February 2012
Helicopters
  • Air strikes over Libya
  • 1 February 2012

  • By David Cenciotti

  • At a few minutes past midnight on November 1st, 2011, after radioing a “thank you” to the Malta ATC controller, 'OUP 355', an E-3 AWACS of the NATO Airborne Early Warning Component, began an en-route descent to Trapani airbase, in Sicily.

    Since the beginning of the NATO operation at 06.00GMT on March 31st, over 26,500 sorties were conducted, including more than 9,700 strike sorties. These figures do not take into account the first part of the war, from March 19th until the Transfer Of Authority to NATO, when assets flew a significant number of missions under their respective national commands within the U.S.-led Operation Odyssey Dawn.

    Eventually, the air war in Libya was able to end the systematic violation of human rights and the repression of demonstrators, bringing the declaration of the full liberation of Libya by the National Transitional Council and the consequent stabilization of the region. However, the involvement of some weapon systems over Northern Africa became so well known (and, in some cases, overrated) that many have seen the use of air power over Northern Africa as a way to promote various forms of technology; a sort of really expensive marketing operation spurred by the desire of visibility rather than the need to achieve a quick military objective.

    But, beyond the advertising slogans of the manufacturers eager to get export orders and the statements of the high rank officers involved in the air campaign always struggling to preserve their budget from cuts imposed by the global financial crisis, which were the truly decisive weapon systems in Libya?

    Drones

    Capable of silently flying for several hours carrying a wide array of sensors, well above the ceiling of the anti-aircraft weapons in the hands of pro-Gaddafi forces, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) played an important role in Libya. The first drones to operate in the Libyan airspace were the U.S. RQ-4Bs belonging to the 9th Operations Group/Detachment 4th of the US Air Force, based at Naval Air Station Sigonella, in Sicily, the main operating base of the NATO Air Ground Surveillance Global Hawk program. The Global Hawks were the first UAS to be deployed at the beginning of the war when they were used to perform high altitude battle damage assessment sorties on targets located in regions with a residual SAM (Surface-to-Air Missiles) and MANPADS threat.

    On April 21, President Barak Obama authorized the Department of Defense to use armed Predators in Libya and MQ-1s began flying strike sorties in the areas of Misratah and Tripoli. During the air campaign, U.S. Predators launched 145 air strikes firing hundred AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and also took part in the operation that led to the capture and killing of Gaddafi in Sirte, when an MQ-1 teamed up with a mixed flight of a Mirage F1CR and a Mirage 2000D and attacked the huge convoy used by the Libyan dictator in his attempt to flee the city. Also conducting some shorter range ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) activity from U.S. Navy ships off the coast were some MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopters, one of which was lost (for unknown reasons) during a reconnaissance mission over Northern Libya on June 21.

    Alongside the US drones at Sigonella were the French Harfang (a modified version of the Israeli IAI Heron drone) of the Escadron de drones 01.033 “Belfort” from Cognac, while Italy committed to perform unarmed ISR missions using two Italian Air Force Predator B (MQ-9 Reaper) drones that were remotely controlled from the Mobile Ground Control Station at Amendola airbase in southeast Italy. Belonging to the 28° Gruppo of the 32° Stormo the Italian drones flew their first OUP sortie on August 10 and were mainly used to conduct sorties deep inside Libyan territory, over targets that could not be easily reached by other assets.

    In Libya-like scenarios and, generally speaking, in Crisis Support Operations where they do not face numerous high-altitude anti-aircraft missiles, drones have proved to be both effective and cheap: they ensure the coverage of a vast area of interest with the same amount of weapons as a manned aircraft, but at about a fifth of the cost per flight hour. This is of significant advantage in a period of financial crisis, as some nations could divert their ever shrinking budgets from expensive noisy manned fighters to cheaper silent unmanned aircraft.

    Aerial tankers

    Even if the majority of tactical planes involved in the enforcement of the No-Fly Zone and in the air strikes in Libya were stationed in either Southern Italy or Greece, each fighter sortie in support of OUP averaged 8 hours and required five air-to-air refuelings. As a result, at least 6 or 7 tankers were orbiting in the airspace off the Libyan coast at any given time during the war, without taking into consideration those flying to and from their home bases.

