F-4 chaff/flare loads

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 18:08:02 -0400, "Bob Martin"
wrote:

Anyone have data on typical chaff/flare loads for F-4's, both in Vietnam
and
modern day? Thanks

No flares on F-4s in SEA. (Photo-flash carts on RF-4s only). No
self-protection chaff carts either. We carried cardboard boxes (about
the size of a box of Xmas tree tinsel) in the speedbrake wells. Open
the boards to deploy. Try not to use speed brakes earlier in the
mission. One time use.

Ed,
do you possibly know the reasons why no chaff/flare dispensers were mounted
on Phantoms at the time (and, AFAIK, for most of the 1970s)?

From the standpoint of our days this appears as a very strange measure to
me: given how many R-13 shots could have been averted over Vietnam alone....

BTW, from what I know a USAF Lt.Col. who was in the back-seat of the IIAF
RF-4E when this was intercepted by a Soviet AF MiG-21 deep inside the Soviet
airspace, in November 1973, used photo-flash cartriges to decoy four R-13s:
this was the reason the Soviet pilot had no other way out but to ram the
Phantom (one could find this story on the walls of quite a few former Soviet
AF bases in East Germany). The MiG-pilot was killed when his plane
disintegrated, while the Iranain pilot and the USAF WSO survived. Although
the engagement happened by the day, the crew of that RF-4E said the
cartriges were so powerful, they had a feeling somebody turned a second sun
right behind their backs each time one was deployed....

Tom Cooper
Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php
and,
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat:
http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...hp/title=S6585

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:23:25 GMT, "Tom Cooper" wrote:

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

No flares on F-4s in SEA. (Photo-flash carts on RF-4s only). No
self-protection chaff carts either. We carried cardboard boxes (about
the size of a box of Xmas tree tinsel) in the speedbrake wells. Open
the boards to deploy. Try not to use speed brakes earlier in the
mission. One time use.

Ed,
do you possibly know the reasons why no chaff/flare dispensers were mounted
on Phantoms at the time (and, AFAIK, for most of the 1970s)?

From the standpoint of our days this appears as a very strange measure to
me: given how many R-13 shots could have been averted over Vietnam alone....

Tom Cooper

They weren't mounted because they didn't yet exist. The ALE-40 (the
blister dispenser bolted on the side of the wing pylons) came into
production around '73 or '74 after the air war was over. As I
mentioned, the operational E-models got them, but they never got
retrofitted to the C's that were still active. (I don't know about the
D's.)

What's an R-13? Do you mean SA-7 or Atoll?

SA-7 was pretty much a "no threat" for fast movers in SEA. Atoll was a
player, but if you knew the guy was back there, you maneuvered to
defeat. If you didn't know he was there, flares wouldn't have been
much good. A lot of the MiG successes were unseen blow throughs where
flares wouldn't have been employed.

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:23:25 GMT, "Tom Cooper" wrote:

They weren't mounted because they didn't yet exist. The ALE-40 (the
blister dispenser bolted on the side of the wing pylons) came into
production around '73 or '74 after the air war was over. As I
mentioned, the operational E-models got them, but they never got
retrofitted to the C's that were still active. (I don't know about the
D's.)

I see. Thanks.

One more question, if you don't mind: what was the chaff/flare dispenser
that could have been mounted into one of the rear Sparrow-bays, and when was
it introduced?

What's an R-13? Do you mean SA-7 or Atoll?

That's the original service designation for the AA-2 Atoll (K-13 was the
design designation).

I know the SA-7 was not that widespread nor as a serious a threat as some
other stuff at the time, and remember from reding Mitchel's "Clashes" and
few other books about the air war in SEA how often it happened that the
first warning from a MiG was either a Phantom or a Thud going up in flames.

But, in several cases the attacks were noticed when one of the crews saw
contrails from R-13s being underway behind them. Clear, the R-13 could't do
much against a maneuvering aircraft (AFAIK any maneuver beyond 2g was too
much for it to track), but, IMHO, perhaps the use of flare-dispensers
could've saved a crew or two more?

Tom Cooper
Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php
and,
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat:
http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...hp/title=S6585

Tom Cooper wrote:

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:23:25 GMT, "Tom Cooper" wrote:

snip

What's an R-13? Do you mean SA-7 or Atoll?

That's the original service designation for the AA-2 Atoll (K-13 was the
design designation).

