IN Do-228 IW/EW

The Indian navy Dornier Do-228s seem to have done an excellent job during the Kargil period.Here’s an extract from an equally excellent book – “Despatches from Kargil”

In Naliya,a forward airfield,Commander Venugopal the electronic warrior,saw the IAF activating.”The base was full of aircraft,but my dorniers were’nt under a blast pen-they were too big for one.If the Pakistanis attacked,we would’ve been the first targets.
His Dorniers were Merlin’s caves full of wonder,electronics as magic realism.He would search in the night sky for enemy blips a hundred miles away and find them.His sensors would crackle and the he would see the results on a bluish computer screen in the cockpit.Modern warfare is about electronic signatures and info gathering,tracking enemy radar.When an unexpected radar blip can turn a battle,knowledge is power.
‘It was my first sortie but I knew what I was doing.No one could catch me within Indian territory so there was no tention only work.’
Work was flying 300 miles to the west,2000 ft above the arabian sea at night.’Everything was black when we left at 10 am.Just us-4 guys,flying from 11:00 to nearly 3 in the morning.’
He could pick up every radar station he hoped for-the ground radars in Karachi,the ones on the Pakistani ships and the naval recon a/c,the French Atlantiques and the redoubtable American Orion.
‘We got all of them-Karachi,Ormara,Pasni,Malir,Khetibandar.It was a nice feeling-we were far away,but still picking up everything.’All the raw data,the little blips on the screen,every transmitting radar would fit into a consorted jigsaw puzzle we call the enemy’s mind.’
‘Next,we flew from Kori creek to bikander,in rajasthan,during the day with 4 or 5 fighters as escorts.We picked up a lot of radar deployments.We found out where their troops were,where their missiles were.’The Dornier would pick up every echo,every blip-if we knew where they were,we would know what they could do.
It was a long flight,tense and tiring,his sensors buzzing with Pakistani radar transmissions.He was flying 8-10 km inside Indian territory but hugging the border or LOC,picking up enemy transmissions along the way.It was coming up on the computer screen-Karachi,Lahore,Pir Patho-the name of the place,the type of radar,the freq of the pulse…The 5 hours made a difference:the army knew where the enemy was-the flight mapped his aggressive instincts.It was a journey into his mind

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If small simple Do-228s can be put to such extensive and good use,then imagine the roles of the IAF Gulfstreams,Astras,707s,canberras,Bae-748s etc.
Cool!