Rearward firing missiles?

[jcf]

Grumman Design 143 Brushfire rear defense system intended for production Martin P6M-2 Seamaster.
Rear pointing launch tube with 4 to 6 reloads.

Info as promised.

Jon

[GTX]

Slightly off topic but wasn't it a Buccaneer tactic to keep several para-tailed bombs in the bay and drop them in front of a persuiting fighter?  Damn that's a scary thought. 

I think the Bucc' crews referred to the tactic as "Dropping one's knickers!"

Regards,

Greg

[Mossie]

Would that tactic yield much more than turning the oppositions knickers brown, without being very lucky?  Still, might be enough in a tricky situation.  The debris thrown up when it hits the ground might ruin the bandits day in a low level chase.  If it was BL.755 they were carrying (or WE.177!  ), that might be a very useful.

[Weaver]

The same tactic was discussed as a means of defending low-level SAC bombers from Soviet fighters, except in that case, the "present" was a small tac nuke!    IIRC, you see it used by a B-52 against a MiG-25 in the film By Dawn's Early Light.

[Mossie]

You'd have to hope your Navs having a good day!  "Definately over enemy territory, yes.  Hang on a sec, how come North is pointing down...... ".  At least the CO wouldn't be giving you a B*llocking!

[JayBee]

Slightly off topic but wasn't it a Buccaneer tactic to keep several para-tailed bombs in the bay and drop them in front of a persuiting fighter?  Damn that's a scary thought. 

It was a 1000lb retarded bomb carried in place of the port drop tank.
The 1000lb bomb has a killing circle of 500 feet, if you are low down, and in a Bucc you are never anywhere else, with the pursuing aircraft approx. half a mile behind................Good Night Vienna!!

That info. came from the O.C. Buccaneer OCU RAF Honington, many years ago.

JimB

[dogsbody]

Some Fw 190A-8's of IV/JG-3 were fitted with a single, rearward firing WGr 21 tube, mounted under the fuselage.
I've looked for a photo of one, but can't find any. I'm quite sure I have a pic in one of my books, but I need more time to find it.

[Acree]

In SAC we referred to the tactic noted above as BIF (bomb-in-the-face).  It wasn't unique to SAC, as TAC strike-fighters (F-111, etc.) discussed it also.  Some "experienced" pilots swore it would never work, while others were equally adamant that it was a good tactic.  If you're carrying 51 x 500 pounders at low altitude and can't shake a trailing fighter (or shoot him with the guns), sure seems like it would be worth a try or two.  Would never consider it with a nuke, as we carried too few and they all had specific targets... on the other hand, if it was that or die, and we were for sure over enemy territory?

Cheers,
Chuck

[Tornado]

Bill Gunston in his 1984 'Future Fighters and Combat Aircraft' published by Salamander has a diagram of a rearward firing fighter with a radar in the tail cone saying, "with a radar mounted in the fighter's nose, this means that the fighter must fly towards the enemy all the time its own MRM's (medium range missile eg Sparrow) are in the air. Clearly this is a grave disadvantage, becuase it throws away the possible advantages of being first to detect the enemy." He goes on to say another way to solve this is to build an AAM with its own radar homer and goes on to name the new AIM-120. A much simpler way than aiming your tail at the enemy I'd say (what happens if the enemy is in front of you, you turn away and the distance between you goes higher and so the missile has further to travel. Meanwhile your tailpipes are nice targets for some long-range IR homer the Soviets are fond of.
Hmmm, doesn't seem like a sensible soloution for a fighter to me.

[Hobbes]

 Tornado,
the rearward-firing missile was always meant as a last-ditch defence, i.e. when the enemy is already on your tail. The majority of the missiles carried would still be conventional forward-firing missiles.

[Fulcrum]

Simple solution: put a army-surplus 40mm grenade launcher in the tail(but, you have to redesign a aircraft to carry it internally & with a 40-100 grenade magazine)!!!
So...
If a emeny fighter aircraft comes behind you, all you have to do is to press the chaff/flare/grenade button & all you need is the interia of falling out to give it enough speed to hit the pursuing aircraft.

[Mossie]

In BSP Hypersonics, the BAe P.1239 carried a 'smart mortar'.  The P.1329 was one of ths SABA proposals & one variant had a modular weapons pack in the spine.  One module would have carried the Merlin smart mortar, several dozen would be carried, fired above the aircraft, then each would individually home on a ground target.

I imagine this would be quite useful as a defensive aid.  If the Merlin could pick out ground targets, it could probably find a fighter against ground clutter, although the speed of the target may have been an issue.  May be just enough for the pursuing fighter to have to evade the mortars to let the SABA get away.

I guess 'last ditch' tactics like these & the Bucc method would only be useful for aircraft that would be forced into a low down tail chase.  When true lookdown-shoot capability comes into the fray, I guess these tactics are useless?

[Weaver]

I guess 'last ditch' tactics like these & the Bucc method would only be useful for aircraft that would be forced into a low down tail chase.  When true lookdown-shoot capability comes into the fray, I guess these tactics are useless?

At that point it comes down the strike aircraft's ECM fit, I suspect. Being low down in the ground clutter still makes the strike aircraft a more difficult radar target, and that in turn helps it's ECM fit to screw with the fighter's radar. You could imagine a situation where all the measures and countermeasures more or less cancel each other out, and it comes down to guns and Mk.1 eyeball in the endgame.....