India plans SEAD Exercise in Red Flag 16

India plans SEAD Exercise in Red Flag 16

   Indian Air force plans to send it's deep penetration attack aircraft Jaguar along with Su 30 MKI Air superiority fighter to participate US Red Flag Exercise in Alaska USA. The Indian Air force to learn many things from USA to perform SEAD/DEAD missions along with combat air patrol and Air superiority missions. Such exercise is very minimal since most exercise focus only one vs one or group fighting.

      To perform SEAD Missions, The Fighter jet need to penetrate the enemy air space by flying very low or below the radar coverage. after it will launch the anti radiation missile over the enemy Radar and air defense missile site. The Jaguar has similar capabilities and specially designed to perform such missions. IAF earlier used the Jaguar as bomb truck, mostly used to drop Bombs. The IAF not ready to retire the Jaguar aircraft, with many upgrades IAF plans to keep the Jaguar till 2035 or till the AMCA comes.

    The IAF also dispatches two C 17 globe master transporter aircraft. who carries more than hundreds of IAF's elite special operation commando's known as Garuds to perform the same SEAD mission. The C 17 will drop the Special forces deep behind enemy lines. where they would carry out sabotage missions in enemy radar sites.

     There were only two options to perform SEAD mission, One is via Jaguar aircraft other is using special forces to sabotage the radar site. Most of the nations used such kind of aircraft's to destroy enemy air defense batteries in first wave. Israel is the only other who send elite special forces along with heavy lift helicopters to perform SEAD missions deep behind enemy lines.

    In modern warfare, Forces not only face the Early warning Radar's, They eventually face more powerful electronic warfare systems like Jammers, communication and Radar interceptors and high power radio frequencies who disrupt missile and it's guidance. They were very powerful and highly mobile platforms.

     IAF wanted to penetrate highly defended Chinese Airspace, the upcoming Russian S 400 delivery to China threatens each and airborne platforms flying over Indian Capital in case of war against China. IAF tries many options to perform SEAD Missions which include Kamikaze drones, PTA Vehicles and Stealth drones, If all of the previous options failed IAF may send it's troops deep behind enemy lines to execute the SEAD mission.

    Once the SEAD mission is accomplished IAF need to patrol the Air space from enemy Intruders. IAF Plans to use the Su 30 MKI armed with maximum number of BVR and WVR missiles for combat air patrol. The Patrol supported by two IL 78 aerial tankers. IAF will send four Su 30 MKI to the Red Flag exercise, where they can perform CAP missions. Usually a Su 30 MKI can fly more than two hours without the need of aerial Tanker. with Tankers Su 30 MKI can fly more than eight hours.

   The Exercise clearly validates IAF's new operational capability of capturing enemy air space and keep the air space under IAF control. Such missions are top priority to conduct safe ground operations for friendlies.

    Indian Air force slowly expanding it's wings from primary air defense into Close air support missions, Offensive air missions and Capturing enemy air space's. Future ground operations must need such capabilities.

Patriot Air defense missile

     USA giving better opportunities to Indian Air force to exercise with Red forces and Blue forces. US may deploy Patriot or HAWK missile batteries along with AN TPS 75 Mobile radar and F 15 and F 16 fighters as Red forces or enemy forces. Where IAF will dispatch Jaguar aircraft's or C 17 with Garuds for SEAD missions and Su 30 MKI for Combat air patrol missions.

    The Exercise already get authorization from government, which will be scheduled to be happen Summer 2016.

The New Radar Killer Kh 58 UShK

The New Radar Killer Kh 58 UShK

   The Russians almost completed the prototype variant of new generation anti radiation missile the Kh 58, which is completely a new missile with older X 58 air frame along with folding fins, which allows the missiles can house inside the Su T 50's internal weapon bay. The Russians and Indians involved to build a new generation Fighter under the PAK FA and FGFA program, for that they gone for fully modern systems, from Engines to Radars and Missiles to Electronic warfare system.

  To defeat the much modern Anti Air missile batteries like most powerful S 400 missile defense system and western Patriot system, the need of smart aircraft along with smart munitions needed, in the modern Air warfare the Ground based threats pose serious problems to the Fighter jets, those highly powerful stand alone modern Air defense missile can engage any kind of modern threats with high accuracy, even they can ripple fire missiles allows to intercept highly maneuverable small aircraft's with high precision.

