Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

KOREA
targeting impossible. The ground radar operators responded to this tactic
by switching their radar frequencies.
The duty of the B-29 electronic countermeasures (ECM) operators
was to switch their jammer frequencies as quickly as possible after any
changes in ground-based radar frequencies were detected. Deceiving
enemy radars was the second basic tactic; this was accomplished with
chaff-thin foil strips cut at lengths that would reflect ground radar pulses.
By dispensing chaff, bombers could create false targets-so many, in fact,
that ground antiaircraft controllers could not tell the real bombers from the
fake until the raid was over.
The use of ECM greatly reduced bomber losses, but night bombardment
remained hazardous duty. The reduced accuracy of night
bombing strikes forced bombers to return periodically to North Korean
airfields to keep them closed. In November 1951, Weyland defined the
primary mission of FEAF’s Bomber Command as the systematic
destruction of North Korean airfields; in December, Weyland ordered
the B-29s to strike at least one important airfield every night.’” So the
Chinese and North Koreans knew the B-29s would be coming regularly.
Their tactic was to pick up the approaching bombers on early warning
radars, then use GCI radars to vector MiGs in toward the bomber stream.
Searchlight radars would target the bombers, and a cone of lights would
illuminate one B-29. MiGs would only attack when they saw a bomber
illuminated by searchlight or by the moon. Directly over the target, the
B-29s ran a gauntlet of flak. This was, in most respects, a replay of World
War 11; bcth sides used established tactics and proven (nearly obsolescent)
equipment.
The B-29s responded to the enemy tactics with countermeasures of
their own: flying at altitudes which would not produce centrails, feinting
toward one target and then striking at some other field, tightening formations
to place the greatest number of bombers over the target in the shortest
possible time, and painting bombers nonreflective black underneath to
reduce their visibility. B-29s were not allowed to drop chaff until 1951, nor
were their ECM operators permitted to jam enemy GCI ground-to-plane
VHF communications. The latter were listened to by Air Force and Navy
radio intercept units for intelligence purposes. However, all of the intelligence
material so gathered was classified Top Secret, and Bomber Command
and Fifth Air Force were not convinced that the benefits gained from
such intelligence were worth the added risk to B-29 groups.” B-29 ECM
operators were also not permitted to jam enemy early warning radars. This
prohibition was intended to conceal overall U.S. ECM capability so that no
tactics then practiced by the Strategic Air Command would be compromised.
The enemy also developed electronic counter countermeasures
(ECCM). When B-29s jammed enemy fire control radars, the operators on
the ground would DF (use direction-finding gear) the B-29 broadcasts to
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