Danish Draken avionics

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yahya

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Danish Drakens seem to have been the most upgraded versions of the Saab 35 Draken along with certain Austrian ones. They received US-made avionics, which supplemented the original ones, including the AN/ALR-45, AN/ALR-65 or AN/ALR-69 RWRs and the AN/ALQ-162 ECM pods, and what seems to be the AN/APX-72 or later IFF/SIF plus a large HSI. This website lacks precise details and nomenclature of avionic pieces: http://www.aircraftinformation.info/art_draken.htm#danish. Can someone help compile the exact list ofavionics and instruments carried by modernized Danish Drakens please?
 
The Danish Drakens got retired 30 years ago, when the F-16 took over fulltime.
You should try to ask the RDAF, Flyvevåbnet, themselves, im sure that they can answer your questions or see if there is any dedicated Facebook groups for/by retired Draken pilots.
Back then we had dedicated air to ground platforms, whose sole purpose was either attacking Polish airfields or providing CAS for the Danish/German division, fighting in such dangerous airspace, may explain why they had so state-of-the-art equipment.
For some reason we "agreed" with the Polish forces that they would attack us with their Marines and we would attack them with our airforce :-D
An eye for an eye.

Fun fact:
I actually had the honour of seeing one of the last official flights of two Draken´s in formation with two F-16´s in the early 90´s.
And funny enough, i saw the first official flight of RDAF F-35, escorted by a F-16, over my area, one or two days after they officially landed in Denmark.
 
Thank you for the interesting info, especially the prospect Cold War intrusions into Poland. I wonder how long a Draken could survive in the 1970s/1980s air defense environment of combined Polish and Soviet Northern Group of Forces and their AD and air forces?
 
Target over pilot.
The pilot was expected to atleast try to get through to the target, but RDAF realised that, that could quite possibly be a suicide mission.
Therefore they had a relative good network of helpers scattered around the planned routes.
I read that in one of the books i have of either Cold War airforces or the book about the F-16 (now) 42 year service in RDAF.

And in the 70´s - 90´s alcohol and cigarette smuglers route between Denmark and Poland was good business, perhaps those smuglers was not dealt with properly so that they had the network in place so they could help getting a spy/saboteur to Poland and a pilot back to Denmark, and im sure that Poland had the same idea.
 
Well, I expected such to be suicide missions. Still, even if the helpers on the ground were indeed available within the totalitarian regimes, what kind of help could they provide in a dense EW and AD environment with numerous SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-8 etc. and MANPADS? Avoiding the missile launchers would be rather a 'mission impossible' challenge. Also, flying over the Baltic Sea, and not over the GDR, even at low level, would make the Drakens even more 'visible' to the EW radars I guess. So, was the role of the ground helpers limited to providing recce and E&E routes for big $$$ if a downed pilot managed to avoid capture? Did RDAF consider using cruise missiles instead of Drakens in the 1970 or 1980 against WarPac targets?
 
They could be spies and help retrieve, hide and safely transport any shot down pilots.
Dont forget that Poland is huge, it is wrong to think that every m2 was defended and radar covered.
In peacetime our F-16 are allowed to go down to 30m AGL over water and in demonstrations they often come 10 - 20m AGL, and since Denmark is practically surrounded by sea i assume that the pilots giving that job, was pretty confident in that job.
But again, its war, the only two guarantee in war is that you can lose and die.

Denmark did not have anything like cruisemissiles, we are a small NATO country not even capable to defend our own country.
Denmarks purpose in NATO was/is to provide, i believe, two Army divisions joining them with Germany and the Navy´s task is to delay, not prevent, Soviet/Russian Navy assets getting through to the North Sea together with Finland, Sweden and Norway.
Denmark consist mainly of Jutland peninsula, Funen (Fyn), Zealand (Sjælland) and Bornholm.
The Cold War plans was to sacrifice Funen, Zealand and Bornholm to protect the important habour at Esbjerg and the NATO headquarter at Karup Airbase (ICAO EKKA).
Back then we had many more airbase than we have now scattered aorund the country, but money and politics took those away.
Since the above is islands they are a military nightmare, so it was quickly realised that it was best to give a short but hournable fight, aminly using the Army Homeguard (Hjemmeværnet) and then ditch them, of course that was not the official oppinion, since the capital, Copenhagen is situation at the eastern most part of Zealand.
 
