Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing tcml-3

by Tom Clancy

  In 1965, the Air Force began a program to develop a successor to the Bullpup. After a three-year competition between Hughes Missile Systems and Rockwell, Hughes won the contract in 1968. The development of the new missile proceeded smoothly, and it came into service in 1972 as the AGM-65A Maverick. Aircrews who saw the new weapon thought it looked like the big brother of the AIM-4/GAR-8 Falcon air-to-air missile, which was no surprise, since Hughes had also designed and built the Falcon. The Maverick shows its Hughes family roots, having the same general configuration as the Navy's much larger AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missile. Externally, the Maverick has changed very little in the last two decades that it has been in service. The airframe is 12in./30.5cm. in diameter and 98in./ 248.9 cm. long. Wingspan of the cruciform guidance and stabilization fins is 28.3 in./71.9 cm. These dimensions make it the smallest, most compact AGM in the USAF inventory, one of the major reasons for its popularity.

  A cutaway of the Hughes AGM-65G Maverick Air-to-Ground Missile.

  Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd., by Laura Alpher

  It's what's inside that counts, and that is what differentiates the various versions of the AGM-65. The — A model Maverick, which first entered combat service during the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam in 1972, is an E/O guided weapon, much like the GBU-8 or GBU-15. Its main characteristics were a 5deg field-of-view (FOV) DSU-27/B seeker, with a huge 125 lb./56.8 kg. shaped charge warhead (that's really big for one of these!) that could cut through virtually any armor or bunker in existence. Weighing in at 463 lb./ 210 kg., it was powered by a Thiokol SR 109-TC-1/TX-481 two-stage (boost and sustainer) solid propellant rocket motor, giving it a maximum range of roughly 13.2 nm./24.1 km. To fire it, the operator (the backseater of an F-4D Phantom II fighter) selected a missile and powered it up. Once the missile was "warm" with the onboard gyros running, the operator would view the picture from the missile's onboard black-and-white TV seeker and select a target with a set of crosshairs. Like other early E/O weapons, the — A model Maverick tracked its targets by looking for zones of contrast between light and dark areas. For example, a tank or bunker might appear as a dark shape on a lighter background, and this was what the TV seeker of the early Maverick was designed to track. Once the operator had the target in the crosshairs, he would press a switch to lock on the target, and the seeker would begin to track the target, regardless of the motion of the launching aircraft or the target. After confirming lock-on, all the operator had to do was to press the firing button to send the missile on its way, and the firing aircraft was free to maneuver or evade. All models of Maverick are very accurate. If the missile functions properly, it should place the warhead well within 5 feet/1.5 meters of the aimpoint, which makes it a deadly anti-tank weapon.

  Early combat Maverick shots went extremely well, helped by favorable environmental conditions. About sixty were fired in North Vietnam in December 1972 (fairly cool, clear air), and hundreds more by the Israelis in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War (good contrast background, along with dry, clear air). Both situations favored the TV seeker of the — A model Maverick. But in the hazy, muggy summer weather of Central Europe, its effective range was often reduced; an E/O TV tracker had a hard time seeing the camouflaged tanks of the Warsaw Pact in Central Europe. Combined with the different lighting conditions and heavy air pollution, this limited the effectiveness of the AGM-65A. From a pilot's point of view, these conditions forced the user to get much closer to the target than is desirable. This problem was partially solved by reducing the FOV on the next version, the AGM-65B, to only 2.5deg, which allowed for twice the magnification of the target scene by the missile optics. Also, for AGM-65s produced in FY-1981 and later, the rocket motor was replaced with an improved reduced smoke model. Nevertheless, the TV-series Mavericks remained difficult to use, especially in conditions of haze or ground cover, particularly by single-seat aircraft like the A-10 (the Warthog) and the F-16.

  New versions of the Maverick were already on the way by the late 1970s. One idea was to make it into a laser-guided weapon like an LGB. A developmental version with a laser seeker, designated AGM-65C, was built by Rockwell. But the Air Force did not choose to put it into production (the USMC did, as the AGM-65E). This version also introduced a 300 lb./136.4 kg. blast fragmentation warhead with excellent penetration against everything from warships and bunkers to armored vehicles.

