GOTHQ Get Out The Hangar Queens AJS-37 Viggen

[Bearhedge]

On a far less “intelligent conversation” note - I just fired my first pair of RB-15’s and sank my first Krivak in a simple mission I made - that was really exciting!

I used ME to set up the missile waypoints Bx6-Bx9 and they worked like a charm. It’s pretty cool to reach out and touch someone at that distance and scuttle back off to the safety of the hills.

I put the altitude autopilot on a standard turn after launch and watched the different phases of the missiles, changing views from the F10 map to the missiles and to the frigate. It gave a really good visual recap of the phases of the flight (that I’d been reading about i the manual / guides): Bx6 - drop down to 10m, Bx7 - turn to target and drop to sea skimming, Bx8 - hit the target.

Also of note - the missile pair flew really close to each other, almost in trail, until a few seconds to impact, at which point one of the missiles did a sharp break turn, seemingly to create a lateral separation of about 50m between the missiles before the final few hundred meters to target. I can’t see anything about this in the manual, but it looked very cool and movie-like.

[jenrick]

One additional thing you can play with is to enter into the computer a BX waypoint (BX6, BX7, etc.) and use the radar to and TV-T1 switch to set the new waypoint. You can totally on the fly create missiles approaching from opposite sides of the ship, attacking from the rear, etc. It’s pretty cool.

[MBot]

@jenrick

The risk you take with a single axis attack, is that the enemy made the same guess about where you’re coming from and your firing all your missiles into the same area as the AM assets are. Going to a multi-prong approach with one prong weighted heavier than the other creates the need to provides the need to go 2+ threat axis of coverage and having to play a guessing game about where to put everything to counter that heavier attack.

I agree if we are talking about a fighter reaction, a multi-axis attack will greatly complicate the defense. If we are talking about a ship-borne defense only, there won’t be any substantial opportunity for the defender to maneuver, change or weight coverage. The attack will have the full initiative to target weak spots.

The only systems I can think of where a multi-axis attack is advantageous are multi-targeting systems, such as SA-N-6 and SA-N-9. And also only if few such systems are present.

Let’s have a closer look at SA-N-9 for example. I think each Cross Sword FCR can engage 4 targets simultaneously in a 60° sector. The Neustrashimy frigate has a single SA-N-9 system, so the easiest way to overwhelm it is to fire 2 missiles, each from opposing directions. The SA-N-9 can only engage one of the missiles at a time. Only after the first target is destroyed the FCR will turn 180° and engage the second missile. Whether that would still be in time to be successful depends on the speed of the attacking missiles, so let’s ignore that for the sake of the argument.

Now lets look at an Udaloy destroyer, which has two SA-N-9 systems. It can engage up 4 targets each on two different axis simultaneously. In order to overwhelm it you would have to fire 3 missiles from 3 axis, each more than 60° from each other (so that no FCR can cover more than one axis simultaneously). Here, multi-axis still works but already requires a considerable amount of precision in execution. Alternatively, you could also fire 5 missiles from a single axis that is in the dead-spot of one of the two SA-N-9 (either fore or aft of the ship). This would overwhelm the singular SA-N-9 which can only engage 4 targets.

The Kuznetsov carrier has four SA-N-9. If you attack it from 4 evenly distributed axis simultaneously, it can defend against 16 missiles at once. But if you attack from one direction only, it can be overwhelmed with just 5 or 9 missiles (depending on whether you hit a spot that is in the firing arc of one or two SA-N-9 systems).

This whole relationship just gets more pronounced with single-targeting systems, such as CIWS for example. The Kirov has eight 30 mm turrets with 4 radar directors (one radar controls 2 guns). Attacking from both sides simultaneously requires 5 missiles to saturate the defense. Attacking from just one side requires 3 missiles to saturate the defense.

[miRage]

@Bearhedge

That lead me to http://www.viggentools.se/ and the RWR soundscape

That’s awesome. Will there be a test at the end of this month?

