Submarine's role in Anti-Air Warfare - Royal Navy submarines in the Falklands

It seems improbable that submarines should have a role to play in anti-air warfare. However Commodore Michael Clapp, who was commander of the British amphibious forces in the Falklands War, recounted on page 181 of his book Amphibious Assault Falklands that submarines provided early warning of Argentine air raids to ships in San Carlos Water. He did not elaborate how the subs did that but I assume their means of detection of air raids must have been ESM and communication eavesdropping.

However, listening to enemy communications is only half of the story - information collected by a submarine can be an early warning only when it is passed to the user of the information. It should be relayed to surface ships real-time by satellite communication.

Below is an account of a freak incident in which a Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarine could have been hit by jettisoned Argentine bombs.

http://www.thenewscentre.co.uk/falklands/commande.htm

Jettisoned bombs just missed Valiant
Commander T M le Marchand, captain of nuclear submarine HMS Valiant, remembers the conflict.

`Valiant was on a deep and fast passage across the Atlantic when Argentina invaded the Falklands. News does not travel easily to submarines when deep, and it was by means of the BBC World Service that we discovered the reasons for the Prepare for War signals that had emanated from the Flag Officer Submarines.

`Perhaps we could go straight down there . No, after two months at sea there was not enough food - as ever the human machine is the limiting factor in a nuclear submarine. So the plan evolved: get home fast, top up with stores and torpedoes, and deploy for a long trip, which in the end was to last exactly 98 days under water.

`Earnest preparations at base ensued. Our weapon system was upgraded to the most recent Tigerfish development, stores and provisions for 95 days were stuck down below, and one member of the ship's company married his fiancee. From the outset, we were utterly convinced that this was going to be a shooting war, and that our task was going to be to take the Argentinian navy out of the equation.

`The submarine entered the war zone on May 1 after a high speed transit south. Drills every watch on attacking and torpedo evasion had made us confident that we could do our part; recognition was honed - strangely difficult when our enemy had until recently been friends: it has always seemed `not cricket' to gather intelligence on those whom one expects to be on one's own side.

`More importantly we practised and became very skilled at operating the Tigerfish Mod 1 weapon system - in effect an underwater guided missile - which was to be our prime weapon against all targets, surface or submarine. Not for us the World War II Mark 8 - which was in fact the weapon which Conqueror employed with such devastating effect against the Belgrano.

`On one occasion, whilst at periscope depth, we suffered a near miss from a stick of six bombs, the fourth one of which was close enough to spill cups of tea. Having to assume we may have been detected, though there was no other indication that we had, it was prudent to get some distance between us and where it happened. We later assessed that it was returning aircraft jettisoning their unused bombs before landing back at base that had so nearly scored a fluke hit. The moral was to get off track from their return route. We were lucky, but a few feet closer and it might have been something of a bad luck story.

`A word about the ship's company. We numbered 105, and kept to a six hours on, six off watchbill for the whole deployment. Keeping the highly sophisticated but 21-year-old nuclear submarine at peak performance for night after day was a fantastic achievement. Heroes daily dealt with steam leaks, hydraulic bursts and even the odd fire; one person, the smallest man on board, had to slide 12ft down between the pressure hull and the port main condenser (a space of nine by 18 inches cross-section) to replace a flange from which steam was leaking. Unrepaired we would not have been able to use full power - a crucial get-away requirement.

`Discipline and morale were outstanding - the more so because no one was conscious that such characteristics were under trial. Throughout the deployment all were acutely interested in how the `real battle' was going and determined to do all possible to contribute. There were no defaulters; no one was even ill.

`Valiant returned to base in Scotland in early August. There was one single frozen chicken in the ship's fridges.’

F-16NG and Mirage IIING

Flight International reported that Lockheed Martin is studying "F-16NG" which will combine "the best of Block 50 and Block 60, with elements from the F-22 and F-35." Target users are India and existing F-16 operators who need to restock their fighter fleets but do not intend to buy the F-35 soon. According to Lockheed Martin the configuration of the F-16NG can be "less, equal to or better than" the F-16E/F Block 60 depending on each potential customer requirement.


Interestingly in 1982 Dassault Aviation of France also offered a "NG" variant of its bestselling Mirage III/5/50 series which had been operational since 1961. However this NG failed to find a buyer and quietly disappeared in the late 1980's.

Stealth is just an adjunct to electronic warfare? - Europe's view

Bill Sweetman wrote in the latest issue of Jane's that Europe and Russia regard stealth as "an adjunct to electronic warfare, rather than a stand-alone technology."

For instance EADS of Germany is one advocate of this, claiming that "the combination of reduced RCS with stand-off jamming can provide excellent protection." RCS reduction is supposed to delay detection by enemy radar and from the point you are detected, jamming comes into play. This is the theory behind EADS thinking.

In fact European countries are not investing much into studying manned very low observable (VLO) combat aircraft. Neither a manned VLO technology demonstrator nor a full-size RCS test mock-up exists, which even the Japanese have (see http://www.jda-trdi.go.jp/topics.html). It is either because they think it's not worth the effort or simply because they have no money. Or both, perhaps.

Japanese full-scale RCS test model

By the way an old concept put into practice by the US Navy more than 40 years ago is still being pursued by the French. The French Rafale is the only 'new' combat aircraft still designed for automatic terrain masking by low-level flight at night in mind. EADS claims this feature can cost 60 times as much as RCS reduction measures. Interestingly the French air force did not employ its Mirage 2000D bombers as designed - fully automatic terrain-following flight at low level - in Kosovo in 1999. They always ingressed at high altitudes.

The question is if RCS reduction coupled with stand-off jamming, plus terrain masking by low-level flight at night in the French case, would really work against a modern IADS. We'll see how the RAF, Luftwaffe and Armée de l'Air view RCS reduction with jamming against double-digit SAMs when they send their shiny new Typhoons and Rafales to an actual war or a Red Flag at least.