  What everyone did want — including the Navy and a variety of foreign air forces — was a missile with a seeker that was immune to the problems of a visible-light TV tracking system. The answer was something entirely new — an Imaging Infrared (IIR) seeker. Like the Sidewinder missile, it would see the infrared (IR) energy given off by an engine or the body heat of a human being. However, instead of using a single detector element like the Sidewinder's seeker, the new Hughes seeker would use multiple elements clustered into a matrix called an imaging array. This array is similar to the photo-electronic pickups used in a home video camcorder. This made the seeker head, designated WGU-10/B, essentially a "poor man's" FLIR. Hughes designed the WGU-10/B to be a "common" seeker, which eventually was used on the IIR versions of the GBU-15, AGM-130, and the AGM-84E Standoff, Land Attack Missile (SLAM).

  The IIR seeker integrated into a Maverick airframe proved to be a winner. The seeker was sensitive enough to see through smoke, haze, and fog to find its targets. Initially, the Air Force simply installed the new seeker onto the existing AGM-65B airframe with its 125 lb./56.8 kg. shaped charge warhead. Weighing in at 485 lb./220 kg., the AGM-65D, as it was designated, first arrived in service in 1983 and was very popular, especially in the A-10 community. They even found it could be used as a sensor during Desert Storm, when they would power up one missile on the rack and use its IIR seeker head video to help them navigate on night missions! The Navy and Marine Corps were also quick to see the advantages of the IIR seeker; and as soon as the production of the laser-guided — E model was completed in 1985, Hughes began production of the Navy variant, the AGM-65F. This model utilized the large 300 lb./136 kg. blast fragmentation/penetrator warhead of the AGM-65E and was designed to provide U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aircraft with a serious punch against heavy land targets or ships like patrol craft and amphibious vessels. It too was a great success during Desert Storm. IIR Mavericks can be distinguished from their earlier TV E/O brethren by their drab green or gray paint (versus white for the TV Mavericks); and they have either a milky silver or translucent amber colored optical seeker window (the TV seeker uses a clear optical window).

  The latest IIR Maverick variant, the AGM-65G, is still being produced for the U.S. Air Force. Weighing in at 670 lb./304.5 kg., this version takes advantage of everything that has been learned about building Mavericks to date. The AGM-65G's features include the WGU-10/B IIR seeker head, the 300 lb./136.4 kg. warhead, more reliable and accurate pneumatic control surface actuators, a digital autopilot, and the TX-633 reduced smoke rocket motor. Additionally, the — G model Maverick has a ship track "aimpoint biasing" mode, which allows the operator to pick an exact spot on a target where the missile will hit. This allows a pilot to designate the missile to hit at the water-line of a target vessel, greatly increasing the chance of critical flooding. When tied to a FLIR-based targeting system like LANTIRN, the AGM-65G is a weapon of deadly capability. (The unit price is $50,000 per missile in FY- 1991 dollars.)

  So, how do you fire a Maverick? Suppose that you are flying in the backseat of an F-15E Strike Eagle equipped with LANTIRN pods and carrying four AGM-65G IIR Mavericks. You are told to attack a column of enemy armor, stopping them for other aircraft following you to finish them off. You ingress (pilot talk for "approach") the target area and locate the armored column along a road. Using the LANTIRN hand controller, you target the lead vehicle in the column and automatically "hand-off" to the seeker the first missile. Then you repeat this setup for the last vehicle in the column (effectively trapping the vehicles in the middle of the column). Closing in for the attack run, you verify that both missiles are tracking thei
r assigned targets, set the MASTER ARM switch to ON, wait for the missiles to come into range (up to 14 nm./25.6 km. at higher launch altitudes), and launch the missiles as fast as your finger can cycle on the firing button. The missiles should now be on their way to their targets. When each missile impacts, the AN/ AAQ-14 will record the result (to provide BDA footage of the event). Before you say this sounds like an advertisement for Hughes and Raytheon (the primary and secondary source contractors respectively), be aware that over 90 % of the Mavericks fired during the Gulf War successfully hit their targets, and most of these were TV E/O and early IIR versions of the missile.