[Hangar200]

@MBot

Would you agree that the decisive factor for that practice would be human reaction and C3 issues under multi-axis attacks? Because from a strict rock paper scissors perspective, overwhelming a single sector seems most advantageous in most situations (for example in wargames).

Very good questions. I can only explain the rationale at theme.

Actually the practice was focused on getting the aircraft (A-6Es firing AGM-84s) to get their weapons on a Soviet Surface Action Group (SAG) as close to a simultaneous TOT as possible. We used something called a KISS wheel - KISS stood for Keep It Simple Stupid. A physical kneeboard card had a “wheel” drawn on it with about 60º sectors and a couple of concentric rings. Each flight of jets (2 x A-6Es) got a sector. The enemy SAG was in the center of the wheel (if we intel bubbas had done our job). The general idea was to get to position on the outer ring before a designated “push time”. This distance was outside SAM range. At the push time, all the A-6s headed in at a preset speed. When they got to the next ring, they launched and the turned outbound. A pretty simple method for getting the missies on the SAG at all about the same time.

I saw the discussions about a single axis strike being more capable of overwhelming point air defenses. That may be true for a single target or maybe two. However we are talking about a Soviet SAG that might have as many as 8-10 units. So what you are doing is spreading–a better term may be thinning–the SAG’s missile defenses.

Think about it this way:

This was the mid-late 1980s. A typical Soviet SAG would likely be built around a Kirov CGN (SS-N-19), a Slava CG or a Kiev CVHG (both SS-N-12) - all very long range anti-ship cruise missile shooters (ASCM). Protecting them were likely a few Sovremennyy DDG (SS-N-22 shooters; primarily anti-surface warfare; ASUW), a couple of Udaloy I DDs (SS-N-14 shooters; anti-submarine warfare; ASW) and a few Krivak I/II FFGs (also SS-N-14; ASW) and some type of AOR (probably a Boris Chilikin AOR).

The main treat to the career was those long range ASCMs - if they got within SS-N-22 range we would already have been toast. (SS-N-14s were primarily an ASW weapon.) So we want to hit the SAG and at least get a mission kill on the long range ASCM shooter before they got in range.

As far as SAMs go, only theKirov and Slava had decent long range SAMs - SA-N-6. IIRC the Kirov had SA-N-3. For closer in you had SA-N-7s, SA-N-9 and SA-N-4. You also had a lot of AK-630s which was their equivalent of CWIS. I’m a little skeptical about a SA-N-4’s capability against a low altitude ASCM threat; but that still leaves you with a lot of SA-N-7s and SA-N-9s.

These are some considerations:

You do not know what ship is what. Is that big radar return in the center of that formation the SLAVA CG? Or is it the Boris Chilikin AOR?

Sea Story:

We were doing an exercise with HMS Ark Royal. The Harriers went off on a War At Sea Exercise (WASEX). Their target was a USN large deck amphip - LHA or LPD class. The Brits went out, found a big target on their radars in the right area, and attacked it BVR; then pushed in and discovered it was a Nissan car carrier. Their AAR message stated “While not a success in the tactical sense, we consider this a strategic victory for British Leyland.”

If you concentrate all your missiles on a narrow sector, what is there to stop them from also concentrating their defensive fire power in the same sector?

Have they adjusted her SAG format to focus on a threat axis? If so, wouldn’t it be better to keep their attention on that threat axis with a diversionary strike while sneaking other missiles “in the back door”?

When you take all that into consideration…and take into account that this is “WW III. Toe-to-toe with the Ruskies”, …that we are going back at them as long as that threat is active and we have a carrier deck to land on, trying to spread/thin their defenses out was likely good doctrine.

Does this work in DCS? Not so much. About a year ago I set up some scenarios and ran them. The ships never seem to get true mission kills or mobility kills. They can still shoot without radar antennas. Their ASCM missile tubes are never damaged. They eventually loose some speed but no steering damage, no listing, no evidence of flooding, etc. They also have “exceptional” radars and SAMs that are never degraded and seldom miss. Add some wonky AI Harpoon shooters (nowhere near simultaneous TOT) …the ships survived impossible odds whether or not I spread out their defenses with multi-axis attacks.