   So there is a need of missile that can intercept such ground threats more accuracy, usually the missile defense system comes with couple of elements, like Radar, Launcher, command vehicles, most of the Ground based systems are highly mobile, that can be moved within a minutes and can be deployed again very quickly, thus makes long range cruise missiles ineffective to strike such missile systems, even most systems are positioned in good distances, also those missile defense systems comes with couple of launchers, but one or two Air search and Fire control Radars, usually most comes with only one Radar systems, a Typical S 400 Missile battery consist of four launchers and two Radars along with other support vehicles,

   It's tough to find and kill the Radar, which is the heart of the missile defense system, so there is missile called anti radiation missile, which can target only the Radars with it's frequency, the S 400 Radars emits signals in the S Band frequency that means 2 GHz to 4 GHz, so the missile would be lock a target which can emit frequency at the S band, the early anti radiation missiles are developed at specific bands only, but now the modern Ground based Radars uses multiple spectrum, the need of new missile which can respond more band of frequency's. so the Russians put into the work that a seeker can acquire frequency's at all bands commonly L,S,C and X which varies from 1 GHz to 12 GHz.

   and Russians did it a good missile seeker that can intercept and lock frequencies at 1.2 GHz to 11 GHz. makes that missile good enough against most modern Radar systems, another issue is the speed and warhead, the missile can travel at the speed of mach 4 and can be launched from at an altitude of 600 feet to 60,000 feet, but due to the altitude the range also varies, means if it can launched from higher altitude the missile can reach the highest distance of 240 kilometers, and if launched at low altitude the missile ranged capped at 70 kilometer.

    The major disadvantage of the Missile is it's precision capability, the missile can't strike at bulls eye, or pin point, it's strike probability is 20 meters, means missile can strike near to the Radar, mostly less than 20m. because of the heavier payload, even if it strikes near to the Radar, the warhead can destroy anything nearby 20 meters, the missile weights at  650 kilograms, and the warhead weighs upto 150 kg. which is High explosive warhead.

   the T 50 can carry two Kh 58 missile in it's main internal weapon bay, and another two short range heat seeking missiles in it's side bay, with this internal payload the T 50 nearly invisible to the Enemy radars, then only the Fighter can enter inside the Radar's search area, the Kh 58 missile ranges 240 kilometers at most, but the S 400 radar's Range more than 300 kilometers, can easily detect the launched missile,

   earlier the Fighters used Terrain hugging  method to perform SEAD mission, the fighters computers provide the Blind side of the Radar, where the Fighter can travel and launch it's missile, the IAF uses the Jaguar a finest Terrain hugging plane which can be armed with French made Martel Missile, also the Mirage platforms are also used for the same, but still IAF didn't try for a SEAD mission inside Pakistani or Chinese airspace.

   The IAF Sukhoi 30 MKI also comes with earlier version of Kh 58 ARM missile,another variant of Anti radiation missile named K 100 novotar, A joint venture between India and Russia to develop a missile to kill enemy airborne radar platforms like aerostats and awecs planes, also DRDO involves a Project to develop a indigenous missile for SEAD role, named NG ARM, whose status is not available since it's highly classified, and It's expected that The Jaguars gets the American High speed anti radiation missile AGM 88 HARM in the DARIN III Upgrade.

   Truth is it's hard to find the frequency of SAM missile's Radars since Ship, Televisions, Telecoms are all use the same frequencies to transmit signals.  

Rafale Talks once again

Rafale Talks once again

    The Airforce once again raised it's voice about the shortfall of fighters, currently the Air force runs less than 32 squad of fighters than the allocated 42 Squads, more of them runs behind the schedules, and the Rafale decision took early 2012, and still now no Rafales seen, due to the negligence of the Indian government, but the Airforce urgently need the Rafale or a Fighter similar to Rafale, also they need not only 36 but IAF wants more than eighty such planes.

    Some informations also out, that how and Why IAF Selected the Rafale aircraft, there were three major points leaked, one is the Super Cruise, second is the low Radar cross section, and third is the awesome low flying capability. in these conditions Rafale scored much higher than the Contender Typhoon GR4.

Super Cruise in Super sonic Speed

    which means the engines can power the Aircraft without burning any flames, usually the Plane can glide at super sonic ranges without wasting much more energy and Engine power, almost all the contenders in MMRCA comes with super cruise, but Rafale only performed better with the Sneccma M88 Engines, in a Test mission set by IAF, the Rafale Carry's four Air to air missiles along with two guided bombs, and at the speed of Mach 1.4, and impressed the IAF evaluation team,

    Super cruise can be used to defeat most Heat seeking or IR Guided missile, which is usually tracks the Target using the Heat signatures, during dog fights or Close combat one was always try to escape from the Red zone with full power, that means he can go full after burner to achieve maximum speed, which also makes the missile for easy target, most of the time the IR guided missiles targets the Flares and the sun's because of Sun's heat spot. But with the Help of Super cruise without making Heat signs the Rafale can escape from the red zone at higher speed with the small design it can also maneuver at high rate to evade the missile.

