Antisubmarine Fighter Squadrons

[Weaver]

What about Harriers or Sea Harriers in the Fighter/ASW role - fit a torp on one side and a pod mounted dipping sonar on the other...

Regards,

Greg

The problem with using a dipping sonar is that the Harrier only has a very limited hovering endurance due to it needing water injection to get maximum power without the engine overheating in the hover: IIRC, it's less than a minute.

No reason why you couldn't use sonobuoys of course. However payload range will quickly become an issue. The two-seater already has significantly less disposable load than the single, and then there's all the electronics needed to make sense of what the sonobuoys are telling you....

[Thorvic]

Pretty sure there are pics of Sea Harriers with Depth Charge or Torpedo.

Argentina actually had HMS Warrior as a their first light fleet carrier as Independcia and replaced her with the modernised Karal Doorman when the Dutch and Canadians dropped their ASW light Carriers at the end of the 60's.

The Rockwell XFV-12 and Convair 200 were intended as the ASW fighter escort for the new SCS intended to replace the dedicated ASW carriers. The USN did look at Sidewinder armed AV-8A harriers for their fleet (although that was for air defence for the super carriers when they were close to port and unable to use their CTOL airgrous ) they were listed as a customer for the AV-16 along with the USMC before they blew their funding on the XFV-12 instead  

[Jschmus]

I found a link to a page about the VSF squadrons, which has some interesting info:

http://www.ebdir.net/vsf1/boom_powell_part_1.html

I found some real-life what if information here, including an attempt to develop the A-4B Skyhawk into a true air-to-air fighter, converted with the radar from an F-8 Crusader inside the nosecone from an F-11 Tiger:



Apparently the modifications were done without the approval of higher authority.  BuAir disapproved of the mods as well as the testing applied to the airframe, which apparently included carrier qualification.  The unauthorized mod was referred to informally as the "YFA-4B".  The aircraft was later converted back to A-4B standard and was shot down over Vietnam.

Previous to this, A-4s were flown with their nosecones and part of the tail painted black as though they carried radar and tail-warning sensors.

[tahsin]

While Thorvic has already said it , I am definite that Turkish magazines of the late 70s had articles about Sea Harriers prepared from marketing material and ASW mission was always mentioned .

[lenny100]

the role of the sea harrier was seen as a fast reponce to a pop up threat beyond the range of the the airborne helicopters to respond quickly to. they were to use a pod with up to six sonar-buoys but had to relay on the direction of shipboard controllers to be told when to drop the weapons, almost the same as using a UK lynx shipborne helicopter at a shorter range. although i have seen ships personnel use harriers in this role during electronic training i believe it was never tried for real, by the royal navy except during the early trails of the sea harrier, and was not a routine part of the training of the pilots

[sandiego89]

Don't forget the nuclear ASW role- Sea Harriers and other jet fighters/attack aircraft did have this little mentioned ASW capability- not with traditional sonybouys and torpedos, but with nuclear stores.  Perhaps the A-4's were on board these ASW carriers for nuclear strike and for the "fighter" role to protect carrier.  The Sea Harrrier had the WE177 and the A-4 with at least the Mk 7 mk 43 and Mk 57.  Would have required vectoring by another ship or ASW aircraft.

Wonder how hard Brazil looked at the A-7 Corsair II? but agree that avialbility of the Kuwaiti A-4's and the commmonality with their air force A-4s was the main driver.