Tom, IIRR the AA-2A (K-13) was designated the R-3S in service, while the later
versions switched to R-13 (M and M2 IIRC) to bring the service designation in
line with the design designation. I've got an old Air International article by
Piotr Butowski around here somewhere; he was given access to Vympel's chief
designer as well as their museum, and the different models were described.
There was also a cutaway of what we would call an AA-2D, which IIRR was
designated the R-13M2.

I know the SA-7 was not that widespread nor as a serious a threat as some
other stuff at the time, and remember from reding Mitchel's "Clashes" and
few other books about the air war in SEA how often it happened that the
first warning from a MiG was either a Phantom or a Thud going up in flames.

But, in several cases the attacks were noticed when one of the crews saw
contrails from R-13s being underway behind them. Clear, the R-13 could't do
much against a maneuvering aircraft (AFAIK any maneuver beyond 2g was too
much for it to track), but, IMHO, perhaps the use of flare-dispensers
could've saved a crew or two more?

Carrying chaff dispensers would have been far more use in general, given the
relative likelihood of encountering MiGs and SAMs/AAA. The R-3S could be easily
outmaneuvered if seen in time, or decoyed by the sun, clouds, or the sun shining
on water.

Guy

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...

They weren't mounted because they didn't yet exist. The ALE-40 (the
blister dispenser bolted on the side of the wing pylons) came into
production around '73 or '74 after the air war was over. As I
mentioned, the operational E-models got them, but they never got
retrofitted to the C's that were still active. (I don't know about the
D's.)


I saw an F-4D at Oshkosh about fifteen years ago that had previously been at
RAF Lakenheath, it was brought in by the Minnesota ANG from Duluth. They
had some blisters on the rear of the pylons that I was not familiar with. I
asked the AC about them, he said one side was a chaff dispenser and the
other was flares. They were added some time after the aircraft left
Lakenheath in 1977.

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:23:25 GMT, "Tom Cooper" wrote:

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

No flares on F-4s in SEA. (Photo-flash carts on RF-4s only). No
self-protection chaff carts either. We carried cardboard boxes (about
the size of a box of Xmas tree tinsel) in the speedbrake wells. Open
the boards to deploy. Try not to use speed brakes earlier in the
mission. One time use.

Ed,
do you possibly know the reasons why no chaff/flare dispensers were mounted
on Phantoms at the time (and, AFAIK, for most of the 1970s)?

From the standpoint of our days this appears as a very strange measure to
me: given how many R-13 shots could have been averted over Vietnam alone....

Tom Cooper

They weren't mounted because they didn't yet exist. The ALE-40 (the
blister dispenser bolted on the side of the wing pylons) came into
production around '73 or '74 after the air war was over. As I
mentioned, the operational E-models got them, but they never got
retrofitted to the C's that were still active. (I don't know about the
D's.)

The ALE-40 may not have existed, but (according to Thornborough, pg. 16) the navy
was using the ALE-18 starting from April of 1966, at the same time they installed
the ALQ-51, APR-25 RHAWS and APR-27 LWR (for some reason the navy used the latter
rather than the APR-26). The ALE-29 seems to have replaced the ALE-18 from 1967
or 1968, and I think the ALE-39 was available before the end of the war. There's
no obvious reason why the air force couldn't have used dispensers on their
tactical a/c at the same time. Hell, the F-105D had its dispenser (an ALE-2)
removed from the spec as a cost cutting measure (along with the APS-92 RWR and
ALQ-31 jammer), in about 1959 or 1960.

Guy

Tom Cooper posted:

BTW, from what I know a USAF Lt.Col. who was in the back-seat of the IIAF
RF-4E ...used photo-flash cartriges to decoy four R-13s:

Really? By 1980 no photo-flash cart in the USAF would have done that,
wrong band of the IR spectrum...versus the IR seeker's spectrum. Thank
goodness for early generation technology theft.

the engagement happened by the day, the crew of that RF-4E said the
cartriges were so powerful, they had a feeling somebody turned a second sun
right behind their backs each time one was deployed....

Interesting that they had photo-flash carts for a day mission and not
wall-to-wall chaff bundles in the cart breeches. And awfully sharp of
the WSO to select the "Night" position on the camera control panel so
he could puke the carts...that's what he'd have to do in a USAF RF-4C
in 1973, according to an RF-4C-1 (1975) the USAF didn't have IRCM
flares yet.

Juvat

To be honest, all the details you mentioned here were completely unknown to
me so far, Juvat. Thanks for your remarks.

