The. Age of low level is over, here are a few lessons learned.
You have 2 ways to deal with failure :
either you quit and try another job.
Or you address your drawbacks and improve your skills to have the job done.
1. Iraq used cell phone spotters, and AA traps during GW2 to mission kill deep penetrating Apache strikes.
While French tigers and gazelle were extremely succesfull over Libya (with no loss)… so what to conclude ?
Yet I would agree, that helicopters are more vulnerable than fast jet due to their low speed.
2. Package Q in GW 1 showed all you need to do to mission kill a strike package, is force it to dump a weapons load maneuvering.
errr yes, so what ? it is the same for all strike packages regardless of their altitude.
3. Low level suffers a range penalty.
granted. That’s why you need a platform that can carry a lot of fuel without compromising weapon load, and weapons with range booster kits like our little fellow below 🙂 :
4. Tor-m1 and other point defense systems make lo level a death sentence.
Not if you don’t have to fly over the targets and can shoot at high speed from stand off range while maneuvering.
Not if your weapons are fully fire and forget, don’t need lock before launch and can gain altitude to flight over terrain obscales between the aicraft and the target
Not with a fused ECM/ESM allowing good SA to avoid threat zones as much as possible and automatic detection/decoying of incoming missiles.
Not with good mission planing taking the 3 points above into account.
Note that I don’t claim that point defence systems are not dangerous nor efficient against low flighing aircrafts, I just say that with the right tools and tactics they can be dealt with, even at low altitude.
5. Look down fighters and awacs.
That’s why you need good passive detection systems to avoid them as much as possible.
Detection of very low flying aircraft is still more difficul for ennemy fighters/awacs than high altitude bogeys.
You can also have escort aircrats to occupy them.
6. In deserts and oceans you dont have terrain to. Hide behind Google British Tornado losses Gw1
Yet, flying low over the sea or desert reduce dramaticly detection and engagement range of SAM sites simply because of horizon masking.
British Tornado losses during desert storm were due to the fact that they had to fly too close to their target and thus enter the kill zone of Anti-Air defences.
The whole point of Rafale low level penetration profiles are precisely NOT to do that thanks to appropriate mission planing, weapons, fused EW and auto decoying systems.
The low level strikes that the Rafale can perform today have nothing to do with what a tornado could do 25 years ago.
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