DCS: AJS-37 Viggen Discussion

:poster_ban:

^^ :)

All those road bases are pretty cool, but how many are there and how many aircraft are stored at such a place.

As we can see, they are pretty easy to spot, so you could still bomb those roads and prevent any aircraft from taking of. Furthermore, you might miss a few, but then airpower is diminished so far allready that the few aircraft left can't do much against the enemy's airforce.

As an enemy I would document all those location and send some cruisemissiles to those bases. The problem with having many small bases is that it is difficult to defend them all. But I might be totally wrong here, correct me If I am.

These bases were only meant to be used as reserve bases and there were quite many of them across the country. Bas60 was the first system used for this. The idea was to move away from the permanent bases to wartime bases in case of war. The wartime bases were scattered around the country and each had reserve road bases attached to them. The command and control of these wartime bases was placed in fortified bunkers several kilometers from the actual runways. Ground control was led from mobile "TLF-kärror" (Trafikledning i Fält/Field Traffic Control wagons).

Each base had sub-terrainean fuel storages and there were connecting points at hook up comms to the central airtraffic control/command center. Some had hangars built in the Swedish granite rockbed. At the temporary bases you also had "Framoms" (Främre klargöringsområde/forward clearance area) which provided some cover from the elements:

The Bas60 system was later developed into the Bas90 system but the basic principle for how everything worked was the same.

From page 18 and onward in this document you will find a list of bases:

[ame]http://www.flygbas.se/bilder/973.pdf[/ame]

Note that this document also includes reserve airfields (NOT road bases), training airfields and civilian airfields that could be used by the military. It also includes some planned but never completed projects.

Concerning the width of Swedish road base landing strips: They were not always that wide......

A friend of mine flew J-35 Drakens out of J21 in Luleå in the 80' and he once told me this story:

"When landing on a road base, you did not always see the actual runway due to it being so narrow and due to the high aoa. However, all you had to do was to ensure the pines on your left and right were at the same distance from your wingtips and you were good to go.....:music_whistling:

Here of course is the thread for discussion of this (leaked) module coming!

 

Now LNS should just announce, we all know!

Soooooooooooo...Where was this leaked? I keep seeing all sorts of discussion about this and the Corsair but no solid proof.

Sierra

Soooooooooooo...Where was this leaked? I keep seeing all sorts of discussion about this and the Corsair but no solid proof.

 

Sierra

https://steamdb.info/search/?a=sub&q=dcs

Here.

Also the seasons greeting from LN had Viggens flying in a christmas tree formation.

Anyone that knows what kind of technology it is in the data and destination indicators? Based on the time period I would guess nixie tubes or VFD, but some pictures are leaning towards some kind of mechanical (backlighted) design...

Update: found this

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So, nixie or mechanical?

All those road bases are pretty cool, but how many are there and how many aircraft are stored at such a place.

As we can see, they are pretty easy to spot, so you could still bomb those roads and prevent any aircraft from taking of. Furthermore, you might miss a few, but then airpower is diminished so far allready that the few aircraft left can't do much against the enemy's airforce.

 

As an enemy I would document all those location and send some cruisemissiles to those bases. The problem with having many small bases is that it is difficult to defend them all. But I might be totally wrong here, correct me If I am.

The road bases were conceived, and for the most part, used in the time before PGMs and stand off weapons became commonplace.

During a lot of the cold war, the Soviets didn't have too much in terms of long range precision strike aircraft either.

Here is a document in english, describing the design and development of the onboard computer in the Viggen.

[ame]http://www.datasaab.se/Papers/Articles/Viggenck37.pdf[/ame]

Concerning the width of Swedish road base landing strips: They were not always that wide......

 

A friend of mine flew J-35 Drakens out of J21 in Luleå in the 80' and he once told me this story:

 

"When landing on a road base, you did not always see the actual runway due to it being so narrow and due to the high aoa. However, all you had to do was to ensure the pines on your left and right were at the same distance from your wingtips and were good to go.....:music_whistling:

Perhaps this changed when transiting from Bas60 to Bas90? Down here in the region of "Aircraft carrier Västergötland" I have only seen the wider ones.

The road bases were conceived, and for the most part, used in the time before PGMs and stand off weapons became commonplace.

 

During a lot of the cold war, the Soviets didn't have too much in terms of long range precision strike aircraft either.

Also, the idea wasn't to keep all of them operational at once. Sweden used the Israel/Egypt six days war as a warning example. The Israelis basically destroyed Egypts airpower on the ground. The Swedish system was an attempt to make similar attacks difficult.

Also, the idea wasn't to keep all of them operational at once. Sweden used the Israel/Egypt six days war as a warning example. The Israelis basically destroyed Egypts airpower on the ground. The Swedish system was an attempt to make similar attacks difficult.

