Is better than no MiG at all. How a MiG-25 Foxbat ( a really bad airframe), shot down LCDR Scott Spicher's F/A-18 the first night of Desert Storm..

shootdown

Interesting story. Thanks for posting. Regrets for LCDR Speicher and thanks for his service and, unfortunately, his sacrifice.

What a shame. I had forgotten that Spicher later died. RIP.
Every time I hear something about the MiG-25 it makes me remember seeing on TV Belinko's (SP?) Foxbat sitting on the runway in Japan. I was in elementary school at the time. I remember thinking '"Wow a Soviet Foxbat defected?"

Bummer. E

He should have been engaged when he was seen climbing after takeoff.

I was in that Air Wing after DS as a Dept Head in the viking Squadron and in fact I'm very good friends with his room mate so I was very familiar with the issue. Spike's status was MIA for years, but during the clinton era, we had SOLID intel he had been captured, so a plan was put together to insert a team to the crash site to ascertain. The Chairman (JCS) at the time, that "showmeyourwillie" dude, disapproved it. Bottom line is we'll never know.

If you read the article, we had that damned MiG "painted" since he launched, but we did not have 100% ID and wanted to avoid blue on blue so the AWACS didn't paint a good picture. The other problem was it was a BVR (beyond visual range) shot (even though they could see his burner plume), but still, that missile launch was missed. That is war..

Wow. How terrible for his family.

Very unfortunate outcome but an interesting engagement.

There’s a great quote in Pederson’s new book Top Gun. Paraphrasing, he says, Why do we spend billions on new technologies when we turn around and write rules of engagement that don’t allow us to use the technologies.

We’d be better off training our asses off in good jets than squeezing in minimum training hours on great jets. The number one element of success in big aerial battles is situational awareness. They lost it, or in actuality it was lost amongst many other bits of information, and he paid the price. There’s also a mindset of “needing permission.” If the guy who had him on radar, and knew what it was, had been better trained to solve the problem that MiG would have been on our side of the Talley board. The F-18s at that time we’re still relatively new, and were mostly attack pilots lacking the training in large scale A/A scenarios. Training matters. Only after taking part in NUMEROUS large scale events does everything start to slow down in your mind where you can hear and process all the information being thrown at you, and then prioritize and act upon it.
We actually did a pretty good job of training to this in the years afterwards. Of course post 9/11 the missions changed and the focus was on strike/CAS (understandably). I’d be concerned about a similar A/A scenario today. Though in conversations I think they are aware and attempting to address the training shortfalls. Making a multi mission jet is easier than making a true multi mission pilot. I envy the F-15C and F-22 guys in that regard.

Thanks for sharing.

Do I remember correctly that Speicher wasn't even missed for two days?

That's nonsense. Everyone knew he'd been bagged, just not located because his ELT had not gone off. PRM, to your point and more recently, how many shots did we have to take against that Syrian Frogfoot (?) last year to knock him down?

Took two shots. The 9x didn’t work. The -120 did him in.

How long does it take to “warm up” a MIG’s radar?

That MiG25 is solid 60s tube technology!

It would seem that the old 60s tube technology was more than enough to kick modern high technologies ass, at least in this case. 😉

I remember reading about how the -25's radar, if it was powered up on the ground could fry rabbits and other small critters!
Probably an exaggeration, but makes a good story?

If the guy using the modern stuff is either prevented from shooting, or does not, then yes.

I have a friend who was on that strike - He said the biggest set of afterburners he had ever seen went through their formation - likely running up his jam strobe as that was the Iraqi training model and kill the Prowlers so the SAMs would have a jam free engagement. He split-essed 10,000 feet to keep it in sight and his Tomcats escorts turned but by that point the Mig had kept going at high Mach and they never saw it again. It is generally thought that it was the same Foxbat that got Spicher.

All the models and threat assessments on Iraqi tactics we got prior to ODS was we were going to lose 50% of us in Prowlers the first night with that same scenario. I'm pretty happy to say they were wrong.

The problem is, the politicians and generals don't want to WIN, they just don't want to lose. That's a poor recipe for success, in any endeavor.

I think ANY of the modern radars with enough power can do it, I've read about F15s doing that in Florida, down at Eglin.

I know one thing, I wouldn't want to be the guys that have to predict what kind of future war(s) we are likely to become involved in. Have to plan for everything to CAS over one of the "Stans" to a full-scale Air to Air battle with the Russians or Chinese. Oh what fun.

Heck, almost 40 years ago a B-52 guy told me they couldn't run their electronic warfare package at anything more than barest minimum power, or they'd fry every radio and television set (no to mention air traffic control radars) for 100 miles.

BQM-74C - Persian Gulf War combat use



Northrop developed the BQM-74C to simulate subsonic aircraft, including cruise missiles, for the US Navy in the late 1970s. Prior to the beginning of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the US Air Force acquired 44 BQM-74Cs and reconfigured them from aerial targets into decoys. The BQM-74C's ability to fool Iraqi air defenses significantly reduced US and coalition aircraft losses.

In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, BQM-74Cs were used as decoys during the initial air attacks into Iraq. The USAF Big Safari group was put in charge of the decoy effort, which was codenamed "Project Scathe Mean."

