JDAM strike mission findings

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Mr_Sukebe

JDAM strike mission findings

Post by Mr_Sukebe »

Muff and I trialled a medium distance JDAM strike to see how we'd get on.
Our guess was that this is likely to be one of the most common scenarios for using the Harrier, i.e. sneaky strike. Whilst the Harrier isn't supersonic, once you start realistically arming most aircraft, it's not actually that much slower than the "fast jets".

Either way, we tried the following:
- Take off from the Tarawa. Full fuel, x4 JSAMs and a couple of empty tanks
- air-fuelled at angels 20 on the way
- Down to low level post re-fuelling
- Cruised @ roughly 80% power for the lead aircraft towards the target
- At -20 miles from the target, accelerated using full mill power
- At -15 miles, split up, with 1 of use going 30 degrees left, the other 30 degrees right
- At -10 miles, re-align on the target, thus meaning that we'd both get to the target at roughly the same time, but from different directions
- At -4 miles, pop up to 3000 feet
- Drop the JDAMs and a shit load of chaff, and then run for cover

Unfortunately, Muff was downed, and I took rear damage to the aircraft from an SA15 site
For all that, we successfully hit 4 targets and I got my plane back to Kobuletti

Learning points:
- All of the above seemed to work
- It would probably work just as well with 2 pairs
- It might well be worth one of the pairs carrying sidewinders for some capability to defend ourselves and the other pair sidearms, which "might" be effective in suppressing local SAM sites (probably not, as they've a bit crap, but you never know).
On reflection, maybe the mix should be 1 sidewinder and 1 sidearm each. Chances of us getting 2 sidearms off as part of a single pass strike are negligible.

One other thought, can we start writing our Flight into the future missions, as it would be great to try them for real.

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