Alternative fighter for Argentine AF & Navy during Falklands war.

[Darthmalgus]

With the RAAF Mirages was it an apples and apples comparison, or was it at much shorter range where the RAAF could use the small 'supersonic' drop tanks and liberal use of the afterburner?

Air combat is a never ending list of variables, which is why it's so interesting.

Same Mirages but I believe had RAAF had AIM-9G as their armament so I think it was a bit more of a fair fight.

Combined with the extensive Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT) that British pilots had undergone, an Argentine Mirage starting with full fuel tanks over Stanley would still have been flying an aircraft ill-suited for low-level turning fights, armed with inferior missiles, against better-prepared adversaries.

 

[H_K]

I share @taralon's concern about the AS30s launch and guidance, I think it might even put the aircraft into the Sea Cat's engagement envelope and certainly Sea Darts and Wolfs would have a field day and the 4.5" guns would put the wind up the pilots

AS-30 effectiveness would come down to tactics and training (lots of it). I wish I could get my hands on Marineflieger manuals as their F-104Gs trained for exactly this kind of mission… they had some interesting 2 aircraft tactics with one shooter, one designator, which I imagine was designed to increase the standoff range against well-defended ships.

That said we know that literally only 1 T42 (HMS Exeter…) had the radar to use Sea Dart effectively at low altitude, and she missed the crucial first 3 weeks of war. Meanwhile Sea Wolf had a tiny engagement window against a fighter launching an AS-30 missile at 9km (outside Sea Wolf’s max range), with the AS-30 hitting 20 seconds later while the launch aircraft would still be 3.5km away. They had a couple of successes against low altitude Skyhawks to prove that SAMs could work on a good day, but there were always limitations against a wave of 3-4 strikers. Sea Cat and 4.5” would be no more effective except for perhaps a lucky potshot against a egressing target at 2km+ if the AS-30 missed.

 

[Rule of cool]

Same Mirages but I believe had RAAF had AIM-9G as their armament so I think it was a bit more of a fair fight.

Combined with the extensive Dissimilar Air Combat Training (DACT) that British pilots had undergone, an Argentine Mirage starting with full fuel tanks over Stanley would still have been flying an aircraft ill-suited for low-level turning fights, armed with inferior missiles, against better-prepared adversaries.

The RAAF updated the Mirage III fleet from Aim 9B bought in 1962 for the CAC Sabres with Matra R550 Magic 1s from late 1983, they were still equipped with Aim9Bs when Invincible arrived in December 1983 for the exercises. IIUC the whole point was to give Sea Harriers experience against Mirages in an optimum configuration flown by a first-rate Air Force, so the RAAF had the 500l 'supersonic' drop tanks on the short pylons, giving them both good combat persistence even with afterburner while reducing drag allowing speeds greater than Mach 1.2.

EDIT: It's amazing what you come across when confirming what you already knew, more or less. The standard 500l supersonic tanks used on RAAF and other Mirages were not jettisonable in flight and as such were precision machined units. Israel developed area ruled 500l tanks, cheaply made and with fins so they could be jettisoned in flight as a round of ammunition. Israel also developed an 880l area ruled drop tank for the centreline pylon, again finned and cheaply made to be readily jettisoned, which was much less draggy than the standard 1,300l centreline fuel tank. Apparently, Israel had so many of these tanks in the 6 Day War that they blew the tanks for every engagement, littering the desert and giving the Bedouin a great source of building materials.

FWIW the Argentine Mirages used 1,700l ferry tanks under the wings in the Falklands.

 

[taralon]

AS-30 effectiveness would come down to tactics and training (lots of it). I wish I could get my hands on Marineflieger manuals as their F-104Gs trained for exactly this kind of mission… they had some interesting 2 aircraft tactics with one shooter, one designator, which I imagine was designed to increase the standoff range against well-defended ships.

That said we know that literally only 1 T42 (HMS Exeter…) had the radar to use Sea Dart effectively at low altitude, and she missed the crucial first 3 weeks of war. Meanwhile Sea Wolf had a tiny engagement window against a fighter launching an AS-30 missile at 9km (outside Sea Wolf’s max range), with the AS-30 hitting 20 seconds later while the launch aircraft would still be 3.5km away. They had a couple of successes against low altitude Skyhawks to prove that SAMs could work on a good day, but there were always limitations against a wave of 3-4 strikers. Sea Cat and 4.5” would be no more effective except for perhaps a lucky potshot against a egressing target at 2km+ if the AS-30 missed.