  Today, the Maverick missile program is going strong, with fairly bright prospects for the future, given the current defense budget climate worldwide. A number of other nations have continuing Maverick procurement programs of their own, with orders continuing to come in. As for new Maverick developments, there are several ideas being kicked around the engineering shops of Hughes's Tucson, Arizona, plant. Under evaluation is a variant with a new seeker that uses an active millimeter wave (MMW) radar to determine the exact shape of a target in virtually any weather conditions. Millimeter wave guidance uses radar waves small enough (less than a centimeter/0.4 inch) to resolve fine details on a target. The Maverick MMW seeker is only 9.45 in./24 cm. in diameter, so it fits neatly within the current dimensions of the AGM-65. Another option under consideration is to replace the rocket motor used on all previous versions of the Maverick with a turbojet power plant. Called the Longhorn project, it could triple the range of the AGM-65 without increasing the weight or significantly reducing the explosive payload. Neither modification is currently planned for production. Nevertheless, with over thirty thousand Mavericks built to date, the weapon has to be considered a success, with a long career still ahead of it.

  AGM-88 HARM

  On May 1st, 1960, over the farmlands of central Russia, a small air battle took place that forever changed the nature of air warfare. Almost 13 miles/21 kilometers in the sky, PVO-Strany was desperately trying to shoot down one of their most hated enemies, a CIA Lockheed U-2 spy plane. It was a costly battle. Several of their own fighters were lost to "friendly fire," and the American intruder almost escaped. What won the day for them was the first success of a new tactical weapon, the surface-to-air missile (SAM). When Francis Gary Powers's U-2 was shot down by the proximity detonation of an S-75 Dvina/SA-2 SAM (NATO code-named Guideline), it set off a scramble to counter this new and lethal weapons technology.

  "The best ECM in the world," said an Israeli general famously, "is a 500 lb./ 227.3 kg. bomb down the feedhorn of the missile-tracking radar." He was right. But how many aircraft would he lose getting into position to hit a given SAM radar? Fixed SAM sites tend to be protected by layers of optically tracked AAA guns. Thus early USAF plans to hit such sites in Cuba (during the 1962 missile crisis) with tactical fighter bombers loaded with unguided rockets and canisters of napalm would have undoubtedly exacted a high price.

  Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy, long a leader in SAM technology, began to think about the problem of suppressing SAM sites. In 1961, out at the same Naval Ordnance Test Station laboratory that had developed the Sidewinder and Sparrow AAMs, an idea was born that might provide a remedy. Known as an anti-radiation missile (ARM), it was quite simply a missile designed to home in on the emissions of the SAM tracking radar, guiding in to kill the radar. By killing the radar, and hopefully its skilled operators, the SAM site would effectively be "blinded" and unable to function. The first of these missiles was known as the ASM-N-10, later designated the AGM-45 Shrike, taking its name from a predatory bird that kills its prey by impaling them on the thorns or spikes of plants or fences. Simple in concept, the Shrike took some time to perfect; the first AGM-45 Shrike missiles entered fleet service in 1963.

  Along with the development of the ARM came a vital piece of equipment which was required to make it functional, the radar homing and warning receiver (RHAW), or radar warning receiver (RWR) as it is known today. Amazing as it may sound, no U.S. tactical aircraft sent to Southeast Asia in 1965 went with any sort of warning system to tell the aircrew they were being tracked by enemy. Thus, when President Lyndon Johnson began the systematic bombing of North Vietnam, with Operations Flaming Dart and Rolling Thunder, USAF, USN, and USMC aircraft began to fall in numbers that were more than just disturbing.

  Interestingly, the USAF took a different approach to suppressing SAMs than the Navy or the Marine Corps. The Navy/Marine policy on SAM suppression was just that: prosecute to suppress just long enough for the strike force of attack aircraft to hit their targets, and then run for the safety of the aircraft carrier or home base. In fact, the policy of avoiding duels with air defense sites is at the foundation of USN/USMC strike warfare doctrine even today. Thus, from early 1966, USN defense suppression efforts centered around A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft equipped with an early RWR and a pair of the new ARMs.

