Ops-Normal.org

ian16th wrote: ↑

Sat May 02, 2020 7:21 pm

In 1962 we did an exercise where we kept one Vulcan airborne with sufficient fuel to head for somewhere in the Warsaw Pact.

This was done with re-fuelling by 214 Sqdn Valiant's. We readied 3 a/c to launch 2, every 8 hours for 2 weeks.
We didn't have any extra heads, we split the existing heads into 3 shifts.
We were in a mess at the end. Nearly every a/c on the Sqdn was knackered and we bodies were.
I was way too junior to be informed of any post-mortem conclusions, but it was blindingly obvious that to do the job permanently needed many more a/c and heads.

Orbital Transport-und-Raketen Aktiengesellschaft, Germany. Manufacturer of rocket engines and rockets. $200 million was spent from 1975-1987 by Lutz Kayser in a serious attempt to develop a low-cost satellite launcher using clusters of mass-produced pressure-fed liquid propellant modules. The project was finally squelched by the German government under pressure from the Soviet and French?

In the early 1970's Willy Brandt's Ministry of Science and Technology solicited a contract for demonstration of launch vehicle technology an order of magnitude cheaper and more reliable than existing boosters. Lutz Kayser's research company won the contract and developed a radically new rocket technology, making more than 20 inventions in the process.

Kayser's concept involved the parallel clustering of large numbers of identical propellant tank and rocket engine modules. This allowed the application of mass production techniques as used in the automobile industry. This in turn resulted in cost reduction by a factor of 10. This breakthrough and the static testing in of prototype modules at Lampoldshausen stirred concern in the competitive aerospace industry. The established space launch companies were accustomed to making easy guaranteed profits through high cost plus fixed fee government contracts.

In order to exploit this low-cost rocket technology on a commercial basis Kayser founded OTRAG (Orbital Transport und Raketen AG) in Stuttgart. It was the world's first commercial launcher development, production and launch company.

Wernher von Braun and Kurt Debus, the leading managers of American rocketry, were so enthusiastic about the project that they joined the team after their retirement from NASA. Their contribution was important and helped to introduce lessons learned from earlier programs. Von Braun introduced the concept of parallel clustering of tanks and engines with his Saturn I design. This had shown the way towards the low-cost breakthrough 20 years earlier. However, both rocket pioneers were in doubt whether this technology should be flight tested in developing countries because of the possibility that it would be misused for weapons. Kayser optimistically hoped he would be able to limit the technology to commercial satellite launchings. He was to be proven wrong and suffered heavy financial losses as a result.

In December 1975 OTRAG signed an agreement with the Congolese government to establish a rocket range at Shaba (Katanga). Here a pad and gantry were erected and flight tests began in 1977. Logistic support was via antique British Argosy transports landing at a dirt strip on a plateau overlooking the jungle.

In the face of doubts by Debus and von Braun, Kayser chose in 1975 to set up testing and launch facilities in Shaba, Zaire (now Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Debus and von Braun were concerned about the possibility of Zairian acquisition of missile technology from the facilities. Kayser decided to proceed despite their opposition.

The Blowpipe is a man-portable Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) system; a weapon also commonly called a MAN-Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS). It was developed in the United Kingdom by Short Brothers and Harland, and is now officially a Thales product. It is a highly unusual weapon for its class, due to its guidance and fuzing method, but its defining attributes also ended up making the Blowpipe the most ineffective MANPADS weapon ever fielded.

The trial by fire for the Blowpipe was the Falklands War, during which it was used by both sides. More than 200 were launched by both sides, 95 by the British alone, but the results were shocking --- initial reports showed that the British Blowpipes had shot-down only 9 aircraft, and further inquiries revealed only one aircraft (Argentine Aermacchi MB.339 #0766) had actually been destroyed. The Argentine forces had the same experience, having launched over 100 Blowpipes at British aircraft, but only scoring one confirmed kill (RAF Harrier GR3 #XZ972). Even Blowpipes launched at helicopters failed to destroy the targets. When British and Argentine combat records were cross-referenced later in the 1980s, the evidence confirmed that MB.339 #0766 and Harrier GR3 #XZ972 were indeed the only aircraft shot-down by Blowpipes, after numerous launches by both sides. Simply put, the Blowpipe's trial by fire was a fiasco.

