Clear & Present Danger F/A-18 bombing
Jeffrey Kao
From Jeffrey Kao <jk...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
Hi,
I just saw Clear & Present danger and had a question. The laser guided
bomb that the F/A-18 drops is painted blue. I thought that practice bombs
were painted blue and live ones were olive drab. Was this an oversight on
the director's part or was is supposed to be like that? I didn't read the
entire book, does that shed any light on it?
Jeff
JIM...@nuacvm.acns.nwu.edu
From JIM...@nuacvm.acns.nwu.edu
Jeffrey Kao writes:
>I just saw Clear & Present danger and had a question. The laser guided
>bomb that the F/A-18 drops is painted blue. I thought that practice bombs
>were painted blue and live ones were olive drab. Was this an oversight on
>the director's part or was is supposed to be like that? I didn't read the
>entire book, does that shed any light on it?
It's been a few years since I read the book, but I thought the bomb was
an experimental "paper" bomb that was supposed to burn up upon detonation.
I think it was painted blue because it was not "normal" ordinance.
Jim
Beke
From Beke <Pekka....@lut.fi>
>>>>> " " == Jeffrey Kao <jk...@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> writes:
> Hi,
> I just saw Clear & Present danger and had a question. The laser guided
> bomb that the F/A-18 drops is painted blue. I thought that practice
> bombs were painted blue and live ones were olive drab. Was this an
> oversight on the director's part or was is supposed to be like that? I
> didn't read the entire book, does that shed any light on it?
> Jeff
The bomb was blue in the book, but the plane was A-6. I don't
understand why it was changed. In the book they were using
TRAM package to guide the bombs to the targets and I haven't
heard that it could be used also at F/A-18. Is it even possible
use TRAM and laser-guided weapons with Hornet?
//Beke
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Quellish
From Quellish <quel...@aol.com>
In article <CuBvn...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
JIM...@nuacvm.acns.nwu.edu writes:
Here's the story- if you were on a carrier, seeing a plane take off with a
2000 lb LGB that _wasn't_ marked as practice ordinance, you'd wonder what
was up, right? Esp. during peacetime off the coast of Colombia.
The target was lased ("splashed" or "painted") from the ground by the
American covert action team using the AN/PAQ laser designator. The F/A-18
can't even lase a target, so it needed the boys on the ground to guide it
in. In the book they use the A-6E, but DoD wouldn't put "obsolete"
hardware into the movie (DoD caut out all the good stuff). In reality, I'd
use an A-6 because it _looks_ like an airliner on Colombian skin-paint
radars. The Hornet can't fly like an airliner, blowing its cover.
Andrew W. Tron
From "Andrew W. Tron" <awt...@beam.princeton.edu>
This brings up a technological quibble I have with the movie. If I
remember the scene correctly, the bomb punches through a cloud deck
before hitting the target. This means that either the laser is
operating on a frequency in which clouds are transparent (which I
strongly doubt) or the bomb is dropped `blind' and acquires the laser
spot after it punches through the deck (another dubious proposition)
or the whole scenario is bogus.
Another quibble I have is with a scene where a conversation between the
President's Chief of Staff and the druglord's security chief is
intercepted by `laser miking' the window (i.e. reflecting a laser light
off a window to pick up the vibrations caused by the sounds inside).
But I recall watching a documentary on interception technology where
this technique was shown to suffer from severe high-frequency
attenuation, enough to make it unusable. And this was a lab demo, which
means that the field effectiveness would be worse. Does anybody know
whether the technology has improved?
I know, it's only a movie. Sigh.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Tron at Princeton University | awt...@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
And of the living ... none, not one who truly loves the sky
Would trade a hundred earth bound hours for one that he could fly.
Bob Savas
From Bob Savas <sav...@gate.net>
: can't even lase a target, so it needed the boys on the ground to guide it
: in. In the book they use the A-6E, but DoD wouldn't put "obsolete"
Just a followup to clarify my followup. The F-18's E-O system is the
AN/AAS-38 Loral (formerly Ford Aerospace) targeting system. As I
understand it most if not all of the systems are flir (Forward Looking
Infrared ) equipped only, eventhough there was allways the option to
upgrade to a laser designator system. It is my understanding that the
Nite Owl variant of the is currently in production. This includes a laser
designator system.
Bob S
T.M.Haddock
From "T.M.Haddock" <tmh...@decster.uta.edu>
Quellish <quel...@aol.com> writes:
>
>Here's the story- if you were on a carrier, seeing a plane take off with a
>2000 lb LGB that _wasn't_ marked as practice ordinance, you'd wonder what
>was up, right? Esp. during peacetime off the coast of Colombia.
