Libyan War

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 19:41

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/be ... cnn?hpt=T1

a massive combined libyan army convoy many kms long (incl tanks) was smacked by fighter strikes around 5.30am today local time outskirts of benghazi. CNN has some pix with tanks with turrets blown off and lying around...

could be AStor/JSTARs scanning detected it and vectored in a full strike...has all the hallmark of F-15Es paying a visit loaded to the gunwales with heavy munitions as usual...and doing their well honed act of bombing the front and rear of convoy, before polishing off the rest.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Mar 2011 20:27

Fox News reporter was saying the rebel plane was downed by rebel antiaircraft fire. Case of friendly fire.

nits · Post by **nits** » 20 Mar 2011 20:30

US and the UK fired over 110 Tomahawk missiles from American and British ships and submarines

The United States-led military coalition on Sunday hit Libyan defence targets with cruise missiles and launched air attacks as Muammar Gaddafi vowed to open his arms depots to the people to retaliate against the Western 'aggression.'

French jets fired the first shots in Operation Odyssey Dawn, the biggest international military intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, destroying tanks and armoured vehicles in eastern Libya, Al-Jazeera reported.

vina · Post by **vina** » 20 Mar 2011 20:55

Singha wrote:http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/be ... cnn?hpt=T1

a massive combined libyan army convoy many kms long (incl tanks) was smacked by fighter strikes around 5.30am today local time outskirts of benghazi. CNN has some pix with tanks with turrets blown off and lying around...

could be AStor/JSTARs scanning detected it and vectored in a full strike...has all the hallmark of F-15Es paying a visit loaded to the gunwales with heavy munitions as usual...and doing their well honed act of bombing the front and rear of convoy, before polishing off the rest.

NY Times has a front paged story on it with photos. It looks like the work of the French . The rebels claim so and it was the French that took the ground strike role. Me thinks it was Rafales and Mirage 2000s that wreaked havoc on that column.

Another sad story of old Tin Cans (T series tanks) being pummeled from the air and blowing their tops incinerating the crew. Gaddafi underestimated the resolve of the US/Oiero and France seems to be right in the forefront in making sure that Gaddafi goes. Sarkozy was pretty tough before Gaddafi went on the offensive, basically telling him to quit. Now it looks like France is going to take the lead in prosecuting this particular war with CDG getting into position just off Libya.

Well, the Rafales are going to see real action.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 21:36

from the twitter link where radio freq scanners are hard at work
- B2s are going back into the theater tonight from "whitman afb"
- RAF VC10 tanker is leading a squad of Typhoons south (and I hope to god its for a real standup fight, not for show!)
- belgian F_16s are in greece and will soon join the available units
- usn F-18G Growlers operating from land in italy, with F-16CJs of usaf - SEAD support
- Qatar is likely sending a few a/c
- one sqdn of F-15E relocated to Italy from maybe UK or germany....yuvraj style hitters.

FMCNL RAF tanker VC-10 tail nr XV102 as ASCOT 9204 overhead French airspace with 5 Coningby Typhoons RAFAIR 9611-9615

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 20 Mar 2011 21:42

visited with Uncle Google.

States that in 2007 the good Col wanted to buy 12-18 rafales (for about $3.5 Billion!!). Not sure what happened after that. Perhaps Sarkozy was ticked off and is trying to get the good guys to rule so that could become the first export for the Rafale?

Jeff Lira · Post by **Jeff Lira** » 20 Mar 2011 21:46

Now this is interesting, B2 stealth bomber attacking Libya???

Air raids were led by "three U.S. Air Force B2, and F-15 and F-16 Air Force and AV8-B plane of the Navy," said the spokesperson of the U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart. as quoted by The World Reporter. Meanwhile Pro-Gaddafi forces bombard Misrata city using tanks, artillery and cannons.