  The USAF doctrine is completely different. For the Air Force, it was not enough to scare the operators of the SAM and AAA radars. In the view of the Air Force leadership, those individuals, and their machines of war, were there to be killed. Thus, the Air Force formed a small force of specially configured aircraft and handpicked highly trained aircrews to do the critical job of radar hunting. These were the famous "Wild Weasels," initially flying two-seat versions of the famous F-100 Super Sabre, configured with RWR gear, rocket pods, and napalm canisters. Although they were successful in lowering losses from SAMs to the aircraft of the strike forces going "up north," their own losses were prohibitively high. Thus, integrating the new AGM-45 Shrike became a "crash" priority with the USAF. When this was done, losses among the Wild Weasel F-100Fs began to drop, and the crews began to have a future. Not much of one, though. Being on a Weasel crew was statistically suicidal in the early years of the Vietnam conflict.

  However, the Shrike had significant tactical limitations and shortcomings. One big one was range. At high altitudes, the Shrike could hit radars some 21.7 nm./40.3 km. distant, while low-altitude launches could be up to 15.6 nm./ 29 km. away. But in practice, launch ranges were usually less than half of the maximum, because certain functions necessary to targeting the missile had to be performed. Most dangerous of these was a maneuver known as a "Shrike pull-up." The launching aircraft had to go into a 15deg climb just before launching the ARM; otherwise it would not successfully hit the target radar van. And if the enemy radar shut down while the Shrike was streaking down onto the target, the ARM was likely to miss, lacking as it did the necessary radar emissions for it to home in on. It was, as they say, a very tough business.

  From the very beginning of its use, the Navy and Air Force were unhappy with the Shrike's performance. In 1969, the U.S. Navy conducted a Tactical Air Armament Study which looked into shortcomings of Shrike and the whole range of USN/USMC air-launched weaponry. From this study came a whole set of requirements which led to the beginning of a development program for a new ARM program. The new missile would be small, with the same general weight and shape as the Shrike, but with greater range, speed, accuracy, and lethality. Also, it would operate from the full range of USN/USMC tactical aircraft, both planned and in service, and would both outrun and outsmart the SAMs and radar operators for every Soviet and other potentially hostile SAM system, even those still under development. It was a tall order for the program engineers at NWC China Lake, California, when they began the new program in 1972. Called the High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, or HARM, the new missile, designated AGM-88, would take over a decade to bring into service, and would undergo many of the same trials and problems suffered by other advanced missile systems, such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM.

  HARM was the first really "smart" air-to-ground missile developed by the United States, using for the first time the new technology of microprocessors and computer software. In other words, HARM was a technical "stretch" — betting that a number of immature technologies ranging from high-impulse rocket motors to a new generation of RWRs would
come together all at once, some years in the future, within some sort of cost ceiling. Not everything went as planned. Still, by 1974 Texas Instruments was selected as the prime HARM contractor, and advanced development was under way. And by 1978 the first test firings were under way at NWC China Lake. By FY-1981, the first eighty missiles were under contract, and they headed into fleet service in 1982.

  The new missile was called the AGM-88A. And the AGM-88C1 (Texas Instruments) variant is the most common version produced today. The basic — C model missile weighs in at 798 lb./362.7 kg., is 164.2 in./417 cm. long, and is based on a 10.5 in./26.7 cm. diameter airframe with a forward (guidance) fin wingspan of 44 in./112 cm. At the front of the missile is the radome for the Texas Instruments Block IV seeker, which has vastly more capability than even the — B model birds of just a few years ago. Behind the bullet-shaped seeker dome are a series of broadband antennas, which are designed to provide all the functions of an aircraft RWR system, as well as providing passive targeting for the missile guidance system. When we use the term "broadband," we're talking about everything from.5 to 20 GHz; this covers everything from UHF radio transmissions to short-wavelength fire control and ground-mapping radars. These antennas feed into a microprocessor-controlled digital signal processor, which is capable of breaking down all the incoming signals and translating them into a prioritized target list. This is accomplished via the reprogrammable onboard threat library, which can be used "as is" by an aircrew or customized for a specific threat or situation. With the new seeker, even rotating air traffic control and phased array radars (like those used on the Aegis and Patriot SAM systems) can be effectively targeted and attacked.