A spectacular video has surfaced of 9 F-16 Vipers overflying a base at a low degree from a number of instructions in multi-vector assault drills. In an age of precision-guided weapons, it’s uncommon to see quite a few jets attacking an airfield from a number of instructions whereas flying low.
The footage in query is related to the fortieth anniversary of the F-16’s service profession in Denmark. The first F-16 for Denmark was delivered on January 28, 1980.
To have a good time this milestone, the Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) organized two formation flights, one within the morning and one other within the afternoon, on January 17, 2020.
The flights entailed advanced routes over a lot of Denmark, together with numerous airbases, airports, and landmarks, with the jets primarily flying at an altitude of round 2,000 toes.
Each formation flight concerned ten plane, one in every of which had a digicam onboard to report the occasion.
F-16s in Denmark on an train. Lots of plane passing by way of the identical airspace shortly. pic.twitter.com/jkEEw1vTxF
— Aviation Ogre (@AvHistoryOgre) January 22, 2023
The video exhibits a portion of the primary formation flight, which concluded at Skrydstrup Air Base within the south of Jutland. The flight ended with a nine-ship flyby, after which a 10-minute ‘squadron attack’ was carried on the bottom itself.
The identical finale was additionally repeated on the finish of the second formation flight within the afternoon.
Low-Flying Multi-Vector Attacks No More Relevant?
During the Cold War, counting on this form of multi-axis, low-level strike for assaults towards airbases was a typical tactic.
Flying low serves the aim of avoiding detection from enemy radars, as noticed within the ongoing warfare in Ukraine. Also, weapons used on the time had been designed for low-level releases.
In the period of recent air fight, a multi-vector assault involving a number of low-flying plane is taken into account unlikely by Western army commentators, because the emergence of precision-guided air-to-surface weapons with various levels of stand-off functionality has negated the necessity for fighter pilots to conduct dangerous ‘point-blank’ raid on an lively airbase or every other well-defended goal.
However, as EurAsian Times mentioned earlier, the extreme depletion of stock of precision-guided munitions had prompted the Russian army to rely closely on unguided weapons in Ukraine, and because of which, Russia’s superior fight plane, like Su-35 and Su-34, had been being employed in quaint seek-and-destroy missions, which contain the plane flying low and visually buying the goal to assault it.
At the identical time, Ukraine’s Western companions are additionally in bother, because the warfare in Ukraine is already consuming into their weapons stock, a lot in order that NATO member nations are fearful that their stockpiles will attain ranges beneath the edge crucial to satisfy their protection obligations below the North Atlantic Treaty.
An all-out standard warfare can probably trigger extreme depletion of precision-guided weaponry. Therefore, coaching to assault a set floor goal as a part of a multi-ship formation just like the one staged by RDAF in January 2020 can undoubtedly show helpful for fighter pilots.
The pace and complexity of maneuvers concerned in a flight akin to that carried out by Danish F-16s over Skrydstrup may help pilots hone their expertise in attending to the assigned goal or launch level on time and at an acceptable altitude.
Nevertheless, such unique formation flights might quickly turn into extinct, not less than within the case of RDAF, which is making ready to retire its F-16s as it really works to welcome the brand new fifth-generation F-35A stealth jets bought from the US in 2016.
The first two of the deliberate 27 F-35A Stealth jets for Denmark arrived at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, in April 2021, the place six Danish F-35s are embedded within the 308th Fighter Squadron, a joint US Air Force (USAF), Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF), and RDAF coaching unit.
Until the F-35 takes over the RDAF’s fighter project, Skrydstrup’s ultimate squadron of F-16s, 30 of that are operational at any time, will proceed to defend Denmark’s airspace, and carry out international missions as effectively, which lately have concerned deployments to Iceland and the Baltic States.
The first batch of RDAF F-35 pilots, who’ve transformed from the F-16, is predicted to graduate from the Joint Strike Fighter coaching syllabus this 12 months, and the primary F-35s to be deployed in Denmark is slated to reach at Skrydstrup this 12 months.
The airbase is present process a major overhaul, with new plane shelters, upkeep amenities, and coaching amenities to host the F-35s.