[jenrick]

Once I’m done at the home office today, I may setup some test scenarios in Command tonight. @Hangar200 I’ll use your notional Soviet SAG described above as the target (any advice you can offer on spacing and formation is welcome). All attacks will feature as best as possible simultaneous TOT missile strikes.

Scenarios to test;
Single axis mass attack against distributed SAG
Multi axis attack against distributed SAG
Single axis mass attack against massed SAG (ie they knew what the threat axis was)
Multi axis attack against massed SAG
Single axis mass attack against incorrectly massed SAG

Any requests for the number of missiles launched, or how many AC we have as shooters? I believe I saw somewhere that a planned Viggen response was 48 AC approximtely, so roughly 90 missiles?

[MBot]

Thanks, I am looking forward to the results.

I guess the munition numbers in a carrier magazine is probably still secret. But we know the maximum air launched Harpoon salvo size in the Cold War days. Only the Intruders where Harpoon capable. With 10 aircraft in the air wing and a maximum of 4 missiles per aircraft, we are looking at a theoretical maximal salvo of 40 missiles.

My prediction for the Command scenario: The SAG is going to take hits only after it’s magazines run out of SAMs (for which 40 Harpoons is nowhere near enough).

[jenrick]

Anyone have a specific year tech they want to see? I was going to go with early 80’s to give the SAG the best SAM technology as possible in the general time period.

[Cib]

82 please

[MBot]

If you are using the early 80s though there won’t be any SA-N-9 at all. There weren’t that many ships with the system installed even in the late 80s either. Many Udaloys still had empty stands for the Cross Sword FCR. Also the Baku (4th of the Kievs), the Frunze and Kalinin (2nd and 3rd of the Kirovs) were intended to get SA-N-9 but never actually did. The Kuznetsov carrier and the Pyotr Veliky (4th Kirov) where the first and only ones to get it in the 90s (in addition to the Udaloy destroyers and the single Neustrashimy frigate).

[komemiute]

Hey thanks!
I’m not sure if I deserve it…
As usual I had great plans to end up with vey little done.
In nay case thanks!

[Hangar200]

LOL…well I didn’t expect to prompt such a robust research project. I’ll be interested in the results.

As I think of things just now, and with the discussion about the Udaloys, you would probably want to trow I a couple of Kashin / Mod Kashin DDGs. The Udaloy’swere supposed to have the SA-N-9 and we always went worst case but you are correct, I don’t think had reached IOC. So your SAM shooters aside from the Kirov/Slava were the Sovremennyys, Kashins and Krivaks. That means only the Sovs had a SAM that could probably realistically engage a sea skimming ASCM.

As far as the numbers of Harpoon aboard, likely had a large number back then. I remember doing live missile exercises where we shot a bunch - air, surface and sub. In fact a sub launched Harpooon almost shot down one of my squadron’s F-14s that was flying chaser for the launch…I’ve already told that sea story somewhere in Mudspike. Also we deployed with an AO that was “topped off” with ammo.

Plus we also expected that we might have to drop iron bombs on these suckers if we could take their SAMs out (HARM and such). It would have been ugly… very, very ugly…especially for the A-6 bubbas.

[MBot]

Also to get the track back to the Viggen, Sweden could be expected to meet considerable less capable ships in the Baltic. The Soviet Northern and Pacific fleets got the top units to fight the US Navy. The Soviet Baltic fleet was equipped with second line units as it was expected to fight the West German, Danish and Swedish navies. In the mid 1980s the top dogs assigned to the Baltic fleet were two Kashin DDG and one SAM-Kotlin DDG (all with SA-N-1). All remaining ships with an anti-air capability had only SA-N-4 (6 Krivaks, 5 Grishas and 6 Nanuchkas). Other (better) warships went to the Baltic to visit the shipyards and for training, so might be caught trapped in there when a war starts, but generally the Viggen were expected to fight the lesser units of the Baltic fleet.

I am a bit of a nerd with regards to the Soviet navy

[Hangar200]

@jenrick

(any advice you can offer on spacing and formation is welcome).

