Libya

Any nation relying on earlier Soviet-era systems as the bulk of its strategic air defense network is in serious trouble when the fighting starts. Yeah, I'm looking at you, North Korea and Iran. Propaganda can't shoot down F-15s. I'm willing to bet that the fact that Qaddafi's IADS was rendered impotent in less than 12 hours is going to be a wake up call to Iran and result in a very wide open pocketbook. There's your reason for China's abstention rather than veto. They made their political statement, now they get to see if they can cash in since the Russians are afraid to sign a deal.
 
Dragon029 said:
bobbymike said:
Any word on F-22 deployment?
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All I know on that topic:
"Under questioning from Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said it would be his "expectation" that F-22 fighters "would be in use" during "the early days" of a no-fly zone mission."

However, 3 B-2's have struck "a major Libyan airfield".
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3 B-2s X 40 bombs total according to your link, 2000 pound bunker busters?

So A-stan, Iraq and Libya. How about Iran and call it Operation Clean Sweep? Or we can land a few divisions and call it Operation Torch II.
 
Nah, I don't believe this operation will be a full blown invasion. There is only consensus for a no fly zone at this time.
 
I've heard 114 Tomahawk cruise missiles taking out radar/SAM sites, four B-2s with 16 2,000-lb JDAMs each to whipe out a primary air force base. -SP
 
After German News
the French Rafale, Mirage 2000.
with British Eurofighter, Tornados
and Italian F-18
have clean sky over Libya and start cleanup under Gagadafif ground forces...
 
Michel Van said:
After German News
the French Rafale, Mirage 2000.
with British Eurofighter, Tornados
and Italian F-18
have clean sky over Libya and start cleanup under Gagadafif ground forces...
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You mean those super-secret Italian F-18s we'd been saving for the special occasions? ;)
 
...the Italian contribute, other than bases, command centers and logistic, is made of four Eurofighter F-2000A Typhoon for air superiority role and four Panavia EA-200A Tornado It.ECR for SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense). Near Lybian waters there is also the Giuseppe Garibaldi aircraft carrier with six McDonnell-Douglas AV-8B+ Harrier II Plus multi-purpose fighters and two helicopters.
Naturally, other aircraft are available at short notice as F-16A and other Typhoon and Tornado.
Nico
 
Typhoon's:

http://forum.scramble.nl/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=72285

B-2's

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?195684-Todays-Photos-Monday-21th-March-2011
 
According to Defensetech.org the SSGN USS Florida fired cruise missiles the first time this weapon system has been used in combat operations.
 
I wonder what technical problem can bring down an F-15E. Seems to me there is plenty of redundancy to limp back home unless they were actually hit by enemy action.
 
Any number of things -- an engine bay fire, for example, or a major hydraulic failure, etc. If an F-15 were so redundant that no possible casualty could destroy one except enemy action, why would there be any non-combat losses at all?
 
TomS said:
Any number of things -- an engine bay fire, for example, or a major hydraulic failure, etc. If an F-15 were so redundant that no possible casualty could destroy one except enemy action, why would there be any non-combat losses at all?
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That's the thing. When was the last time you heard of an F-15E going down due to causes attributable to the aircraft itself rather than pilot error? The things you mentioned can and do happen, but by themselves should not be enough to cause the loss. It has to be more than one thing happening simultaneously. I would be surprised if the F-15 designers had left a single-point failure feature in the aircraft. Anyway, the crew is safe, so we're likely to find out at one point or another.
 
"Not due to hostile action" doesn't mean "not pilot error". One F-15E went down in Afghanistan in 2009, also described as a non-combat loss. Turns out the cause was CFIT during a practice strafing run. Now, that specific cause isn't likely here, but there's a whole gamut of things, both mechanical and non-mechanical, that could have downed this aircraft. Absent some specific evidence of hostile action, why assume the official sources are lying?
 
TomS said:
"Not due to hostile action" doesn't mean "not pilot error". One F-15E went down in Afghanistan in 2009, also described as a non-combat loss. Turns out the cause was CFIT during a practice strafing run. Now, that specific cause isn't likely here, but there's a whole gamut of things, both mechanical and non-mechanical, that could have downed this aircraft. Absent some specific evidence of hostile action, why assume the official sources are lying?
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Nah, no conspiracy involved here. To what end, anyway?
I'm just curious because the loss was not due to enemy action, and whatever it was, it was bad enough to overcome built-in redundancy but left enough time for the crew to eject. i'm going to toss a wild guess...Multiple birdstrikes?
 
