“Train the way you plan to fight,” is an aphorism often quoted—but often overlooked by today’s strike fighter community. This may seem a strong statement to some. In rebuttal, cries will echo forth from Top Gun, the Naval Strike Warfare Center, and the various strike fighter weapons schools about how realistic training has become. Technically, this is correct. The fourth-generation adversaries, the authentic threat emitters, and the outstanding facilities available to the fleet at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, have brought traditional strike tactics to a new level of effectiveness.
The emphasis in all these units, however, is almost totally on low-level tactics. My goal is to open the debate on a different way to get a strike group on target—going in high. It will also reduce losses.
After the Vietnam War, particularly after the strike into Lebanon, Soviet-style integrated air defense systems drove tactical thinking to a NATO-oriented, central European scenario built around a low-altitude ingress to the target. This avoided the heart of the surface-to-air missile (SAM) envelope and delayed detection, thereby maximizing surprise. At the time, tactical aviation did not have an aircraft that could avoid the threat any other way and still deliver ordnance accurately. The low-altitude regime exposed the attackers to antiaircraft and small arms fire, but this was considered acceptable because the enemy SAMs and fighters were seen as the major threat.
The F/A-18 Hornet provides the battle group commander another way to hit a target while minimizing losses. When a strike planner confronts the task of attacking a heavily defended target, his first problem is to determine the best route to the target. Assuming that the defenses are located at the target and that the threat cannot be circumvented laterally, two dimensions remain to be considered. Doctrine holds that the low-altitude regime offers the best option—even though the Hornet has the performance to minimize the threat by going above it.
Proponents of the low-altitude ingress will point out that going in on the deck cuts the sector of possible attack in half and complicates the intercept problem for any enemy fighter. It is difficult to refute this logic if one deems the interceptors as the primary threat. But is this assumption correct? Most modem SAMs—both Soviet and Western Bloc—can detect, track, and destroy airborne targets at altitudes lower than even the most proficient pilot can fly. It is becoming almost impossible to fly low enough to avoid them.
Complicating matters at low altitude, antiaircraft artillery (AAA) has historically accounted for most combat aircraft losses and recent British and Israeli experience prove that the lethality of this threat has not diminished, even with the increased capability of the attacking jets. In Vietnam, pilots learned that SAMs could be defeated with electronic countermeasures and head-on-a-swivel flying. After-action reports and personal testimony consistently stressed that it was preferable to go in above the AAA envelope and risk the SAM and MiG threat. With the F/A-18 Hornet, an aircraft is available that can stay above most AAA— and some tactical SAMs—and successfully engage any other fighter in the world.
Suppose that in addition to the low- altitude attacks on Libya in April 1986, a flight of Hornets had gone in at 35,000 feet at supersonic airspeeds. On the negative side this would have given up the element of surprise, allowing earlier readiness by the Libyan forces. On the positive side, the targeting problem for the enemy would have been severely complicated and the theater commander would have gained more strike aircraft because the single-seat Hornets were not considered capable of a low-altitude night ingress.
Target acquisition at ranges of 30 miles is possible for attackers operating at high altitude using radar and—in clear weather—forward looking infrared systems (FLIRs). In the case of the targets at the airfield that night, this distance would not be considered excessive. Delivery tactics could have varied from high-altitude level bombing to high-angle dive bombing. Bombing accuracy with conventional weapons from these altitudes—release above 25,000 feet—requires verification by operational test and evaluation squadrons but VFA-151 has achieved consistent hits within 150 feet. This is certainly competitive with what the Libyan strike force achieved.
If the Libyan fighters had attempted to counter the high altitude group they would have been defeated by the superior range and performance of the AIM-7 Sparrow missiles at high altitude. If an interceptor survived a forward-quarter attack, one can only speculate at how well the pilot would have done at his first attempted night, supersonic, lights-out intercept.
As for the tactical SAM threat, the systems used by the Libyans were not able to engage targets effectively at the proposed altitude. The F/A-18s would either have been outside of the target acquisition envelope or could have outmaneuvered the missiles. Aircraft at high altitude can break down and into the missile to maintain energy—aircraft laden with ordnance and operating on the deck do not have this option and are forced into energy bleeding maneuvers.
The long-range, strategic SAMs would be countered using current doctrine. The EA-6Bs would jam ground control intercept and early warning radars. Antiradiation missiles could be used to target the acquisition radars since these must function autonomously once their early warning radars are neutralized. Although the internal electronic countermeasures carried by the Hornets had some capability against the Libyan systems, newer equipment such as airborne self-protection jammer would provide even greater protection.
Delivery tactics will expand when some of the more exotic weapons such as laser- and optically-guided weapons, and cluster bombs are considered. Because of current software limitations within the Hornet’s weapon delivery computer, further testing is required.
While discarding the low-altitude option would not be wise, the Hornet has opened up a part of the envelope not previously available to battle group commanders. The aircraft’s avionics permit exceptional targeting accuracy from high altitude and allow the pilot to operate all of his sensors more effectively. Speaking rhetorically, how many pilots can fly at 100 feet above ground level, efficiently operate the radar in the air-to-air mode, maintain formation, and navigate to the target—especially halfway through a cruise where there have been minimal overland training opportunities? High altitude tactics result in extra aircraft because they allow the F/A-18 to function as a strike fighter while minimizing exposure to the threat.
These thoughts offer the strike planner another option. Weather, ordnance availability, FLIR availability, the target’s radar significance, desire for surprise, and political considerations will all play a role in determining the best tactics to use.
The low-altitude attack brings to mind pictures of Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. Glorious in its display of elan and courage, it pitted strength against strength—Confederate infantry against dug-in Union artillery. In our case, we would be going into the heart of the most sophisticated defenses in the history of warfare. Just as Civil War tactics outgrew such headlong charges, so must the carrier-based strike community pursue new avenues of attack, or it may suffer the same fate as Pickett’s troops.
Lieutenant Commander Boyne flies F/A-18s with VFA-151 on board the USS Midway (CV-41). He was designated a naval aviator in 1982 and has served with VA-81 and VT-22.