Word: radars
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Prowler helped divert the Libyan-fired SA-5 Gammon missiles that touched off the skirmishing. After the incoming missiles were detected, the Prowler's five underwing jamming devices mimicked the radar signature of U.S. aircraft, creating dozens of false targets at a safe distance from U.S. ships. Meanwhile, the U.S.S. Ticonderoga's advanced electronic Aegis system scanned the gulf for enemy planes...
Less than an hour later, two A-7 attack planes took off from the Saratoga after Navy sensors detected radar emissions from the missile site at Surt. They flew to about 40 miles from the base and released their high-speed anti- radiation missiles (HARM). The missiles home in on radar waves and are designed to destroy the transmitter, not the missiles or launchers themselves. "We shot out the tires," said one Pentagon official. "We didn't need to fire a pistol through the windshield to take out the driver...
About four hours after the first strike on the Surt missile base, American sensors again detected radar from the site scanning the gulf. Weinberger later said he "would assume" that Soviet technicians helped the Libyans repair the base. American planes launched two more HARM missiles, and again the radar went dead. The final American strike occurred later that morning: a pair of fighter jets hit at least one Libyan vessel near Benghazi...
...hardly a foundation for an effective policy, especially against terrorism. Nor does the battle of Sidra provide much of a guide for retaliation when the source of the threat is not as easy to identify as a speeding patrol boat nor as simple to locate as a beaming radar installation...
...disquieting, an eerie evocation of Apocalypse Now. In Ronald Reagan's two-front muscle flexing last week, the images and the reality were hard to sort out. Power, yes, and the will to use it, yes. But to what end? And with what effect? Will briefly disabling Gaddafi's radar mean less terrorism or more? Will aiding Honduras serve to keep Nicaragua at bay or drag U.S. troops into a thickening morass...