Oops, sorry for jumping to conclusions. I've got no guesses myself. We'll see what the rumor mill churns out over the next few days.
 
Some interesting What if... information by Steven Trimble from The DEW Line blog at Flight Global.

"Why the West dodged a Russian bullet over Libya"

To challenge the no-fly-zone imposed by a Western-led coalition, the Libyan Air Force has not launched a newly-acquired fleet of state-of-the-art four Sukhoi Su-30s and 12-15 Su-35s. It has not activated an integrated network of recently-delivered S-300 air defense missiles. And Muammar Gaddafi's loyalist force have not overwhelmed the rebellion with several dozen T-90 main battle tanks.

Sometimes it's worth considering the close-calls of history, and a major arms deal between Russia and Libya in 2008 may be one of them.

Slightly less than three years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived at Tripoli's only five-star hotel, the Corinthia Baab Afriqiya, to meet with Gaddafi. Putin promptly forgave $4.5 billion of Libya's Soviet-era debt in return for Libya's commitment to buy a $1.8 billion arms package, which included all of the weapon systems listed in the first paragraph above.

For reasons lost (at the moment) to history, the deal apparently was never finalized. The only contract signed by Libya for new military aircraft since Putin's meeting in Tripoli involved six Yakovlev Yak-130 jet trainers, and they're not scheduled for delivery until later this year or next.
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Source:
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/03/why-the-west-dodged-a-russian.html
 
Good thing that the Strike Eagle crew made it out OK.

There's on-site reporting from British journalists though, that the Osprey (with other unidentified assets?) CSAR operation came in weapons hot; I recognize the need to take no risks but from what I understand the crowd that had assembled around the crash site (south of rebel-held Benghazi) would've been hard to mistake for Gaddafi's (Khadhavy's? The spelling varies ...) elite troops. The F-15 pilots were in fact greeted with the now apparently commonplace "Welcome to Libya!" chant. I wonder whether the pilot or the WSO could've somehow communicated to the CSAR mission that they were - for all current purposes - with "friendlies"? At least one elderly Libyan man got hit by shrapnel and his 20-year old son was more seriously wounded in his leg, requiring a partial amputation. The man, when interviewed afterwards, expressed confusion over the aggressive posture adopted by the US CSAR mission but professed his continued support for "Odyssey Dawn". Still, the phase, situational awareness and parameters (no "official" boots on the ground) of the operation as they currently stand seem to leave much room for confusion. That can all too easily lead to unnecessary antipathy, exploited by the truly "unfriendly" elements which abound (at least in ambition) in the region.

Thankfully there's little evidence of the civilian casualties that the Gaddafi regime claims to have occurred in Tripoli, with some propaganda efforts to stage funerals being so entirely botched they've been outright laughable.

On the "confusion" note still, NBC's Richard Engel (also in eastern Libya) reports that not all the "rebels" seem to amount to much at present. He's seen ragtag outfits just driving around and asking locals where the fighting might be "at", rebel "fighters" so inept they're having serious trouble figuring out how to load their weapons, and crazy rumors circling around since there's not much in the way of reliable communications (some claiming to fight ol' Muammar because he's "jewish", of all things ...). This isn't anything like the organisation, backbone, strategizing and overall thought the Egyptian protesters put into their effort. As impressive as the combined air and sea assets of the coalition are, I can't imagine that for this kind of messiness they can possibly compensate for. At least if we want any kind of an acceptable outcome, internationally or in humanitarian terms (never mind the official objectives, chains of command and mandates being fuzzy). People outside the country need to get ahead of these problems as far as the getting remains good. There's apparently plenty of PsyOp and communications assets (e.g. the slightly humorously named "Commando Solo") that can be brought to bare - but the all too evident confusion might indicate that civilians' (and rebels') need for information is being overlooked, just isn't getting through or is somehow largely ineffective.

The payoff for establishing a central radio station, setting up a rudimentary cell/data network, and distributing a huge amount of cheap handsets and wind up radios in rebel controlled areas could prove to be quite significant, not to mention very cost effective? (Storm Shadows' and Tomahawks' hardware cost alone is said to be ~$1M/bang).

Edit: Just fixed some typos, don't know about readability still ...
 