    About 45 tankers were at NATO's disposal to support the entire operation, 34 of which belonged to the US Air Force, Air National Guard and Reserve. Without the American refueling force, the air war would not have been sustainable. Along with 80% of all the special operations planes (RC-135s, U-2s, E-8 Joint Stars, EC-130Js providing Electronic Warfare, SIGINT, PSYOPS, etc.), the real added value of Washington’s contribution were the obsolete KC-135s and KC-10s operating from Moron, Istres and RAF Mildenhall, that offloaded hundreds million pounds of fuel to the planes involved in the air campaign.

    Also involved in the operation was the brand new Boeing KC-767A (whose revised version, under the designation KC-46 was selected by the USAF in February 2011 to replace its ageing KC-135s), that was first used at the end of May, a few months after delivery to the Italian Air Force. The new tanker, with a limited flight envelope and not yet certified with all types of receivers, refueled only the Italian assets using the central fuel hose.

    MMRCA contenders

    Shortlisted in the estimated $11 billion “mother of all tenders” for India’s Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) acquisition, the Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon were, among all the aircraft involved in the air strikes, those that attracted the most attention during and after Unified Protector.

    Leading the first strike in Libya to halt the loyalist advance on Benghazi on March 19 and operating from both land bases (Solenzara, in Corsica, and later Sigonella) as well as the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle, the Rafale proved to be, if not “omnirole” as advertised by Dassault, at least “multirole”, conducting Defensive Counter Air, Offensive Counter Air, reconnaissance, air-to-air refueling and also limited SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) strikes. Depending on the type of mission, the Rafale's payload included four IR MICA missiles, GBU-12 Laser Guided Bombs and also some extremely interesting “hardware”, most of which were being used in combat for the first time, such as the Damocles targeting pod, the Reco-NG reconnaissance pod, and the AASM (SBU-38 and 54) “Hammer” which gave the French plane unprecedented operational flexibility and a true capability to be re-tasked in flight.

    The Damocles is a high performance, long range multi-function targeting pod, whose size and features are comparable to those of the Sniper and Litening systems.

    Besides the standard Forward Looking Infra Red navigation and target geo-localisation, and the typical air-to-ground usage with LGBs, INS/GPS-guided and imagery-guided munitions, it can be used for post-strike battle damage assessment, target recognition and surveillance, and also for long-range day and night aerial target identification during combat air patrol, improving pilot’s situational awareness.

    Operational on the fleet since October 2010, the Thales Reco-NG (or Airborne Reconnaissance Observation System – AREOS) was carried by the Rafale on about 45 per cent of all the combat sorties. The Reco-NG is an automatic all weather recce pod integrating new generation sensors and real-time Line Of Sight transmission capability by means of an encrypted data link between the two antennas on the pod and a ground multi-sensor image interpretation and dissemination system. Known as SAIM-NG and also integrated on the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier, the ground segment consists of an image processing and exploitation subsystems, capable of collecting, managing and dispatching high resolution photos with 3D rendition and video, and an analysis module for IMINT (Imagery Intelligence) analysis. The 950 kg 5-meter long pod, uses two sensors: the front optical wide-angle sensor is used for high and medium altitude photography at long and medium range while the aft sensor is used for low-altitude and very high speed.

    The AASM (Air-to-Ground Modular Weapon) is a family of rocket-boosted precision guided munitions including different guidance and propulsion kits for bombs ranging from 125 to 1,000 kg. The version most commonly used by the French planes in Libya was the SBU-38 (Smart Bomb Unit) AASM 250, with hybrid inertial/GPS guidance, and the AASM-IR (SBU-64), combining INS guidance, GPS correction and terminal guidance by means of an infrared imager, for greater accuracy. By improving the capabilities of a standard GPS-guided bomb with the range of a stand-off missile the AASM is the only weapon of its kind that can be used day or night, under all weather conditions at a distance of about 60 km from the target, allowing the French pilots to engage the enemy forces well away from their air defenses. By combining its Spectra integrated defensive aids suite with the AASM-250 the Rafale was also capable of conducting SEAD-like missions identifying, designating and hitting enemy air defenses from outside the so-called SAM-ring.

