.

We've discussed it ad nauseum here already.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 5,396

The F-16s possessed Have Glass/Pacer Mud low observable treatments and the latest ECM pods and were still mission killed by the SAMs.

It is foolish to think Gen 4+ jets with RAM treatments and ECM are survivable against modern IADS. A SAM battery commander will gladly trade his $500K missiles for your $50-100 million Gen 4+ jets and pilots.

Member for

8 years 11 months

Posts: 572

Unassisted Deep penetration missions are still a relevant mission of which it is perfectly
capable of doing.

We've discussed it ad nauseum here already.

Im not talking about the F- 35 specifically ( im actually tired of talking about it)
But any plane today. It would seem sams make things to lethal.

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

In that case they would do it today the same way they did it then which is a very large package covering many different types of aircraft to support each other.

Member for

14 years 1 month

Posts: 8,850

Unassisted Deep penetration missions are still a relevant mission of which it is perfectly capable of doing.
We've discussed it ad nauseum here already.

In which scenario or conflict in the last 20+ years did you need unassisted deep penetration missions?

Member for

8 years 10 months

Posts: 234

Are package Q sized day raids to dangerous even for VLO?:

1st off a litte history
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike

The strike was the largest F-16 strike of The Gulf war. Important lessons where learned.

1. The USAF needed strike packages with all the same fuel load, and fuel fraction to simplify planning.

2. Manuvering fighters that are being engaged and fired on by SAMS typically drop the weapons load to jink, or evade the threat resulting in a mission kill.

3. The fighter escorts would also have some degree of difficulty in a high threat sam environment.

There are more lessons mentioned above. But many lessons have already been incorporated in the F-22 and F-35 designs.
Followed by the J-20,J-31,and T-50.

More here

"The loss of two F-16s can be attributed to a series of stresses, the lateness of the Air Tasking Order, not enough coordination time, a tactical approach that provided the Iraqis considerable warning, fuel problems for the Weasels and other aircraft, bad weather, and insufficient attrition of the defenses combined to create a dangerous situation.

There were a number of crucial lessons from Package Q. The most obvious was that Iraqi defenses in Baghdad remained lethal: future strikes on Baghdad would be mostly assigned to F-117s, but conventional air assets with better coordination would still strike targets downtown Baghdad.

There was, however, a crucial operational turn that the mission's failure caused.*General Glosson*and his planners had hoped that destruction or at least degradation of Baghdad's air defenses would have allowed them to send large groups packages of F-16s into the capital during the daytime. Their targets, as on the morning of day three, would have been the larger command headquarters and symbols of the regime, such as those of the*Ba'ath Party,*Republican Guard, "

My question is thus:

WAS THIS A WATER SHED MOMENT FOR ALL DAY TIME AIR STRIKES?

Do you forsee any country sending even VLO fighters that cost $100 mill each over a daytime hostile enviorment? Why would you send the stealthy J-20 to a place where it can be visually aquired, and vectored?

Is the Era of day time airstrikes nearly over?
Discuss.

One of my fav videos.

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

In which scenario or conflict in the last 20+ years did you need unassisted deep penetration missions?

Thankfully we have not had to besides GW2 (not too deep), although having them in Libya would have been helpful.

Member for

14 years 1 month

Posts: 8,850

Right.. there was no need to.. Thank God.. still, you support the idea that practically all future USAF and USMC and most USN aircraft are configured for this type of mission.. Not two/three squadrons, not one/two carrier wings in case need arises, no.. all 1,700+ of them, incl. another ~700 export aircraft of the allied air forces in Europe, Asia and elsewhere will be procured, maintained, kept, flown and trained with that mission in mind, so that one day in Feb 2033 maybe 8-10 aircraft of the type will finally get to do one... and then you get another 30 years of waiting...

Get my point ??? ;)

Member for

15 years 5 months

Posts: 6,983

its already covered by GAO report
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?126574-GAO-summary-of-Desert-Storm

In sum, the factor most strongly associated with survivability in Desert
Storm appears to have been the combination of flying high and flying at
night—an environment that the F-117s operated in exclusively.