Hmmmm…well in an Atlantic scenario…

The idea is a Soviet SAG coming out of their North Fleet, around North Cape, Norway. The goal for the Soviet SAG Commander is to get to a good firing position southwest of the Lofoten Islands, so they have a clear shot up into Vestfjord where the carrier is operating. Once his SS-N-19/SS-N-12 tubes are empty he will get out of Dodge and back into the Bastion Area in the southern Barents Sea, under land-based fighter protection.

The goal of the NATO carrier group(s) commander is to stay alive and eventually run strikes into the Soviet bases in the Kola peninsula. To do that he needs to do two things: 1) Attrit Soviet Backfire and Badger raids coming out of the Kola. Achieve at least a mission kill on any/all Soviet SAGs coming around North Cape.

A nominal Soviet SAG formation would have the primary shooter (Kirov/Slava/Kiev) in the center with the escorts arranged in sectors around it with complementary SAM MEZs. and ASW areas.

…but you would probably never see exactly that…

ASW would probably be their biggest concern on a minute-by-minute basis so I’d expect their ASW platforms to be focused in sectors where they thought the sub threat to be. That would be very situation dependent but off hand putting about ½ to 2/3 of your ASW platforms out ahead of the SAG, somewhere along their direction of travel to “sanitize” ahead, might be a reasonable tactic…with the rest kind-of-sort-of trying to prevent a “leaker” sneaking in from the sides or astern (less likely astern).

The Sovremennyys ave the next best SAM after a Kirov/Slava so that may mean that they might put one on a threat axis to the general area of the carrier’s location. Maybe another in closer to the primary ASCM shooter?? Or farther down the threat axis to give a heads up and pick off a few aircraft as they begin to head towards the SAG?…or maybe provide better air defense for the ASW units?

Where to tuck in the AOR? Would they protect it ? Or put it in the center of the formation so we might go after it? Maybe; maybe not.

So a couple different possibilities…once you start moving ships to go after possible ASW contacts or send a DDG off to be a radar picket, you open gaps…fun stuff!

In a Pacific scenario…it would be different.

[jenrick]

To avoid side tracking this any further than we already have, everyone interested in this little experiment head on over to: So you wanna sink a Surface Action Group

Mods if you’d like to split off the relevant posts over to the new thread by all means do so.

[Bearhedge]

This is exciting - I’m stoked about the conversation this spurred. Should be interesting.

I don’t know if it needs tidying up - by MS standards this is hardly even a derailment! But all good either way hehe.

[TheAlmightySnark]

@Hangar200 I think you mentioned lofting the BK90 over a ridge a while ago, right? I’ve been experimenting a bit and it can handle slight slopes and hill just fine, but a proper loft over a small mountain isn’t going to do it in my testing. I think the lift surfaces on the BK90 are too small to compensate, the AOA seems to be quite high for most of the flight!

[Hangar200]

What I tried was to release the weapons just behind a ridge while doing a bit of a zoom climb. The idea was to get is so they fell off the jet while climbing, but given their designed profile, the start to take a dive towards their run in altitude. So if you can time it exactly just right, their initial maneuver, ind of sort of follows the contour of the ridge–a little climb on the back side; pitching over above the crest; moving down into their glide in profile as the ridge contours also move down…then a bit of flat terrain just before the target.

This really doesn’t work as the initial climb combined with where you need to launch, close to the summit, means that you do pop over the terrain masking of the ridge…quite spectacularly in fact. You can still “bust a move” and get yourself clear before getting shot at. but there are better ways to get into range and keep a more reasonable launch profile. If I can find my old mission I’ll post it.

[Fridge]

Viggen Level Bombing - Low Drag - Low Altitude

Over the past week and a half, I have gotten a few flights in with the AJS-37 Viggen. Previously, my experience was mostly limited to the anti-shipping weapons that required limited pilot interaction. This time though, I have taken a few stabs at the M/71 bombs to learn how to deal with the unique Saab/Swedish symbology on the HUD. It was (and continues to be) an adventure.

