DCS World - F4e Phantom 2 - Agm45 Shrike - Direct mode

Hi there folks! Another F4 video, this time looking at Shrike missiles used against SAM radars. They are very limited and I find the strike rate to be around 1.5 out 4. Next video will be loft mode Agm 45 :)

[@xyz-hj6ul]

Between April and October of 1972, during Freedom Train and LB1, over 700 Shrikes and ~280 STARMs were fired, for 1 (ONE) confirmed hit. STARM was only a little bit better with two confirmed hits. Around 30 and 57 'probables' were determined to have 'maybe fragged something' from the crater locations and the rest were deemed 'suppression'.
ED has the SAM logic wrong. Period 1960s-70s, if the maneuvering of the recognizable Weasel profile aircraft came nose-hot, the engagement radar turned off. AGM-78 was better than AGM-45 (Standard vs. Sparrow motor, 1,300lbs vs. 500lbs missile weight) because it's gimballed seeker, autopilot and smoke marker/BIA radio signal all allowed it to be fired with the EF-105F/F-105G pointed away from the radar, about 12-15nm from low level and as much as 25nm from altitude. The NVA might see the Weasel but they would not see the launch profile and would not go dummy.
Shrike could be lofted from 17-21nm at 20,000ft, almost perfectly overlapping the SA-2 envelope, but required a bit of head space as 'Cool Hand Luke' icewater in the veins of the pilot because you were using the ADI to measure slant range by depression of the nose on consecutive sweep cycles while listening to the audible signal intensity to compare degrees nose-down with trigged slant range and then pulling nose high to shower the threat with ballistic curtains of missiles in a general range overlap of 3-5nm, based on where the radar _could be_, when the missile nosed over and tried to ride the beam. About as precise as it sounds, but such 'Kentucky Windage' was all we had.
AGM-45 did not have autopilot memory mode (at that time, later blocks 10+ standardized the GCS somewhat with wider band coverage and better silent emitter homing) and so it was more 'get the hunter killer teams in there and let them do what they do' while the radar was dummy loaded (where the HK were significantly further out front, in lawn mower mode, in front of the ARM shooters) and so //suppression// was more or less that penaid tool, albeit an expensive one with dozens of rounds in air on targets which were preplanned based on the last drone photo of the site location, programmed into the ARN-92 LORAN (period GPS equivalent) as a waypoint location.
This method, for those jets which had the towel rack, was much more precise in terms of predictive location of ARM impact as range overlaps (allowing for low level lofting) but depended greatly on the rapidity of targeting updates from the last Lightning Bug drone.
Using wet film, even with target annotation, meant a minimum turn around on processing, interpretation and geo location of 2-3hrs after drone recovery (another 30 minute to hour plus evolution) and the Vietnamese could have an entire SA-2 battery jacked up, moving down the road and setting up in a new location in less than 4. They were also very good at camouflage (no 'pentagons' after 1967) and site dispersal betwween the obvious launcher pits and the hidden radars and of course surrounded their Guideline batteries with AAA flak lanes, as much as a mile deep.
At a time when HK meant a Weasel and a division of F-4D/E with bombs or rockets, this could be deadly for our guys and it was from the SEA war that we learned you both had to have a very long reaching ARM with high memory based (IMU) autopilot accuracy and a package approach to SEAD so that the site/s (often in overlap) were overwhelmed with serious firepower as both AAA suppression and primary target kill.
Shrike was a good missile, for it's day, but largely replaced by the AGM-65A in the last year of the war and ever since, for low level suppression, with the D in particular being considered valuable because the radar sails get hot and stay that way, even when dummied out.

[@GustavBass]

Good video

[@Kernow_Dave]

Thanks Shiftie, will try this later. 😀

[@IHeartLasagna]

idk why, but i cant get the shrike to even get the search tone. Idk what i am doing wrong