That particular war was a wake up call for many countries. Not only Sweden started up tests and implementation of extra/temporary bases.

The Swedish system was based on that the enhancement of the roads should be as transparent and secret as possible. Not all of them where used for practice in peace time. A part of the concept was to be so scattered that the enemy wouldn't know for sure which particular base that was in use at a specific time. And it would be to costly to destroy them all (if known). As stated previously, what seems easy enough today wasn't during the 60's through 80's (even though the Polish "students" and truck drivers did their best to find and document as much as possible...).

All bases should be within one hour drive (by car) from the main airfield - so the maintenance crew could easily regroup and support the planes.

Not sure if there was any standard procedures for how long a road base was to be used, before the ground crew regrouped to another one?

Perhaps this changed when transiting from Bas60 to Bas90? Down here in the region of "Aircraft carrier Västergötland" I have only seen the wider ones.

Maybe so but I posted the story mainly because I thought it sounded pretty hairy to land on a runway you can't see while squeezing in between pines......;)

Here in Germany we have some autobahn-runways too. When I drive on the A-81 from rottweil to Stuttgart I have to drive on one of them, easy to detect when you know.

and north of Stuttgart also on the A-81 between Heilbron and Würzburg :music_whistling:

All those road bases are pretty cool, but how many are there and how many aircraft are stored at such a place.

As we can see, they are pretty easy to spot, so you could still bomb those roads and prevent any aircraft from taking of. Furthermore, you might miss a few, but then airpower is diminished so far allready that the few aircraft left can't do much against the enemy's airforce.

 

As an enemy I would document all those location and send some cruisemissiles to those bases. The problem with having many small bases is that it is difficult to defend them all. But I might be totally wrong here, correct me If I am.

This is a typical "bas 90" - the newer model of dispersed basing, designed for the Viggen and built from the 70's and on:

Letters H, B, C and D are runways, and all of them except H are widened road strips about 800 meters long. The triangles marked KC and BasC are fortified command bunkers (KC for the squadron, BasC for the base battalion), the smaller triangles are minor defensive bunkers/bomb shelters. The numbered squares along the roads are aircraft parking spots for one or two aircraft each. The numbered squares near the H runway are parking spots where aircraft can be held at high readiness with the engine running and the pilot in the cockpit, ready to take off for an intercept at a moment's notice. The base battalion that serves the base has, in addition to the aircraft mechanics etc, a good number of runway clearing assets (dump trucks, road graders, earthmovers, asphalt cookers, steamrollers etc etc).

This base is supposed to house a single squadron (nominally 16 aircraft, usually plus a few spares). As you can see, there are about twice as many aircraft parking spots as there are aircraft, and they're all so far from each other that you'd have to use one guided weapon on each spot (camo/roofing makes sure you can't tell from the air if there's an aircraft in a given spot). Getting that sort of force into place requires a lot of time and effort, and back in the day PGM's were rare and expensive. The dispersed basing system was a reasonable response to the threats of the time.

Here in Germany we have some autobahn-runways too. When I drive on the A-81 from rottweil to Stuttgart I have to drive on one of them, easy to detect when you know.

Yes, the German, both east (approx 13 Autobahnabschnitt (ABA) or Behelfs-Start- und Landebahn (BSLB)) and west (approx 25 Autobahn-Notlandeplatz (NLP-Str)) road bases are mentioned in the document linked to about the Swedish road bases (there are some examples of how other countries solved this).

The first NLP-Str was ready in 1961 in the Lahr area, and the rest started to build in 1967, as a result of the 6 day war.

More about this here (vorausgesetzt, Sie sprechen Deutsch):

http://www.geschichtsspuren.de/artikel/luftfahrt-luftwaffe/113-autobahn-notlandeplaetze-nlp.html

I don't think this video has been shared here before, and it shows all external lights in a good way.

1 : Strålkastare, taxiljus

- landing light (2 *250W) and taxi light (1*50W)

4 : Antikollisionsljus

- beacon, red rotating light

5 : Lanternor

- nav lights, red and green at the wings (5a) and at the tail (5b) - (off, half or full intensity)

6 : Formationsljus

- formation lights, green panels on the fuselage (6a) and illuminated fin (6b)

7 : Ledljus

- guide lights, white lights at the back end of the wing (7a) and rudder and also in the airbrake (7b)

Notes:

The formation and guide lights have a variable intensity ( 8 )

The landing and taxi lights are turned on as soon as the landing gear is out, if the switch is set to "TAXI" (only the taxi light) or "TILL" (all three lights) and turned off automatically when the gear is up.

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Speaking of ground personel - the Swedish system was kind of extraordinary from an international point of view, since most of the crew where conscripts. Still they managed to keep a high speed and quality in getting the aircrafts ready for action.

