The Third World War: The Untold Story

The EF-111, for example, was an improved jammer built into an F-111 airframe, capable of Mach 2-plus speeds at height and a supersonic performance at sea level. Being also highly manoeuvrable it was a good survivor. The EF-111 carried ten high-powered jammer transmitters and a terminal-threat warning system which detected weapons-associated radar emissions and would provide flight crews with warning of impending attack from SAM anti-aircraft artillery or interceptors. These aircraft, beginning to enter service in 1983, were expected to prove very effective as deep-penetration escorts. In the Second World War the protection of deep penetration by an air force was provided by fighter escort or, when beyond its range, by the capacity of the bomber to fight its own way through the enemy’s interceptors, as in the US 8th Air Force. In the 1980s the penetrating aircraft had to be protected primarily from the result of electromagnetic emissions, whether its own or the enemy’s, which would serve to guide gun, missile or interceptor attack towards it. The EF-111 development typified modern trends.

So did the TR-1, a retooled version of the old U-2 (what the press called the ‘spy plane’), a high-altitude (over 70,000 feet), long-range (over 3,000 miles) reconnaissance and surveillance platform providing battlefield information to tactical commanders. This aircraft, too, was a definite plus. It had advanced electronic counter-measures (ECM), synthetic aperture radar systems, and capability to direct precision strikes against enemy radar emitters (PLSS — precision location strike system) and to collect ELINT (electronic intelligence) data. It began coming into NATO service in the early 1980s.

The story was the same with the F-4G, a modified F-4E Phantom, containing advanced electronic warfare equipment and armed with anti-radiation missiles, of which the latest, AGM-88 — HARM (high-speed anti-radiation missile) — was just coming into service when war broke out.

The F-15 Eagle was still in service, with a newer version, the Strike Eagle, carrying improved systems and possessing a better all-weather capability. The F-16 Fighting Falcon, which began to come into squadron service in 1981, represented a real advance. Its equipment included a multi-mode radar with a clutter-free look-down capability, head-up displays, internal ‘chaff (strips of foil which act as decoy to enemy homing missiles) and flare dispensers, a 500-round 20 mm internal gun and ECM, all in an aircraft with speed around Mach 2, a ceiling of more than 50,000 feet and a ferry range greater than 2,000 miles. This was a great improvement on any fighter the Western allies had hitherto seen. The F-18 Hornet, a one-man multiple-mission fighter bomber of even more advanced type, attractive to both navies and air forces, had suffered many delays in development and was not yet in service when war broke out.

A further development of high significance was the E-3A Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS). Into a Boeing 707 airframe had been fitted equipment which made up a mobile, flexible, jamming-resistant, surveillance and command, control and communications system, capable of all-weather, long-range, high or low surveillance of all air vehicles, manned or unmanned, above all types of terrain. Its look-down radar gave it a unique capability hitherto absent. Sentry could operate for six hours, on station 1,000 miles from home base, with a maximum speed of 530 mph and a ceiling of 29,000 feet. Details of how it worked are given in the next chapter. Its entry into service in 1980 and into NATO in 1982 marked a great step forward.

The improved Harrier came into service with the US Marines as the AV-8B in 1983 and with the RAF as the GR-5 a year later. More than one attempt was made by the US Administration in the late 1970s to kill the AV-8B. Happily Congress remained firm and the very valuable inter-Allied (US/UK) development of an advanced vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) aircraft was saved.