Low RCS (Radar Cross Section )

    It's believed that the Rafale is the second good Fighter with very minimal radar cross section, first comes the American F 22. the IAF impressed over the Rafale's unique feature of nearly invisible to Radars in Long Ranges, earlier the Ex ADA Chief sounded that LCA Tejas also have lesser RCS, but not close to Rafale, Which makes the Rafale easily bypass enemy Borders and Conduct search and reconnaissance missions, also it's lie someone says the Rafale is invisible in Long ranges even with Air to air missiles and PGM's.  a simple addition with in aircraft makes the Platform easily visible to Radars,

    Even in the Syrian Bombing mission a American B 2 Spirit Stealth bomber makes refueling mission in the air, the footage shows it have a rotating female fuel port, which closes down once the Refueling complete, shows even a small size of object makes huge increment radar visibility.

Low flying

    The Rafale is much better in terms of low Flying, the other contenders even nowhere to comes close to the Rafale when it was conducted low flying missions with heavy combat load, makes the Rafale good for SEAD ( Suppressing Enemy Air defense ) missions, means the Rafale can fly very low and Launch it's missile and destroy enemy Radar networks,  The Rafale Performed the same in Libya by eliminate almost all of their early warning Radars by using the low flying technique,

    The IAF unhappy about the low numbers of Rafale, with the help of leaking some good informations they plans to field much more number of Rafale's in the fleet, The Indian Defense Minister muted for comments.

 

Jaguar DARIN III

Jaguar DARIN III

The Jaguar from IAF

     

     Developed for close air support and deep penetration bombing primarily for the French and Britain forces is a very reliable piece of hardware. The jets were originally inducted as trainer jets in 1960. Soon the need was felt for using the jet as a fulltime war machine. The jet was equipped with supersonic capabilities, recon pods and tactical nuclear capabilities. The Indian forces were approached with the design as early as 1968 but India rejected the offer. In 1978, India choose Jaguar rejecting the Dassault fielded Mirage F1 and the Saab Viggen and ordered 40 jets in fly away condition and 120 jets to be built in India under licence by HAL at an estimated $1 billion.

        Jaguar is one of the best ground attack platforms. The Jags have had a very reliable operational history and there have not been a single loss of Jag during the operation. Most of the foreign countries already withdrew Jaguar from its front line without getting more advanced platform relying on the underperforming Tornado.

        But India acted more brilliantly; India is unknown to run aircrafts well above their shell life with regular mid life up gradation programs. The Jaguar has already completed two MLU, and is now heading for their third MLU. The Darin (Display Attack Ranging Inertial Navigation) is going to be one of the notable features to be clubbed to the existing avionics jaguar package, Jag currently lacks a reliable Radar system instead uses the IRST (Infrared Search and Track ) and state of the art OLS(Optical Locator Systems). India is currently equipped with three different variants, the maritime version charged with the surveillance of the coast and the Deep Penetration bomber currently in use with the Air force and the one under Strategic Forces Command for tactical nuclear strikes.

       The air force version is equipped with ground attack munitions, Martel ARM along with R 550 Magic Air to Air Missiles and two on board cannons.  Primarily used for deep penetration, SEAD DEAD and Close Air support one of the best platforms in Indian Air force with good Combat Radius. In lo lo lo profile mission with two Martel ARM missiles it can strike targets beyond 1000 km.

       The Darin III allows the Jaguar can carry new generation weapon systems like new generation ASRAAM Air to Air missiles more powerful AGM 88 HARM missiles for SEAD role, more powerful LGB/PGM's with CBU-105 (Censor Fuzed Weapon). The Jaguar comes with RLG inertial navigation and a digital terrain mapping system which is a very good alternative to terrain hugging and avoidance Radar systems.

         The Jaguar also comes with Israeli Litening pods for better recon and pin point ground attack missions with using of LGB/PGM. The DARIN III comes with IADS suites which allow the Jaguar escape from any kind of Airborne and Ground threats.

         The Maritime version comes with Radar named Agave which can fire Sea Eagle Anti Ship missile, a primary maritime strike aircraft for IAF. This can be upgraded into DARIN III Standard with newer Israeli ELTA Radar, which is capable to fire the new Generation Harpoon Anti Shipping Missiles from Jaguar IM Aircraft. HAL has already completed the DARIN III Upgrade of Jaguars and IAF has accepted its performance and IAF will soon receive the upgraded Jaguar from HAL.




          The SFC Jaguars comes with nuclear strike Missions. Currently IAF have only one certified Aircraft which can carry nuclear bombs. More than 20+ Aircraft's are under SFC control and are capable of carrying out nuclear Gravity bombs.

       The first flight of the Jagaur D3 took place in 2012, IAF was not satisfied with the mission computers and engines.  Rolls Royce or Honeywell Engine will be selected later and would power the aircraft with improved capabilities. HAL carried out successful first flight of Jaguar air force strike version in March 2015. The primary mission stat reports are awaited.

 

The Jaguar DARIN III Upgrade components

Jaguar DARIN III Upgraded Flight

Editor Kathik Kakoor