So what type of missions do you guys have planned for this aircraft from a mission designer standpoint? I guess we are getting the swedish version of the Maverick so it could do some tank or fixed target killing... What else?

Its main purpose: Anti-ship, invasion fleet destruction, or at least attrition.

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a Video of a Mobile Turnaround of a JA-37 viggen (fighter variant).

Filmed in 1996 and the Aircraft (and groundcrew) were stationed at the F-16 wing stationed at Uppsala.

A mobile Tunaround is when the turnaround takes place at an alternative field from the main base and as such the groundcrew and equipment is quickly transported to the airfield/runway in question

(could be either roadbases,Small Airfields or like on this occation a Civilian airport)

The Procedure for a Aj (AJS)37 would the same except for the fact that the AJ-37 has no internal gun so that step would be skipped.

Out of that groundcrew only 1 or 2 would be Flight Engineers / Technicians with everyone else only being conscripts.

I think the Record turnaround time for a viggen was just under 7 minutes (alteast that was the best time ive heard of)

Standard Turnaround time (from when the Ground Crew started work on the aircraft untill they where done and it was ready to start) was around 8-10 minutes.

(if the equipment / weapons was there and ready to be loaded)

This example took 8 minutes (As announced by one of the guys in the video) though not all of it was filmed.

When in a hurry it could take no more then 10 minutes between taxiing off the runway after landing to being able to takeoff again with a full load.

But that was when there was need to really hurry.

Since usually a pilot would not jump in / takeoff within seconds of the groundcrew being done.

And also Turnaround time would not differ that much depending on weaponry and as such the time between loading 2 missiles (like in this video) or a full 6 missile loadout where not that big since in that case they would have been multitasking with most of the missiles beeing loaded at the same time (with 2 or at most 3 groundcrew per weapon).

A second longer more complete video with 2 different turnarounds but this time in better weather and also with larger loadouts (including Radar guided missiles)

[ame]

So what type of missions do you guys have planned for this aircraft from a mission designer standpoint? I guess we are getting the swedish version of the Maverick so it could do some tank or fixed target killing... What else?

If we are getting an appropriate map, I am planning to create a dynamic campaign for the Viggen. It will be about a Soviet invasion of Sweden in the 1980s (in the context of a global East-West war, exact year to be determined) and is divided into two phases.

Phase one: Soviet airstrikes on the Swedish air force in order to gain air superiority for an amphibious operation. The AJ37 will be employed as auxiliary fighter in air defense missions. Soviet fighter-bomber and bomber units deployed in the Baltic republics and Kaliningrad were primary equipped with Su-24, Su-17 and MiG-27 (there was one MiG-21 regiment near Riga). Most fighter units in the area were PVO (Su-15 and MiG-23, first Su-27 in 1987). I do not think they would have been used for offensive missions and would have been retained for territorial defense (which might include air defense for the Baltic Fleet when deployed). Only one VVS fighter regiment in Latvia with MiG-23M (MiG-29 from 1985) for offensive missions in the area. Occasional Tu-22M missile strikes from Long Range Aviation units. Swedish primary goal is to preserve its air force strength.

Phase two: Soviet invasion fleet crosses the Baltic for amphibious landing in Sweden. PVO fighter units provide air defense for the fleet. AJ37 fulfills its reason for existence with anti-ship strikes.

There could also be missions where VDV loaded IL-76's needs to be taken down as well.

And a third phase attacking ground troops at the beach head or tank columns in in the north of Sweden.

Well, plenty of fun awaits :pilotfly:

If we are getting an appropriate map, I am planning to create a dynamic campaign for the Viggen. It will be about a Soviet invasion of Sweden in the 1980s (in the context of a global East-West war, exact year to be determined) and is divided into two phases.

 

Phase one: Soviet airstrikes on the Swedish air force in order to gain air superiority for an amphibious operation. The AJ37 will be employed as auxiliary fighter in air defense missions. Soviet fighter-bomber and bomber units deployed in the Baltic republics and Kaliningrad were primary equipped with Su-24, Su-17 and MiG-27 (there was one MiG-21 regiment near Riga). Most fighter units in the area were PVO (Su-15 and MiG-23, first Su-27 in 1987). I do not think they would have been used for offensive missions and would have been retained for territorial defense (which might include air defense for the Baltic Fleet when deployed). Only one VVS fighter regiment in Latvia with MiG-23M (MiG-29 from 1985) for offensive missions in the area. Occasional Tu-22M missile strikes from Long Range Aviation units. Swedish primary goal is to preserve its air force strength.

 

Phase two: Soviet invasion fleet crosses the Baltic for amphibious landing in Sweden. PVO fighter units provide air defense for the fleet. AJ37 fulfills its reason for existence with anti-ship strikes.

That sounds cool as shit, definitely downloading it if it gets made!