Thread by @MikeBlack114

I'm bored and can't sleep so here's a quick thread on the history of SEAD weapons

CC @_Dan_Ryan

https://twitter.com/AirPowerUnicorn/status/1100947290301321216

When the US military first started developing dedicated Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) missions during Vietnam (Iron Hand for the Navy, Wild Weasel for the USAF), the preferred weapons were napalm, cluster bombs, and unguided rockets

(That's a two-seat F-100F WW)

These weapons were, uh, considerably outranged by the North Vietnamese SA-2s, also the SAM sites were ringed with AAA so using gravity weapons which forced an overflight was an, ah, suboptimal TTP

YGBSM indeed

The Naval Weapons Center at China Lake started developing the AGM-45 Shrike in the early '60s. It was based on the AIM-7, and was put into service in Vietnam in the mid-60s

Pros:
-anti-radiation seeker that allowed for stand-off (ish) guided (ish) attacks on SA-2 sites

Cons:

-seeker only worked if radar continued radiating, if it stopped while en route missile went stupid

-outranged and slower than SA-2 (so you had to shoot from inside the ring, and the SA-2 would get to you before the Shrike got to the site)

Cons, cont'd:

-being based on the Sparrow it had the same shit motor that tended to not perform well in the humid SEA climate

-the blast frag warhead, while adequate for downing an aircraft, was barely adequate for destroying a radar and definitely did no more than that

To attempt to rectify the shortcomings of the Shrike, the Navy began developing the AGM-78 Standard ARM, or the Starm. It was based on the Navy's Standard SAM (variants of which are still in use today). It brought a larger warhead, more effective seeker, and longer ranged motor

Unforunately it was also gigantic and expensive ($200K vs $7K for a Shrike) so use was limited...shoot a Shrike to get a site to turn off as a "soft" suppression and then follow it up with a Starm if it came back online while the strike package was still in range was a common TTP

As an aside, the Brits borrowed a couple Shrikes for one of the Black Buck missions during the Falklands Adventure, where a shitload of tankers sustained one Vulcan to employ a couple munitions against Argentine facilities on the islands just to prove a point

The first couple strikes employed bombs on the runway at Port Stanley, some of the following strikes attempted to employ Shrikes against the Argentine radars at Port Stanley

They didn't accomplish much besides demonstrating the British were pissed enough to do all that

In the late '70s the Navy began to develop a replacement for both the Shrike and Starm, the AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile). It was an attempt to combine the best of both: long ranged motor, powerful warhead, wideband seeker with memory capability, and small size

The HARM was a relatively successful system, while it had some effectiveness and suitability issues it was successfully employed in multiple conflicts

(F-4G WW loaded up with HARMs and Mavericks, also a picture of a European One F-4G WW because the paint job is cool)

I memtioned the RAF and Shrike...in the early '80s they identified an ARM requirement. HARM was offered, as was an indigenous design, Air-Launched Anti-Radiation Missile (ALARM)

In standard British fashion they went indigenous even though it cost more and didn't do anything else

The one thing ALARM brought was a "loiter" capability; if the radar shut down after firing the missile would go to altitude and deploy a parachute waiting for the radar to re-illuminate

Here's a couple Tornados ready to go SA-6 hunting

As an aside in the late '80s the US also developed Sidearm...an ARM based on the AIM-9C, a Sidewinder variant with semi-active radar guidance. It was intended to provide a limited ARM capability for other platforms.....like Harrier or Cobra, which is an "interesting" TTP

Another missile the US developed in the '80s was Tacit Rainbow. It was intended as a cheap, long ranged, mass produced cruise-missile-drone hybrid, capable of being launched in large numbers ahead of a strike package and loitering while waiting for enemy radars to radiate

Unfortunately it was not cheap or long ranged, which kind of defeated the whole point. It was cancelled in '91 after blowing $4B

Here's a couple being loaded on a BUFF, which was intended to carry 30...which would have been quite a SEAD platform

Currently the USAF's main SEAD asset is the F-16 equipped with the HARM Targeting System, while the Navy's is the EA-18G Growler. Both employ upgraded variants of the AGM-88, and both retain air to air self protect capability (the Growler also brings Electronic Attack)

The future of SEAD is likely heading towards a model closer to the Tacit Rainbow...there are various systems in work that plan to employ low cost drone/intelligent munitions using swarm tactics to overwhelm/outsmart advanced IADS

So there's your brief history of SEAD munitions, I didn't touch Eastern Bloc stuff so only 19 tweets @AirPowerUnicorn