Size of Strike Packages
One early tactic in the air war that may have had the effect of causing
some aircraft losses to Iraqi defenses was to send large numbers of aircraft
over a target one after another. While the first aircraft over the target
frequently encountered no defenses, its bomb detonations would alert the
Iraqis, resulting in AAA and SAMs being directed against the aircraft that
followed. [DELETED]

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

Right.. there was no need to.. Thank God.. still, you support the idea that practically all future USAF and USMC and most USN aircraft are configured for this type of mission.. Not two/three squadrons, not one/two carrier wings in case need arises, no.. all 1,700+ of them, incl. another ~700 export aircraft of the allied air forces in Europe, Asia and elsewhere will be procured, maintained, kept, flown and trained with that mission in mind, so that one day in Feb 2033 maybe 8-10 aircraft of the type will finally get to do one... and then you get another 30 years of waiting...

Get my point ??? ;)

Your problem is that you seem to think the F-35 is only good for this type of mission, it's not.

In a vast majority of the missions that a 4th gen plane currently does, the F-35 does better, pure and simple, and it's more survivable.

btw, Building them in small numbers would just drive up the price of every fighter you buy, both F-35 and whatever other 4.5+ gen fighter is at the top of your list. There is a reason that the D0D wanted a joint program.

Member for

8 years 11 months

Posts: 572

Your problem is that you seem to think the F-35 is only good for this type of mission, it's not.

In a vast majority of the missions that a 4th gen plane currently does, the F-35 does better, pure and simple, and it's more survivable.

btw, Building them in small numbers would just drive up the price of every fighter you buy, both F-35 and whatever other 4.5+ gen fighter is at the top of your list. There is a reason that the D0D wanted a joint program.

Do you believe that the Chinese have examined this carefully? Would you expect daylight J-20 straights across the Formosa?

Member for

14 years 1 month

Posts: 2,163

This is exactly why the F-35 was designed.

You mean "This is exactly what the F-35 was supposed to do."

Member for

8 years 3 months

Posts: 2

The F-16s possessed Have Glass/Pacer Mud low observable treatments and the latest ECM pods and were still mission killed by the SAMs.

It is foolish to think Gen 4+ jets with RAM treatments and ECM are survivable against modern IADS. A SAM battery commander will gladly trade his $500K missiles for your $50-100 million Gen 4+ jets and pilots.


There was 50+ F-16's without "Weasel" cover and focused on iron bomb runs.
Still only 2 out of 20 reported SAM's (SA-3's are mentioned) hit, so Pk would be anywhere between 10 and 20% (20% when assuming graciously only 50% of those 20 missiles were shot guided).
I wouldn't call that result unexpected or draw conclusions about unsurvivability of modern fighters.

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 5,197

You mean "This is exactly what the F-35 was supposed to do."

It was designed to operate in small groups (2-24) to penetrate and attack highly defended targets without the need for massive groups of supporting assets. It is designed to adapt to known & popup threats and to share information with others seamlessly so that those threats can either be bypassed or prosecuted depending on the need.

Member for

11 years 6 months

Posts: 932

I don't think VLO will make a difference in future; a SAM system that will be designed for 2030s will no problems locating VLO targets. Otherwise there is no point in operating a SAM at all.

However reply to the original post is a NO. Package Q was a poorly planned and executed operation, in part due to overconfidence and underestimating the enemy. Only thing that prevented a true disaster was obsoleteness of Iraqi SAMs, even poorer tactical planning on Iraqi side. Similar examples with large strike packages are used very well in many different occassions throughout the history.

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 4,472

There was 50+ F-16's without "Weasel" cover and focused on iron bomb runs.
Still only 2 out of 20 reported SAM's (SA-3's are mentioned) hit, so Pk would be anywhere between 10 and 20% (20% when assuming graciously only 50% of those 20 missiles were shot guided).
I wouldn't call that result unexpected or draw conclusions about unsurvivability of modern fighters.

Indeed, said like that it only proves that modern militaries are just a bunch of wussies that can't take a loss.

Nic

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 5,396

A SAM battery commander would gladly trade his $500K missiles for your $50-100 million Gen 4 jets and pilots. That's what he is paid to do.

And a mission kill is as good as a K-kill.

Member for

8 years 11 months

Posts: 572

I think it should be mentioned that the sam batteries were fired initially in ballastic, non tracking mode. This was because of wild weasals. Once the iraqis realized that the wild weasals went home, they started tracking. Also mig-29s moved in on egress. If your losing 2 F-16s per mission, you attrition your squadrens at an alarming rate.