    Involved for the first time in combat in both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions, the Eurofighter Typhoon amassed more than 4,000 flying hours over Libya. While the Italian Air Force used its F-2000As belonging to the 4° and 36° Stormo (Wing), for DCA and HVAA (High Value Airborne Asset) escort only from Trapani airbase, where the Italian Task Group Air Birgi was settled, the RAF flew both air defense and air interdiction missions from Gioia del Colle, in southeast Italy. The British Typhoon FGR4s flew the majority of the air strikes carrying 500 Kg Enhanced dual mode (laser and GPS/INS) Enhanced Paveway II (EPWII) bombs, in “mixed pair” with Tornado GR4s, armed with Paveway IV and Dual Mode Sensor Brimstone missiles, which provided laser guidance to the weapons released by the Typhoons. In fact, although able to self-designate targets using the Litening III targeting pod, the British Typhoons had only been declared combat capable in the air-to-surface role for two weeks when they were ordered to deploy with only 8 of 48 Typhoon pilots qualified in the air-to-ground missions (as the fleet is expected to achieve full multi-role combat readiness by 2018). For this reasons, the RAF decided to rely on the most experienced two-seat Tornados using a co-operative targeting formula that was performed by the RAF during Desert Storm, when Blackburn Buccaneers carrying the Pave Spike laser designator were deployed to allow the Tornado GR.1s to drop their Laser Guided Bombs from medium altitude.

    A typical mission over Libya averaged 5.5 hours and included several air-to-air refuelings, and saw the Typhoons operating with a pair of AMRAAMs, two ASRAAM, two tanks, a Litening pod and two EPWIIs. Even if the British fighters flew with heavier armaments they were capable of cruising at 40,000 feet, to climb over thundercloud activity en route to the area of operation improving its already good fuel rate statistics, while other planes were forced to re-route.

    The baptism of fire in the air interdiction role arrived on April 12, 2011, when a Typhoon on combat patrol over western Libya engaged two Main Battle Tanks to the south of Misratah dropping two EPWII bombs on separate targets in one pass. The Typhoon completed 594 missions, logging over 3,000 hours and the Tornado completed 1,472 missions, logging over 8,000 hours.

    RAPTOR, Brimstone and Storm Shadow

    Although the war in Libya reinforced the need for low-cost combat planes, like the AMX light ground attack jet, once again the Tornado, in spite of a significantly higher hourly operating cost, proved to be an effective multirole aircraft and had a leading role in OUP. For example, along with the US planes operating from Aviano (F-16CJ, EA-18G Growler and EA-6B Prowler) Italy’s Tornado ECR was the only specialized SEAD asset of Unified Protector, whereas its Tornado IDSs provided interdiction, reconnaissance and buddy refueling.

    Britain committed to Operation Unified Protector a force of up to 16 “Tonkas” which were deployed alongside the Typhoons at Gioia del Colle; four of them were used to perform reconnaissance with the RAPTOR digital photo recon pod. The RAPTOR is a dual-band (electro-optical and infrared) oblique-photography pod with a stand-off range that allows the Tornado to spot targets at 44 miles during daylight and at 22 miles at night minimizing the aircraft exposure to enemy’s anti-aircraft systems. The pod is controlled by the Tornado Weapon Systems Officers who can use the optical sensors to get daytime high-resolution motion-free photographs even in poor weather conditions.

    For battlefield air interdiction sorties RAF Tornados usually carried a single three-missile launcher for the Brimstones within a configuration which included 500 lbs Paveway IV LGBs. Brimstones are 50 kg anti-armour fire-and-forget missiles developed by MBDA from the Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire. Optimized for release from fast moving platforms, these small guided missiles have a range of 7.5 miles and use a millimeter wave (mmW) radar seeker with a semi-active laser (SAL) that enables final guidance to the target by either the launching platform or another plane, and are perfect for small targets, individuals, buildings and fast-moving vehicles.

    Heavier and more costly than Paveway IIs and IVs, Brimstones emerged as the most useful weapons in the UK’s arsenal during the war in Libya. With a warhead of 9 kg, capable of destroying a vehicle with very low collateral damage risk, and with an accuracy of about 1 – 2 meters, the dual-mode (radar – laser) missile proved to be the weapons of choice of the RAF Tornados when engaging ground vehicles.

    British Tornados carried Storm Shadow stand-off missiles that were used to destroy elements of Colonel Gaddafi’s military command and control facilities located in central Libya.

    Noteworthy, the Storm Shadows were not launched by the forward located Tornados, but from those departing from RAF Marham, during controversial 8-hour round-trip missions that entailed increased cost and organizational effort. Considering the hourly cost of a RAF Tornado (around 35K GBP), the fuel required to support the long-range strikes, and the lack of any significant anti-aircraft threat that rendered stand-off missiles almost superfluous, these operations, like many others of the air war in Libya, resembled as expensive “propaganda” events driven by the need to prove the service’s capabilities or test some weapon system against real targets, rather than essential war missions.