No, it's not THAT unusual to see aircraft taking off with live ordnance
just about any time they're in international waters.
Why, they could be off for some live practice against seaweed targets.
They could be serving as A-G CAP against terrorist "Boghammers" -
especially off the coast of Colombia.
>In the book they use the A-6E, but DoD wouldn't put "obsolete"
>hardware into the movie (DoD caut out all the good stuff).
Didn't the same thing happen with TOP GUN? The producers(?) wanted to
use the F-18, but the Navy(?) wanted to use the F-14 (or vice versa?)
>In reality, I'd use an A-6 because it _looks_ like an airliner on
>Colombian skin-paint radars.
If an AEGIS with its high-tech radar can't the diff between an F-14
and a 747, that Colombian radar must really be something!
>The Hornet can't fly like an airliner, blowing its cover.
Well, everyone knows that an airliner is FASTER that the Hornet ;)
but how else can't the Hornet "fly like an airliner"?
TRAVIS
Rohan Heyer
From c931...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au (Rohan Heyer)
Beke (Pekka....@lut.fi) wrote:
: From Beke <Pekka....@lut.fi>
: The bomb was blue in the book, but the plane was A-6. I don't
: understand why it was changed. In the book they were using
: TRAM package to guide the bombs to the targets and I haven't
: heard that it could be used also at F/A-18. Is it even possible
: use TRAM and laser-guided weapons with Hornet?
As far as I know F/A-18's can use laser guided weapons but rely
upon other platforms or ground forces to illuminate their targets.
I'm pretty sure that our F-18's here in Australia can and do use this
method frequently. In fact this method was used in a book I read a couple
of years ago called "An Act of War" which was about an invasion by Indian
forces onto the Cocos Islands...not a bad read..but I can't remember the
author....
BTW how is the movie? Won't be getting here for at least a couple of
months! :-(
--
Rohan Heyer
C931...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au
"History has shown that no army is invincible..."
Josef Stalin.
Quellish
From Quellish <quel...@aol.com>
In article <CuMyo...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, "T.M.Haddock"
<tmh...@decster.uta.edu> writes:
AEGIS, like all other modern air radars, relys on IFF and transponer codes
for the bulk of it's job. Very little time is spent searching the sky with
skin paints. An airliner flying over an American warship in a war zone
that is not squaking proper codes, is ASKING too be fired on. If you were
in Q8 during DS and had a fast, unknown AC flying in at you, you'd shoot,
unless you were stupid. The Colombian ATC radars are of the old type,
relying entirely on skin paints to track AC. Makes it harder to fool some
ways. The hornet would be dumping most of it's fuel trying to stay slow
enough to look like a small airliner, and still sneek in enough speed for
a drop. Also, a fighter turns mcuh sharper than an airliner, climbs
faster, etc. An F-14 maybe could pull it off (swing wings helped during
the Achille intercept), and an A-6 would be ideal.
Thomas Zachary Moore
From Thomas Zachary Moore <zach_moo...@a.site.name>
I also have a problem\question with this scene in the movie.
While the bomb was on it's way to the target one of the other characters(I
forget his name)was shown watching an monitor that appeared to be the view
of the bomb as it fell.
What I am confused about is this:was he supposed to be watching it as it
happened and if so how was he getting the picture, satalite? Can a satalite
pick up a transmition from a falling bomb and transmit the picture back down
without any distortion?(It looked pretty clear to me)
I knew that lots of neat things could be done with satalites but I wasn't
aware of this one.
Also, wouldn't it be a security problem. Wasn't the purpose of dropping the
bomb was that it would appear to be a car bomb? If someone had accidentaly
picked up the pictures they would have immediatly known what had happened.
Just wondering
Scott Powell
From Scott Powell <spo...@nofc.forestry.ca>
> This means that either the laser is
> operating on a frequency in which clouds are transparent (which I
> strongly doubt) or the bomb is dropped `blind' and acquires the laser
> spot after it punches through the deck (another dubious proposition)
> or the whole scenario is bogus.
You wouldn't expect the military to use a laser designator that couldn't work
under overcast conditions would you? Maybe so but It doesn't strike me as
probable. I have no problem with the way the bombing was depicted.
> Another quibble I have is with a scene where a conversation between the
> President's Chief of Staff and the druglord's security chief is
> intercepted by `laser miking' the window (i.e. reflecting a laser light
> off a window to pick up the vibrations caused by the sounds inside).