The above information i took out from this mentioned link Gaddafi Attacked City of Misrata; US to Bomb More The author on this website has also displayed an image estimating the arsenal of Libya's military

This war is taking a bad shape, i am neither a supporter of gaddafi nor America led forces, but I have a thing in mind. If gaddafi is saying that the rebels are actually Al Qaeda members then why not check with that first? If it doesn't come to be true and gaddafi is really lying then you can continue attacking.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 21:52

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/world ... zi.html?hp

Littered across the landscape, some 30 miles south of Benghazi, the detritus of the allied airstrikes on Saturday and Sunday morning offered a panorama of destruction: tanks, charred and battered, their turrets blasted clean off, one with a body still caught in its remnants; a small Toyota truck with its roof torn away; a tank transporter still on fire. But it did not end there.

For miles leading south, the roadsides were littered with burned trucks and burned civilian cars. In some places battle tanks had simply been abandoned, intact, as their crews fled. One thing, though, seemed evident: the units closest to Benghazi seemed to have been hit with their cannons and machine guns still pointing toward the rebel capital.

To the south, though, many had been hit as they headed away from the city in a headlong dash for escape on the long road leading to a distant Tripoli.

“They were retreating,” said Col. Abdullah al-Shafi, an officer in the rebel forces, which had clamored desperately for the allied air help that arrived on Saturday. “Soldiers had taken civilians’ cars and fled. They were ditching their fatigues.”

Among it all, across an area the size of four football fields dotted with trees and white and yellow flowers, hundreds of Libyans solemnly picked through the debris on Sunday, gazing at the results of a last battle in Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s assault on Benghazi, the de facto rebel capital.

At one point, the onlookers carefully extricated the body of a soldier from the remnants of a tank, turned to cinder like five more bodies, unrecognizable on the roadside.

From the debris it was not possible to piece together the full details of the final battle, and some questions hung over the carnage: had Libyan insurgents pinned down the loyalist fighters in some places, as some of them claimed in news reports, or was the damage exclusively the result of allied airstrikes?

At least part of the answer was evident overhead, where jets could be seen across the region — some circling nearby, some screaming through on their way to somewhere else. As allied commanders gauged that the Libyan government’s air defenses had been, at the least, severely damaged, it was clear that the air campaign was entering a new phase, where ground targets were being actively hunted by allied attack aircraft.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 21:54

hopefully the UK is making a H&D issue out of Typhoon vs Rafale

FMCNL More Typhoons! Overhead southern French airspace 5 Coningby Typhoons ASCOT 9616-9620

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 21:58

italy seems to have made available 7 airbases for the allies to use, and relocated some of its own units to suitable bases in the south from further up north.

psyops style guru Aviano (the hub of kosovo attack) is again back in business...not as unearthly big as ramstein but huge nonetheless.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 22:01

Qadhafi had a couple of bases in deep south in the sahara where some part of his AF was allegedly kept including some tu22 planes or such.
the rebellion had not spread there. I suspect some Thawks last night were sent to knock out these southern bases too.

oleonau · Post by **oleonau** » 20 Mar 2011 22:01

shiv wrote:

MiG 23

Su 24

Another view (a few seconds earlier)

without the canopy and due to the flames its difficult to pinpoint.... (the shape of the fin would've clinched it)

a su-24 though i'd wager..

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 22:30

Qatar has send 4 x M2000-5/9

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 20 Mar 2011 22:46

the ground strike has been advertised as French by both skynews and bbc since the morning

neerajb · Post by **neerajb** » 20 Mar 2011 22:53

The sweep angle of the trailing edge of the tail plane (first pic) suggests it's a MiG-23.

Cheers....

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 20 Mar 2011 22:55

why are people so interested in mig23 or su24 ? either way its a burnt heap and the poor pilot is dead.

once BDA photos are released we will have 100s more wrecks to sift through.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 20 Mar 2011 23:04

Singha wrote:why are people so interested in mig23 or su24 ? either way its a burnt heap and the poor pilot is dead.

once BDA photos are released we will have 100s more wrecks to sift through.

Pilot bailed out. See the fotu.