Uh, what's this all about? Really? Just keeping Qadafi from terrorizing his people or just rearranging more of the Middle East to suit Western interests? Interesting how Hosni Mubarak is off the map after 30 years.

Not trying to defend anyone just looking for that clear and present danger thing.




Ed
 
UpForce said:
Good thing that the Strike Eagle crew made it out OK. There's on-site reporting from British journalists though ...
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Found some more reporting on the Strike Eagle CSAR: This time from the NYT (link). Details slightly different from what I remembered from earlier accounts of the evens. Not sure if it's any less confusing though, Marine Harriers dropping two 500 lbs bombs and all. Certainly conflicting info on hether there was light arms fire and from whom.

edwest said:
Uh, what's this all about? Really? Just keeping Qadafi from terrorizing his people or just rearranging more of the Middle East to suit Western interests? Interesting how Hosni Mubarak is off the map after 30 years. Not trying to defend anyone just looking for that clear and present danger thing. Ed
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That would surely depend on who you'd ask an even where. It's a sort of a "bizarro 2003" where the French are all gung ho about imposing regime change and not even shy about saying so (and going solo after Gaddafi ground forces before the rest of the coalition had time to say "cat" just to get the "operational tone" "right" fom the get go, but then again southern Europe is where a lot of north African people will end up if things don't get settled fairly quickly - and France, I think, has a north African descendant population rivalling entire Libya's already) and the US is timid to even use "war rhetoric", preferring to cut hairs with "enabling the enforcement of UN resolution 1973" and whatever. Considering that unwitting civilians are facing main battle tank sized equipment (being indiscriminately used) over many cities does form a pretty solid moral imperative, that much is clear. Also in true despot form, the next generation of Gaddafis is already lining up so it's not that surprising people might perceive an uprising to be a viable option.

Separating interests and making sense of them beyond that seems very hard to me. The whole Middle East is in such a flux that I bet even professional intelligence analysts are having to prioritize and improvise. Daily presidential briefings on everything "important" would make such hefty volumes he wouldn't probably have time to read it all within the 24 h before the next one lands on the desk already. With ~6.5M people Libya does tend to shrink in significance compared to the likes of the Saudis, Iran and Pakistan. I can understand the reluctance to shift even this many assets away from the Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf area. But in a way that whole swath of World comprising North Africa, Middle East and the Caucasus appears to be one big "Clearandpresentistan". Obama took a much more literal (and restrictive) line on presidential authority when he was a senator; being a constitutonal scholar and all. Maybe that's another reason why the White House avoids "war rhetoric".

There's the promise of course, pretty unequivocal, that the "coalition" will take the lead from the US within the next days. Considering everything it's probably for the best that responsibilities are shared and the US's capabilities can be (re)focused on the "biggest of the baddies" so they don't get any more ideas than they already harbor. It's going to be interesting to see for how long the Europeans (plus Canadians perhaps) can stomach daily "enforcement" costs (perhaps) in excess of $100M or so. Some arab states have been at least nominally persuaded to chip in, but given the entirety of their various problem dynamics I wouldn't hold my breath on them coming through on anyting much that is substantive. But we can only hope that a couple of oases of calm determination and international commitment can be found there as well. Many of them get a whole lot of proceeds from selling the stuff that keeps armies moving, after all.

Russia, China and India are busy looking intently the other way from all this though mr. Putin deigned to label the operation a "crusade" which is markedly not helpful.

I don't know, maybe I need to add more "Foreign Policy" magazine and "Small Wars Journal" to my reading list. As it if wasn't demanding already. Or optionally move to somewhere remote enough so I don't have to care about having information, opinions or informed opinions.
 
AeroFranz said:
That's the thing. When was the last time you heard of an F-15E going down due to causes attributable to the aircraft itself rather than pilot error? The things you mentioned can and do happen, but by themselves should not be enough to cause the loss. It has to be more than one thing happening simultaneously. I would be surprised if the F-15 designers had left a single-point failure feature in the aircraft. Anyway, the crew is safe, so we're likely to find out at one point or another.
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Who says this wasn't pilot error? USAF has lost two F-15Es to accidents in war zones before (one each in Iraq and Afghanistan). It is more than possible that the plane departed controlled flight due or via fuel exhaustion and was lost this way.
 