What I explained above is what I was told by the people who were there. They
were also very positive about the performance of the Iranian pilot of that
Phantom, Maj. Shokounia (killed by the regime in Tehran, in 1980). He and
the USAF Lt.Col. were, BTW, exchanged with the Russians for a box with a
film from some Soviet satellite, that fell into an Iranian oil-field by
mistake.

Otherwise, the USAF and the IIAF were flying intensively beyond the Soviet
borders with recce Phantoms already since 1970: initially, two USAF RF-4Cs
were used, but later the Iranians purchased RF-4Es. Most of the missions had
mixed crews, with Iranians usually flying and the USAF officers controlling
the equipment. According to what I learned about these flights so far (the
details about most of which are still kept secret for some unknown reason),
the RF-4Es used for these missions were tightly guarded and exclusively
equipped (so exclusively, that they had permanent guards while on the
ground). AFAIK, they've got even IR-linescaners (which should have been some
pretty exotic stuff at the time). Surely, only really experienced and
"smart" people were tasked to fly these missions.

BTW, in addition to the example lost in 1973, another IIAF RF-4E (again with
a mixed crew) was shot down by the Soviets sometimes in 1977 or so,
apparently in revenge for their MiG-25R shot down by an Iranian F-4E (which
almost run out of fuel while trying to intercept). I don't know what
happened with the crew, but I guess they survived too. Interestingly, the
USAF supplied two recce-Phantoms from own stocks to Iran as replacement for
every example these have lost in operations over the USSR. The situation
culminated in October 1978, with Iranian F-14s intercepting a MiG-25R high
over the Casspian Sea: subsequently the Soviets ceased all flights, and the
story was over.


Tom Cooper
Co-Author:
Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988:
http://www.acig.org/pg1/content.php
and,
Iranian F-4 Phantom II Units in Combat:
http://www.osprey-publishing.co.uk/t...hp/title=S6585

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 00:21:31 GMT, "Tom Cooper" wrote:

[stuff snipped]

According to what I learned about these flights so far (the
details about most of which are still kept secret for some unknown reason),
the RF-4Es used for these missions were tightly guarded and exclusively
equipped (so exclusively, that they had permanent guards while on the
ground). AFAIK, they've got even IR-linescaners (which should have been some
pretty exotic stuff at the time).

The US Army had IR linescan on OV-1s in the early '60s....

John Hairell )

Juvat wrote in message . ..
Tom Cooper posted:

BTW, from what I know a USAF Lt.Col. who was in the back-seat of the IIAF
RF-4E ...used photo-flash cartriges to decoy four R-13s:

Really? By 1980 no photo-flash cart in the USAF would have done that,
wrong band of the IR spectrum...versus the IR seeker's spectrum. Thank
goodness for early generation technology theft.


I can not comment on the story of photo-flash carts being used to
defeat any seeker. I imagine it would work, I see no reason it should
not, but as I am not familiar with the burn times or dispense patterns
of the cartridges I can only guess. My comments are aimed more at the
comment about "by 1980 it could not have worked".

While I can see that photo-flash stuff would be tailored to emit the
most energy in the optical band of interest, it is very hard, some
would say impossible, to design such a device that did not also emit
in unwanted bands. An example is the modern IR countermeasures flare.
Lets say the MJU-49B.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ems/mju-49.htm

This flare is tailored to put most of its energy out in the threat
bands of interest. The page above claims 2 to 5 micrometers. This
encompasses both the near IR and the mid IR bands. Or, both uncooled
and cooled PbS detector systems. The response curves of PbS (and
other detector responses) can be found he

http://www.electro-optical.com/bb_rad/detector.htm

Despite the fact that the MJU-49B is tailored, specifically made, to
emit most of its energy in the near and mid IR bands, a significant
portion of energy is still emitted in the visible portion of the
spectrum (shorter wavelengths). And, it is easier to tailor towards
the longer waves, than it is to do so towards the shorter waves, such
as the visible band. The band of emission is tied loosely to heat
energy, less energy, longer wavelengths. Or, less heat, longer
wavelengths.

Still, the point is that flares tailored to work in the IR spectrum
still, very often, possibly even always, emit in the visible spectrum
as well.

http://www.warforum.net/gallery/disp...=lastup&pid=61

So, my question is, why could photo-flash cartridges used by the USAF
in 1980 NOT have served as an stand-in IR countermeasures flare? Has
it something to do with the fashion of dispense? Do they not light
until well away from the aircraft? Or am I missing something more
obviouse here?

Token