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 20 Mar 2011 23:06

But he did not survive. Sad.

vcsekhar · Post by **vcsekhar** » 20 Mar 2011 23:15

the crashed plane looks like a mig-23, if you look at the tail.. there is only one engine visible.
The su-24 has two engines.

my 2cents..

chackojoseph · Post by **chackojoseph** » 20 Mar 2011 23:36

Mullen details attack on Libyan targets

"Operations yesterday went very well, certainly in putting in place the no-fly zone," Mullen said. Gadhafi has not had any aircraft flying for the last couple of days, and the Tomahawk barrage on the integrated air and missile defense system effectively shut the system down." B-2 bomber attacks also hit Libyan airfields. The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry launched a Tomahawk missile to support Operation Odyssey Dawn in the Mediterranean Sea, March 19, 2011. This was one of approximately 110 cruise missiles fired from U.S. and British ships and submarines that targeted about 20 radar and anti-aircraft sites along Libya's Mediterranean coast.

saip · Post by **saip** » 21 Mar 2011 00:37

CNN showed Harriers. I thought all the British Harriers have been retired. Is the US marine corps using them then or is it a file video?

OK, I got it. They were launched from USS Kearsarge.

PratikDas · Post by **PratikDas** » 21 Mar 2011 01:25

I would like to ask a newbie question.

Why is it that the Libyan "Integrated Air & Missile Defence" system, as US Navy Vice Admiral William Gortney called it, was so vulnerable to subsonic Tomahawks?

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 21 Mar 2011 05:14

Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force) press release:

confirmed the first Italian air operation in Libya as part of Odyssey Dawn, the international military operation aimed at enforcing UN resolution 1973.

"The six fighter Tornadoes that took off from Trapani air base this evening to conduct operations on Libyan territory," reads the official press release "have returned to base in Sicily. The mission was carried out with the use of four Tornado ECR (Electronic Combat Reconnaissance) supported by two Tornadoes used as tankers (Air-to-Air Refuelling).

"ECR fighters have completed their mission suppression of air defenses on Libyan territory (in technical jargon called SEAD - Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) conducted through the use of air-to-surface missiles AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti Radiation Missile)."

The two Tornado Tankers belonging to the 6th Stormo fighter wing at Ghedi Air Base, were the first to return to base after the aerial refueling of other aircraft. The Tornado ECR, which come from the 50th Wing at Piacenza, are among the existing aircraft redeployed to the 37th wing at Trapani Air Base for the operation. The Tornado is a twin-jet combat aircraft, two-seat, variable geometry wing and capacity "all-weather" fighter that the Air Force acquired since 1982. The crew consists of a pilot and a navigator.

The commander of the Wing, Mauro Gabetta, is pleased: "The operation conducted by our aircraft was suppression of enemy air lines. It was successfully carried out and our boys are back home," he said. "Our aircraft operated near Benghazi. We are available to the coalition. We feel our responsibility to all Italian citizens, and the willingness to help the Libyan people."

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 21 Mar 2011 05:45

Singha wrote:why are people so interested in mig23 or su24 ? either way its a burnt heap and the poor pilot is dead.

once BDA photos are released we will have 100s more wrecks to sift through.

GD the main significance is IFF in WVR combat. This is where a "No Fly Zone" where any aircraft will get shot down BVR is so convenient for sealing off a limited airspace. That is perfectly suitable for the air forces of NATO and the US in sealing off the airspace over a limited geographic area. But in a different situation where it is not possible to demarcate no fly zone or there are mixed air forces in a conflict the need for confirmation of identity may become necessary. If you go through the stats of air to air kills BVR - the number of friendly fire kills is significant. For example if a Libyan Su-24 escapes out of the no fly zone it may be very difficult to differentiate it visually from an British or Italian Tornado.

And in fact this particular incident may have been a Libyan rebel friendly fire incident.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 21 Mar 2011 06:30

150 pics, without titles

saip · Post by **saip** » 21 Mar 2011 06:46

NRao wrote:150 pics, without titles

Titles are on the right side

ManuT · Post by **ManuT** » 21 Mar 2011 06:51

IMO these NFZ strikes should not be compared with the Iraq War 2.