Triton said:
Some interesting What if... information by Steven Trimble from The DEW Line blog at Flight Global.
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Yay more S300 hype. Its not as if NATO and friends air forces haven't spent the past 20 years training on taking down S-300 and other "double digit" ex Soviet SAMs with actual threat systems. Damn we missed a chance to wipe out a S-300 force and finally put to bed this element of air power ranting.
 
Abraham Gubler said:
Yay more S300 hype. Its not as if NATO and friends air forces haven't spent the past 20 years training on taking down S-300 and other "double digit" ex Soviet SAMs with actual threat systems. Damn we missed a chance to wipe out a S-300 force and finally put to bed this element of air power ranting.
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The "hype" won't stop until we face a competent, modern IADS. The last time that happened was arguably in Vietnam.
 
Gaddafi does seem to still have a few cards up his sleve though. For example at least some of the SA-6 sites apear to be protected by pretty effective deployable emissions decoys.
 
Based on the increasing lack of success NATO's airstrikes are having against Gaddafi's forces in the field, it would appear that Gaddafi has taken a leaf out of the British WWII Desert war playbook and is using decoy vehicles, i.e. civilian and obsolete military vehicles dressed up as modern military equipment, including tanks and SPGs. Of course these days, their thermal and EM signatures would need to be fudged at least, but that wouldn't be too hard. In fact, I would say that it's highly likely that the 'SA-8' which that predator was supposed to have taken out last week was such a decoy. Tough on the crew, but, crews would probably be mostly made up of conscripts anyway, and Gaddafi has plenty to spare :mad: .

Remember, Gaddafi has had literally decades to prepare for rainy days (so to speak), such as the situation he finds himself now. I wouldn't be surprised if he had production lines set up for the things. He might even have enough to equip entire diversionary forces just like the British did in WWII, albeit with volunteers manning them. A bit of Electronic Warfare, and bob's your uncle, as the Brits like to say.

With munitions running so low that the French are being forced to use concrete training bombs on targets (avoiding collateral damage me eye), Gaddafi's mining of the sea approaches to Misrata having seemingly put paid to the proposed plan to sealift rebel reinforcements there, at least until NATO can get Mine Warfare vessels in there, and the Rebels having lost even the minor gains they'd made in the last week to government counterattacks, not to mention that blotched decapitation strike, I'd say that this nominally NATO campaign has already become a textbook example of a 'Charlie Fox'.

And, in other insanities:

Libyan Rebels Already Talking to Defense Contractors


So, the Libyan rebels are already meeting with major defense contractors. Officials from Italian defense giant Finmeccanica say they have met with representatives from the rebel movement to discuss buying helicopters along with border control and railroad technology. Wild. Apparently, the rebels plan on honoring millions of euros worth of contracts signed by the Gadhafi regime.

From Defense News:

Representatives of Libyan rebels fighting Col. Moammar Gadhafi have told Finmeccanica that they will honor the Italian firm’s Libyan contracts should they take over the country, a Finmeccanica official said.

Before civil conflict erupted in Libya in February, Finmeccanica was expecting to see between 250 million and 350 million euros in revenue this year from contracts signed with Gadhafi’s government, mainly covering border control systems, government service helicopters and civil transport.

The firm’s current backlog of orders from Libya stands at 800 million euros, 80 percent of which is related to transportation contracts, Finmeccanica has said.

“We have met with the interim government, and they have told us all present contracts would be confirmed,” said Finmeccanica CFO Alessandro Pansa, referring to the Benghazi-based rebels.

“They are interested in border control and railway systems,” he told analysts in a conference call April 28 to coincide with the release of Finmeccanica’s first-quarter results.

Finmac owns helicopter-maker AgustaWestland (who builds the AW109 pictured above) and train-builder AnsaldoBreda, (you’ve probably taken a ride on their subway cars).


http://defensetech.org/2011/04/29/libyan-rebels-already-talking-to-defense-contractors/
 
The Swedish Air Force uses our JAS 39 Gripen over Libya. Our government only allows the pilots to take on Libyan aircrafts (if they find them) and to do recce missions - though it's OK to aim and lock on targets for Danish strike fighters. Hurm.

Ah well, it's better than nothing, and the Swedish contribution seems to be appreciated by the Coalition.
 
Word has come through via the BBC and MSNBC that the rebels are claiming to have captured Misrata's Airport. Given how inaccurate, at best, other previous reports coming out of Misrata have proven to be, I'm sceptical for now.
 

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