The poor showing of the Blowpipe in the Falklands is even more grim, when one also considers that none of the Argentine aircraft had radar warning receivers or self-protection jammers, and little jamming support was available to the British forces. This suggests that the Blowpipe would have been essentially unusable against the Warsaw Pact, who not only had extensive jamming capabilities, but had also equipped all of their combat aircraft with radar warning receivers by the time the Blowpipe entered service.

The second conflict in which the Blowpipe was employed was the Soviet War in Afghanistan, in which the Mujahedeen rebels were clandestinely supplied with Blowpipe missiles via US and British intelligence services. Its performance in this conflict was even worse, with the Mujahedeen reporting that they abandoned all further attempts at using the Blowpipe after 12 launches at Soviet helicopters, and there is no evidence at any further attempts by the Mujahedeen to engage aircraft with Blowpipes. While many have defended the Blowpipe on the basis that the rebels were inadequately trained, the Mujahedeen reported great success with the FIM-92 Stinger (despite having no more training to use that weapon either), and all the engagements were against helicopters, whose slow-moving and low-flying flight profile makes them the easiest aerial targets in combat.

Not only had the Blowpipe performed far worse than advertised in combat conditions, but its service life and quality control had proven wildly overstated as well. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Canadian Forces deployed Blowpipes to Saudi Arabia, and discovered during testing that a third of them (9 missiles in 27 launches) misfired or failed to guide. Though by the time the war was over, it had seen no Blowpipes launched in anger.

The third and so far final combat use of the Blowpipe was during the 1995 Alto-Cenepa War between Peru and Ecuador. During this war, the Ecuadorean Army used Blowpipes against Peruvian helicopters, but no evidence exists that any were shot-down. The claims offered by the Ecuadorean Army are suspect as well; for example, they claim to have shot-down a Bell 212 and a CH-47 Chinook of the Colombian Air Force, which might have been believable had the Colombian Air Force ever flown any Bell 212s near the combat zone, or ever had any CH-47 Chinooks. The only Colombian helicopter loss that both sides are officially in agreement upon was Mi-8TV #EP-587. Assuming the reports are accurate, this was the third Blowpipe kill --- and to date, the final one.

TheGreenGoblin wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 07, 2020 4:19 am

Shorts was long on marketing success with this dismal failure on the battlefield. I remember the words of somebody who had used the Blowpipe in action who said "it might have been more useful to throw a rock at the passing aircraft than the thousands of dollars wasted in buying and firing this useless missile".

the case which caused the British government most anxiety was the attempt by South Africa to obtain the latest British anti-aircraft missile technology from the Belfast company, Shorts, in exchange for money and guns for loyalist paramilitaries.


The attempt dates back to 1985 when an Ulsterman working in South Africa invited representatives from the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Freedom Fighters and Ulster Resistance to Johannesburg and asked them to obtain missiles or missile blueprints. The UDA representative in fact worked for British intelligence but the security services, for whatever reason, allowed the deal to go ahead.

In particular the South Africans were interested in Starstreak, the latest Shorts anti- aircraft missile. Anti-aircraft defence was one of the biggest problems facing the South African Defence Force since it had neither the combat aircraft nor the ground defence system to combat Russian-built MiGs based in Angola. In 1987 representatives from the three paramilitary organisations bought weapons from South Africa and a South African diplomat based in France trained them in the use of rocket-propelled grenades. Some, but not all, the weapons were captured by British security forces.

The South Africans then offered pounds 1m for the blueprint of Starstreak. Instead the paramilitaries got parts and a model and offered it to the South African diplomat in a Paris hotel. The French police were also watching the men and arrested the three Ulstermen, a South African diplomat and an American arms dealer.