With no intent to put troops on the ground, it looks more like the Kosovo War against the Serbs or perhaps like the intial Afghainstan strikes with special forces inserted with NA.

If Gadha-fi is not bombed out of existence, then the next best thing would be an air enforced partition of the Libya with rebels in control of the oil and Gadha-fi in control of the desert.

At some level, this does look like some kind of MCRA field trials.

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 21 Mar 2011 07:18

Grr

We need to have some qualifying stds here

BRF entry level members should be able to identify Mig 21 from 23 from SU 24

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Mar 2011 07:19

to be fair, its hard to decide from that pic between Mig23 or Su24, their shape is so similar.

Samudragupta · Post by **Samudragupta** » 21 Mar 2011 07:26

Well the moral of the story is....Rafale ,Rafale and only Rafale....

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Mar 2011 07:28

my son was mighty impressed with the rafale photo in page1 of this thread, esp when I told him its the same plane from AI2011 and that it had shot a missile to down the flaming a.c. he has not stopped drawing rafale/typhoon since then, with scary loadouts of 15+ AAMs

was keen to know from where it flew , how to flew over the ocean and night flying. and his pics have tankers and a E3 as well....though the E3 is also dropping a stick of bombs and a couple aam's are snaking away from it

meantime, Italy has made available its Garibaldi a.carrier and 8 harrier for strikes. Qatari M2K has apparently reached italy and some help from UAE is expected...denmark F-16s apparently launched a strike on west libya last night (their first)

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 21 Mar 2011 07:36

agree that sideways pic might be hard

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Mar 2011 07:37

maybe like Mig29 and Su27 a common design template from someplace like Tsagi was used in soviet era.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Mar 2011 07:44

MSBC:

But the international campaign went beyond hitting anti-aircaft sites. U.S., British and French planes blasted a line of tanks that had been moving on the rebel capital Benghazi, in the opposition-held eastern half of the country. On Sunday, at least seven demolished tanks smoldered in a field 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Benghazi, many of them with their turrets and treads blown off, alongside charred armored personnel carriers, jeeps and SUVs of the kind used by Gadhafi fighters.

-
also a admin building in Qadhafi compound tripoli blasted by a british SLCM. his 'leadership tent' was intact.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 21 Mar 2011 08:09

saip wrote:
NRao wrote:150 pics, without titles

Titles are on the right side

Looks like fragments from a small turbine - a cruise missile. That fragment represents what sets the US/West apart from the rest.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Mar 2011 08:19

one has to admire the west for the seamless blend of war and commerce. they are tight and very co-operative.

apparently, a Sagem rep was in the french defence ministry briefing, no doubt to show some AASM slides and brag about the Le weapone' le magnifique's accuracy and minimal collateral damage.

the MBDA Scalp product manager will likely get a chance soon. no doubt the Dassault rafale mkting slides will get a run too

pigs will fly the day IAF/MOD gives a briefing and invites drdo to talk about Akash or Sudarshan.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Mar 2011 08:24

Shiv, apart from engine tech, they are also in a considerable lead in sensor tech, data fusion, radar and C3I. marshalling a 10 nation strike force consisting of a dozen diff types across 20 airbases and making them perform in concert takes massive and well honed command n control technology and process.

so at minimal risk to themselves they can bomb qadhafi back to the stone age if desired. and have a good pasta dinner every night, with wine rather a MRE in the fly infested desert.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 21 Mar 2011 08:30

good pics

A bomb from an allied aircraft exploded along the highway near Benghazi during an airstrike Sunday

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 21 Mar 2011 08:31

Singha wrote: minimal collateral damage.

Oui oui oui. Le damage collaterale? C'est minimale onlui.

Dmurphy · Post by **Dmurphy** » 21 Mar 2011 08:31

USAF EC-130J c/s STEEL 74 transmitting warning in the blind to Libyan naval ships http://audioboo.fm/boos/307814