Where the second aircraft guided the missile shot by the first? I ask because the AS-30 wasn't beam riding, it is command guided from a directional RF antenna in the rear just like the early AGM-12 Bullpups. Maybe the Germans had modified them for beam riding, but I've never seen any evidence of such, and all descriptions that I've seen of their two jet tactics using the AS-30 has one plane firing/guiding the AS-30 and the second working as a distraction/followup strike.

If you're looking at that, well, the AGM-12B Bullpup would roughly equal, and the historically purchased A4s could have carried it, and the AGM-12C's which they could also carry had roughly twice the warhead weight, roughly 50% the standoff range.

I still think just duplicating their IOTL tactics with dumb bombs, but in the 1000lb/2000lb range with immediate action fusing would probably be better. They got a lot of bomb hits in the initial strikes, and if those had been with larger, actually functionally fused weapons, they would have done a lot more damage to the British Navy.

Given the historical successes of the Seacats fired from Naval vessels (no confirmed kills, no actual confirmed damage) it might be a moot point, but firing MCLOS missiles from 200+ feet rather than dropping dumb bombs at less than 100 feet would give them a slightly larger engagement window.

 

[H_K]

The standard 500l supersonic tanks used on RAAF and other Mirages were not jettisonable in flight and as such were precision machined units. Israel developed area ruled 500l tanks, cheaply made and with fins so they could be jettisoned in flight as a round of ammunition. Israel also developed an 880l area ruled drop tank for the centreline pylon, again finned and cheaply made to be readily jettisoned, which was much less draggy than the standard 1,300l centreline fuel tank. Apparently, Israel had so many of these tanks in the 6 Day War that they blew the tanks for every engagement, littering the desert and giving the Bedouin a great source of building materials.

FWIW the Argentine Mirages used 1,700l ferry tanks under the wings in the Falklands.

For what it’s worth I played with different tank combos to see what would have worked best for Argentina’s Mirages.

They needed a small drop tank that could be carried in air combat without impacting performance too much, to provide them with those couple extra minutes of play time and allow for more aggressive use of afterburner:

• With a full internal tank over the Falklands (2,150-2,350kg) the Mirage III had barely 2-3 minutes of play time before bingo
• 2x 1,700L drop tanks didn't work because you had to drop them before combat, while they were still perhaps 1/4 full (only ~2,000kg / 2,500L fuel needed to reach the Falklands)
• 2x 500L supersonic tanks would be ideal for air combat, but with the 1,300L centerline tank that wasn't enough external fuel for the mission
• 2x 1,300L wing tanks + a small supersonic centerline tank might be just right, as the wing tanks could be jettisoned when empty a few minutes after reaching the Falklands, leaving plenty of fuel in the centerline tank for loiter and combat

... so that Israeli 880L centerline tank would have been just the ticket. Do you have any more info on it so we could estimate its drag? I could then run the numbers.

 

[H_K]

Where the second aircraft guided the missile shot by the first? I ask because the AS-30 wasn't beam riding, it is command guided from a directional RF antenna in the rear just like the early AGM-12 Bullpups. Maybe the Germans had modified them for beam riding, but I've never seen any evidence of such, and all descriptions that I've seen of their two jet tactics using the AS-30 has one plane firing/guiding the AS-30 and the second working as a distraction/followup strike.

If you're looking at that, well, the AGM-12B Bullpup would roughly equal, and the historically purchased A4s could have carried it, and the AGM-12C's which they could also carry had roughly twice the warhead weight, roughly 50% the standoff range.

I still think just duplicating their IOTL tactics with dumb bombs, but in the 1000lb/2000lb range with immediate action fusing would probably be better. They got a lot of bomb hits in the initial strikes, and if those had been with larger, actually functionally fused weapons, they would have done a lot more damage to the British Navy.

Note that the only bomb hits were in closed waters or inshore where attacking aircraft could hide until the last moment. There were no bomb hits against ships in open water and none at all in the run up to the landings. Hence my harping about the need for more standoff capability.

The AS-30 radio command settings were preset before takeoff, with one of 5 "codes" selected inside the missile and on the aircraft. This was to allow multiple missiles to be guided simultaneously in flight by different aircraft, as the missiles would only listen to radio commands with the correct code (and also as an anti-jamming feature).

So I presume the German tactic was to have 2 aircraft use the same code, allowing the first aircraft to launch the AS-30 (and potentially handle initial guidance for the first 5-10 seconds), then bank away and let the trailing aircraft take over guidance. This would be particularly effective against a ship defended by a short range SAM like Sea Wolf (max 6.5km engagement range), as both aircraft could then stay out of Sea Wolf's envelope if properly separated by about 10 seconds.