> But I recall watching a documentary on interception technology where
> this technique was shown to suffer from severe high-frequency
> attenuation, enough to make it unusable. And this was a lab demo, which
> means that the field effectiveness would be worse. Does anybody know
> whether the technology has improved?
>
> I know, it's only a movie. Sigh.
Phew! I was going to get upset there for a minute! :/
I have friends (yes I do damnit!) that work in high technology arena at the
highest civilian levels. I`ve discussed with quite a few people, and if there's one thing I've learnt it's that anything that isn't top secret is long ago obsolete. You can rest assured that whatever was in that documentary was not top of the line.
I won't claim any superior knowledge of these technologies but rest assured
it's better than the general public is led to believe.
Scott
Quellish
From Quellish <quel...@aol.com>
In article <CuMyo...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, "Andrew W. Tron"
<awt...@beam.princeton.edu> writes:
The last time I heard of real-world use of ground laser designators
involved an almost exact dupkicate of the movie- F-18, meduim to heavy
low-level clouds, and a small team using the AN/PAQ-1. The F-18 had no way
of even seeing the beam, the bomb also had no way of telling the pilot it
was "locked". The pilot dropped it as if it were a "dumd" bomb, and the
seeker aquired the splash on the glide down. As for the laser listening
system- yes, it does work. It requires a samll DSP unit though.
Nicholas Strauss
From Nicholas Strauss <nstr...@netmare.corp.sgi.com>
In article <CuMyo...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, "Andrew W. Tron" <awt...@beam.princeton.edu> writes:
|>
|> This brings up a technological quibble I have with the movie. If I
|> remember the scene correctly, the bomb punches through a cloud deck
|> before hitting the target. This means that either the laser is
|> operating on a frequency in which clouds are transparent (which I
|> strongly doubt) or the bomb is dropped `blind' and acquires the laser
|> spot after it punches through the deck (another dubious proposition)
|> or the whole scenario is bogus.
Dunno about dropping through a cloud deck, but its common enough
practice to drop the bomb without lasing the target 'till its near
impact. From what I've heard/read, usually you only last the final
5-10 seconds.
Supposed to increase the accuracy of the older weapons (ie, Paveway
I and II kits) which are a little prone to under-shooting the
targed otherwise.
Also used to engage multiple targets...Army guys will do this with
their Hellfires and Apaches...fire off a pair of missiles ten seconds
apart while behind cover. 30 seconds later, pop up, lase one target
'till impact, then you've got a few seconds to switch over to your
second target...though I've never heard of this trick being used
with free fall weapons.
--Nick
|> I know, it's only a movie. Sigh.
I know, got the same problem...
--
______________________________________
\ \ _ ______ |
\ NICHOLAS STRAUSS \ / \___-=O`/|O`/__|
\ Silicon Graphics-Network Operations \_______\ / | / )
/ nstr...@netmare.corp.sgi.com / `/-==__ _/__|/__=-|
/ pi...@leland.stanford.edu / * \ | |
/_____________________________________/ (o)
"What, are you kidding?? We're on a spaceship! This place is *crawling*
with toothpicks!" -- the silly quote
"Who dares, wins." -- the serious quote
Daniel Pawtowski
From Daniel Pawtowski <dpaw...@access.digex.net>
In article <CuqsB...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
Thomas Zachary Moore <zach_moo...@a.site.name> wrote:
>
>While the bomb was on it's way to the target one of the other characters(I
>forget his name)was shown watching an monitor that appeared to be the view
>of the bomb as it fell.
>
>Also, wouldn't it be a security problem. Wasn't the purpose of dropping the
It's a fairly safe guess that any such video signal would be encoded
sufficiently to makeinterception unlikely. On the other had, the presence
of a signal would be dangerous- someone might get suspicious if they
saw a "small airliner" putting out enough radio bandwidth for a video
picture. I can't see an F-18 broadcasting pictures like that during a
war, it would be inviting a counterattack by anti-radiation missiles.
It could help do recon and such, but there would be much less risk to the
plane if it just recorded the pictures and carried a videotape back.
Let the dedicated recon plane orbiting WAY above worry about live video, the
guys on the deck have other problems.
As for the question of listening though a window with a laser- I seem to
recall these systems had major problems with traffic noise, since the window
dosen't care which side the sounds are coming from. Heck, a double-pane
window would mostly return street/outside noise, unless someone has figured
a way to only bounce the beam off the inner pane.
Daniel Pawtowski
dpaw...@vt.edu
Katsucon Ichi: The U.S. East Coast Regional Anime/Manga Con of Feb, 1995.