I wonder if heavily laden Drakens were stable enough during flight to allow very low level intrusions like the RDAF F-16s you mentioned, obviously if Cold War hostilities ever erupted. I also wonder how the intrusions could have been made back then given the GDR's air defenses, the cliffs of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (unless the RDAF was to avoid GDR's airspace in overflight toward Poland), and, I presume, dense air defense network operated by the East Germans, Soviets and Poles, with the long range VHF early warning and more precise tracking and fire control radars. The northern and western part of Poland was apparently stuffed with military units and AD, both Polish and Soviet. Anything that departed from Bornholm could have been detected from the south.

As far as the Eastern Block's threat is concerned, I think that your country already experienced Soviet occupation of Bornholm in 1945-1946.
 
When i mentioned how low the F-16´s was allowed to go, it is often in a clean configuration, i have never seen, not even at airshows, a F-16 at 30ft/10m AGL with anything, but of course they are capable at that, but at which speed and how stable they are i dont know, neither do i know that for the Drakens.

Yes, the waters between Funen, Zealand, Germany, Poland and Bornholm would be flooded with activity, air, marine and navy, so perhaps they would just "melt in" in all the radarreturns, and if we consider the immense EW in such a situation i dont know if the pilots situation would be that bad, relative speaking.
If they got to target and was coming back, i guess that returning to friendly lines from the enemy side would be a VERY exciting moment.
I have tried that as an infantryman in the Army, and i can tell you that coordination and strict control/procedure of movement is required to avoid friendly fire.
I assume that practically all COMM´s and perhaps even radionavigation equipment would be either jammed or knocked out, so i guess they would have to rely on time, speed, direction = position.
And dont forget that if the Polish Marines was coming over the water, they would also have all of their forces thrown into the fray.

Correct, Bornholm was liberated by the Soviet forces, kicking the Nazi´s out.
Depending on who you ask, the Soviets was not seen as a occupation force, they where seen as liberators.
The Nazi´s where, from day one, seen as a occupation force.
 
Thank you for the comments and the map. I think that similar maps depicting WarPac assault on, inter alia, Denmark were released in the recent years in Poland. Interestingly, the one you posted seems to depict a potential aerial counterattack against Poland via Denmark on the 18th day of 'WW III.' I am not sure which year the map originates from. Is it from the 1970s or 1980s? Anyway, was Draken's operating range with ordnance sufficient to make an intrusion into the central part of Poland and then to return to Denmark?
 
I have no idea when the map was released sorry.
I cant find any "combat radius/range" with a certain loadout, but since the mission most likely would be flow low - low - high with perhaps a pair of tanks and a few bombs i dont think that the range would be impressive.
Dont forget that afterburner may be used and at ground level fuelconsumption would be high.
At Bornholm there was, and still is, Rønne/Bornholm Airport, but its a small 2000m asphalt runway, that maybe could be used as the take-off/landing airfield.
From Bornholm to Poland is just a short flight in a Draken.
I do not know the required take-off run for a fully loaded Draken, but i assume that 2000m would be enough.
 
Without getting acquainted with the WarPac Polish plans of assault on Denmark we will never know if Bornholm and its Rønne airport were to be attacked only or invaded by the Cold War Poles and the Soviets. That would further limit the usage of Drakens.

I am fully aware of the high fuel consumption of jets while flying at low altitude or when using afterburners. Meanwhile, there is actually a scarcity of information giving the real range or combat radius of Drakens in various ordnance setups.

By the way, can you confirm that there was a sort of understanding between Denmark and the Soviets during the Cold War that only Danish forces could be stationed on Bornholm, and not the ones from other NATO countries? Reportedly the Soviets threatened to interpret the presence of non-Danish NATO forces on Bornholm as a possible casus belli.
 
I do not have any knowledge about that sorry, but it would seem plausible.
Bornholm could be a staging area for a NATO pre-emptive strike.
Rønne may have a small airport, but Bornholm have plenty of roads that could be used for planes and helicopters.

I noticed at the last Open Sky flight performed by Russia over Danish territory, i believe it was back in 20 - 21, that they were very interested in Bornholm, circling each "corner" several times, and the plane actually came right over my area, i was lucky enough to snap a photo of it, confirming the planes identity.
If i remember correct there is some relative substantial installations of ELINT interest on Bornholm, which have had been there for many decades, which again would make perfect sense with the Baltic states just to the east and Poland "just across the water".
 

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