Supersonic missiles like AS-30 and the Swedish RB-04 were very different from Bullpup as they allowed for low-altitude launches with much shorter engagement sequences and more separation for the attacking aircraft. Whereas Bullpup was more of a powered glide weapon designed for medium altitude launches, not at all suited for anti-ship missions.

 

[H_K]

So I presume the German tactic was to have 2 aircraft use the same code, allowing the first aircraft to launch the AS-30 (and potentially handle initial guidance for the first 5-10 seconds), then bank away and let the trailing aircraft take over guidance. This would be particularly effective against a ship defended by a short range SAM like Sea Wolf (max 6.5km engagement range), as both aircraft could then stay out of Sea Wolf's envelope if properly separated by about 10 seconds.

PS. I found a description of this tactic for the AS-30 mentioned in Janes Weapon Systems 1969 (available on Archive.org).

 

[Rule of cool]

For what it’s worth I played with different tank combos to see what would have worked best for Argentina’s Mirages.

They needed a small drop tank that could be carried in air combat without impacting performance too much, to provide them with those couple extra minutes of play time and allow for more aggressive use of afterburner:

• With a full internal tank over the Falklands (2,150-2,350kg) the Mirage III had barely 2-3 minutes of play time before bingo
• 2x 1,700L drop tanks didn't work because you had to drop them before combat, while they were still perhaps 1/4 full (only ~2,000kg / 2,500L fuel needed to reach the Falklands)
• 2x 500L supersonic tanks would be ideal for air combat, but with the 1,300L centerline tank that wasn't enough external fuel for the mission
• 2x 1,300L wing tanks + a small supersonic centerline tank might be just right, as the wing tanks could be jettisoned when empty a few minutes after reaching the Falklands, leaving plenty of fuel in the centerline tank for loiter and combat

... so that Israeli 880L centerline tank would have been just the ticket. Do you have any more info on it so we could estimate its drag? I could then run the numbers.

I don't know much about those tanks, but they don't look obviously narrow-waisted and apparently they were cheap to make and stockpiled in big numbers. The RAAF never put the 1300l centreline tank on the wings and the 1700l wing tanks on the centreline, despite the constant long range ferry flights, apparently these tanks were specifically engineered for each pylon and had CoG and other implications.

That said, the Mirage's drag characteristics could be tricky. These fat, heavy tanks caused the Mirage to fly with a 'high' AoA which caused a 'lot' of induced drag that these deltas were famous for. There is a story about a RAAF Mirage on a ferry flight to Malaysia botching the landing at Djuanda Air Base in Indonesia and holing the wing drop tanks; they took off all 3 tanks so the plane was 'clean', topped the plane to the brim, towed it to the end of the runway where it did a dry power takeoff and made it to Singapore with fuel to spare.

Apparently the 880l Israeli centreline tanks avoided this induced drag problem and freed up the wing pylons for ordnance, but I doubt you could find the information needed to make calculation and the subsonic 1300l tanks aren't suitable for wing carriage anyway.

In conclusion Argentina either needed F4s or to extend the Port Stanley runway.

 

[Rule of cool]

I still think just duplicating their IOTL tactics with dumb bombs, but in the 1000lb/2000lb range with immediate action fusing would probably be better. They got a lot of bomb hits in the initial strikes, and if those had been with larger, actually functionally fused weapons, they would have done a lot more damage to the British Navy.

The A4s were too marginal on payload/range to carry larger bombs, assuming A4B/Cs are cleared to carry them in the first place. Immediate impact fusing virtually guarantees the destruction of the dropping aircraft, they might as well kamikaze into the ships for the same result.

 

[H_K]

Apparently the 880l Israeli centreline tanks avoided this induced drag problem and freed up the wing pylons for ordnance, but I doubt you could find the information needed to make calculation and the subsonic 1300l tanks aren't suitable for wing carriage anyway.

The 1,300L tanks (RP62) can be carried on the wing according to the RAAF Mirage IIIO manual and SAAF documents. Also lots of pictures available of Mirage IIIs in other countries carrying them underwing.

The Israeli centerline tank is variously quoted as 825L (RP825) or 880L. I found a picture of the exact configuration I was envisioning (2x 1300L + 1x 825L) on page 13 here:
https://www.saairforce.co.za/pdf/Mirage III in SAAF Service - Part 9.pdf

Hard to estimate relative drag indices of different configurations. To some extent we can use flat plat size based on known tank diameters, but fin drag and interaction drag is a complex topic. Most likely 2x 1300L + 1x 825L would be draggier than x 1,700L.

Finally, here's a very detailed article on Mirage III fuel tanks in SAAF service here, including dimensions:
https://www.saairforce.co.za/pdf/Mirage III in SAAF Service - Part 9.pdf