To start off, this mission was a simple training mission intended, as I noted above, to focus on the delivery of M/71 bombs. I wanted to practice procedures for startup/shutdown, navigation, delivery planning and ECM/Recce work while doing learning how to properly Viggen. I had to fly the mission 3 times before I was able to get bombs on target and all of the failings were either on my lack of preparation or on making it too complicated in the short weapons employment window that I had

For the first iteration, I did not focus on the delivery aspect and trusted my memory of a brief glance at Chuck Owl’s great AJS-37 Viggen guide. Every other part of the mission went well: Startup (using the Virtual Kneeboard app), takeoff, navigation, ECM/Recce (I was not jamming, just testing the ability of the ECM pod to track and record targets), RTB and landing. Ingress and Egress at the target was … a bit of a mess and I fumbled with understanding the symbology during the very short time that I had over the target. And, I did not have the target waypoint set as such. So much fail on that first attempt!

Second iteration was … well I thought it was going to be better. I remembered to check the guide to see what I had to do to get the target waypoint set up. I noted how to make the waypoint an ‘M#’ point but then I also noticed that Chuck covered the steps to have a pop-up point set from that target point. I thought, why not? How hard could that be. The answer was in two parts: 1) it was easy to set up with the flight computer; 2) it was hard to follow the symbology when I wasn’t ready for the change - remember, I had not gotten bombs-on-target in a simple configuration, yet here I was adding a pop-up point without the understanding of how to every execute that in my head, let alone prepare for the symbology I would see in that compressed short time over target! Chuck makes an awesome guide but there is only so much he can work with when the student is not really paying attention. I think that I did the pop up correctly, but my roll in on target left me with the level bombing symbology that I didn’t see/recognize on the first pass.

Third time was the charm, as they say. Who ‘they’ are, I have no idea but obviously they believe in magic . And the magic (of simplicity) worked…

---

The Plan:

The plan was fairly straight forward: I was going to take of from Tonopah and fly north-east through WP#01, hook around WP#02 and travel south down the valley to WP#03 where I would make an abrupt right turn and jump over the mountains toward WP#04, a small built up/urban area, fly in to the target point at WP#05 (aka M05), egress through WP#06 (coincident with WP#03), back up the valley to WP#07 (sitting over WP#01) and RTB to WP#08.

The flight would be, pretty much, nap-of-the-earth the whole way up until I was about half way home, between WP#06 and WP#07. I would Fence-In the aircraft between WP#02 and WP#03 (altimeter, power on the ECM Pod and RWR, make sure the weapons were configured and turn out the lights). I would expect a SAM system somewhere south, and another somewhere east, of WP#03 with the WP outside SAM weapon range.

The target area at M05 is a suspected truck park (or, if you are not a Flight of the Intruder fan, a small collection of disposable trucks instead of empty jungle) nicely located in this little Bullseye in the landscape.

Weather was to be clear skies with no traffic in the area; just a simple level bomb mission.

I treated the target area as somewhat hostile. This meant that I allowed myself one pass over the target. There were no threats at (or immediately near) the target, so I would concentrate on delivering weapons but I wanted the ‘stress’ of having to do it on the first pass.

For the mission, I hauled 8 M/71 Low Drag bombs, the ECM Pod/Counter-Measures dispenser set and a pair of Swedish Sidewinders for show. I also had a full fuel load, allowing me copious use of the 3 stage afterburner.

The Flight

The Viggen is a beautiful aircraft, purpose built by Saab and the Swedish armed forces to do its job and do it well, even if, to these NATO eyes the symbology is … unique. In VR it was quiet fun to see all the detail pop out at you.

And using the VR Kneeboard app, though it has its limitations, means that I could move it around the cockpit as I was working through the startup sequence.

It also allowed you to have it up and access the DCS Kneeboard for other information. Such as reviewing the altimeter settings for the take off/landing and target areas.

During taxi I adjusted WP#05 (B05) into it’s target mode (M05) with the help of a snippet of Chucks AJS-37 guide. Love those guides!

Take off was uneventful. I always tend to pull a little too hard at the rotate speed and jump airborne before settling back to the runway for a few additional meters as I try to hold the flight-path marker a the top of the racing poles.

Note: I am somewhat unclear of when I should do the quick Nav fix. Is that supposed to happen at lineup or as I pass the end of the runway?

Passing WP#02 I started my Fence-In checks and reviewing the HUD indicators for a level drop. This, as I learnt during the first and second iterations, was not the best time to learn those symbols but it was a good time to review them.

Also made sure that the ECM pod and RWR systems were operational.

As I approached WP#03, I began mentally reviewing my turn to WP#04. Previously, I had done the turn after crossing WP#03 but it was a slow turn (no G’s) and that set me up to approach the next waypoint passing over the mountain proper, instead of off to the right and over the mountains shoulder. Just prior to my turn, I began receiving (noticing) RWR indications off to my south and east.

After the turn, looking over to the left, I could see a pair of missiles that were climbing up in my direction. Oh $*@t! I did not expect that. I have a feeling that the AI was hoping that I would continue south, fast and unknowning, but I was sure that I would have been outside of the launch envelope! If I had made my turn as I did for the previous two iterations, this might have been a different mission (and debrief) altogether!

Seeing that smaller hill off to my left, I decided to accelerate and dive to the deck, putting it between me and the pair of admirers I had arriving from the south.

After passing the first of the line-of-sight blockers, I still found the pair lurking high south but after I passed the next bump, they were forever out of sight.

I decided to keep the main bulk of the mountain between us, just in case. Here I passed off to the right side before cutting back to the left to get on my inbound vector.

At that point, everything was silent except for the Hawk radar at Tonopah. I put WP#04 off my front left as I worked my way farther south - to get back what I thought was the correct track into WP#04.

Passing WP#04, I started setting up the last steps in the jet configuration: making sure that I was in ANF mode (which I had missed on the first run). After noticing the Hawk radar on the RWR at WP#04, at this point I was tunnel visioned enough to not hear it again until my egress had started.

Soon enough I was running in toward the target. First shot: Circle on the target would show me the position. Second shot: Fly the dot into the circle and watch the timing indicator at the bottom of the HUD, safety off. Third shot: Trigger down when the ‘wings’ flash. Fourth shot: Weapons are away!

Cranked the jet around and settled into my egress.

I did glance back to see if I had hit anything.

Yes! Smoke in the target area! I pushed on back over the ridge and into the valley…

Keeping one eye on the south for additional SAM love…

And, after the turn to the north, keeping an eye on the other SAM site to the east.

Looked like the same shot but it was different. Trust me I pushed, at some speed, back up the valley, crossing over the ridge when I noticed this nice saddle.

And then on to WP#07 - irrigation area just about to go under the nose to the front right.

Then it was time to overfly Tonopah and enter the left hand pattern.

Line up, main gear down and, finally, touchdown - time for the thrust reverser.

---

The Debrief

Mission execution was much better than the first tow attempts. I was able to get all the systems worked out and didn’t totally fall behind the get over the target area. Bombs came off in the general vicinity of the target and managed to set a couple of them on fire.

The SAMs were a surprise, however. They were originally placed to play around with the reconnaissance features of the Viggen and were thought to be well out of range. In fact, the first two iterations saw no launch activity. Looking back at the tapes (Tacview) for the first two iterations: no launch (and you can see how I was slightly farther south and over the mountain):

On the last iteration, I drew their ire (a slight bit farther north and headed into the valley):

Either way, what that did point out is that I need to be more familiar with my jet so that I do not get task saturated as fast and I can actually hear and (eventually) pay attention to those warnings and sounds. This was certainly driven home when, as I was entering the egress phase I noticed that I had stopped hearing the Hawk site - not because it wasn’t there but because I was task saturated. Video replay had the sounds there but I did not hear them.

Looking at the target area … the release looked pretty good…

And the target impacts we at the front of the target area.

While I did not, technically, overfly the target it was a very close thing.

But in the Viggen, with a level bombing run at low altitude, this was expected.

[schurem]

Well done mate! Both the flight and the AAR!