The Chukar drones that were available were usually launched from DC-130 director aircraft, and could also be launched from strike aircraft such as F-15s or F-16s. These launch resources were not available though, so the Navy found twelve ground launchers in their inventory that could be made serviceable, while RATO booster units were found stockpiled in Belgium. Each BQM-74C was fitted with a pair of corner reflectors to enhance its radar signature to imitate a manned aircraft.

A 40-person team of specialists, obtained from disbanded ground-launched cruise missile units, was assembled in a few days and designated the "4468th Tactical Reconnaissance Group". The 4468th moved on a fast track, with trucks modified and obtained from a California commercial trucking firm, tool kits purchased from Sears, and field gear bought from war surplus stores. The teams were given quick training, equipped with 44 Navy BQM-74Cs, and sent to Saudi Arabia in two six-launcher teams in about two weeks, arriving near the Iraqi border on 15 October 1990. The northern team was sited to cover Baghdad and large military bases in that area, while the southern team was sited to cover Basra and Kuwait City.

When the Gulf War air campaign began on the night of 17 January 1991, Iraq was hit by waves of F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters and BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles. A group of 38 BQM-74Cs were assigned to be launched as diversion for the second wave of attacks, with the launches generally in groups of three, and 37 were launched successfully in precisely timed waves. One group of three was intercepted by Iraqi aircraft, while all the others made it to target.

The drones flew over 500 kilometers (310 miles) at 630 km/h (390 mph), then began to circle Baghdad for up to 20 minutes. Iraqi air defense radars which probed for the drones were engaged by allied strike aircraft firing AGM-88 HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles). The Navy also launched ADM-141 TALDs (Tactical Air Launched Decoys) to contribute to the countermeasures blitz. Iraqi air defenses never recovered from this blow, and though large Allied aircraft losses had been predicted, the Iraqis only succeeded in shooting down 44 manned aircraft. After the war, the 4468th was disbanded, and one of the remaining BQM-74Cs was donated to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, where it is now on display.

This author wrote these books about the subject.

https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Left-Behind-Speicher/dp/1885408862

And after it was published a lot of brass came forward to her with a lot of info and missing pieces, and had to write an updated version, I have both and they are very disturbing reads.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Bas...mp;qid=1556297274&s=books&sr=1-1

Here is a short interview with they author

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J2hgM94Mt0

And here is a longer interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwDoj-GtNJI

Dean

I ordered the book, but you know what, I'm not buying her story...
1. There are no TOP SECRET stuff on board an F/A-18 time 4:50
2. FA/18s routinely disengage from an attack run and go air to air. Lt. "Mongo" Mongillo did that and bagged a MiG
3. If she is quoting Admiral Johnson, that kinda lime mentioning CNN to me.
4. Not the first time blue on blue has happened and there is NO WAY we would sacrifice a man just to cover that up
5. The MiG 25 pilot has put pay to the friendly fire stuff.
There is more. This is a perfect example of circumstantial evidence weaved into a kook conspiracy.
Lastly, her closing comments she basically says he was sacrificed because of EGO on the part of the leadership, is total HORSEHIT. AS I said before, I happen to be very good friends with his room mate (we cruised on NIMITZ in 98 and this is all nonsense.

Jaysus, I hate civilians...

I doubt you will feel the same after you read the book, if you google her and read her bio she is quite an accomplished author and historian. I have communicated with her several times and she has told me all her info comes from several very reliable sources. That have been cross checked and verified and That they have came forward to her voluntarily, without her asking or even knowing they had anything to offer, and added that they info she was confided in was more like a confession and absolution, and that the truth would finally be told.

Dean

I know what I know Dean and I don't know this lady, but when inaccuracies come to light, it casts doubt on her story. I've contacted someone who was in the same squadron and with him and I'll get back to you.

Okie, "the Iraqis only succeeded in shooting down 44 manned aircraft," did I read that right?

1991 (Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm)

Find sources: "List of combat losses of United States military aircraft since the Vietnam War" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Main article: Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm
January 17 – An F/A-18C Hornet (Bureau Number : 163484) was shot down by an Iraqi Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 in an air-to-air engagement. The pilot (Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher) of VFA-81 was killed but his body was not found until July 2009.
January 17 – An A-6E Intruder (Bureau Number : 161668) was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Lieutenant Robert Wetzel) and navigator/bombardier (Lieutenant Jeffrey Norton Zaun) were captured. They were released on March 3.
January 17 – An F-15E Strike Eagle (Serial Number : 88-1689) was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery (AAA). The pilot (Major Thomas F. Koritz) and WSO (Lieutenant Colonel Donnie R. Holland) were killed. Their bodies were recovered.
January 18 – An A-6E Intruder (Bureau Number : 152928) was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery two miles from the Iraqi shore after dropping mines on a waterway linking the Iraqi naval base of Umm Qasr with the Persian Gulf. The pilot (Lieutenant William Thomas Costen) and navigator/bombardier (Lieutenant Charlie Turner) were killed. Their bodies were recovered.[8]
January 18 – An OV-10 Bronco (Bureau Number : 155435) was shot down by surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Lieutenant Colonel Clifford M. Acree) and observer (Chief Warrant Officer Guy L. Hunter Jr.) were captured. They were released on March 6.
January 18 – An F-4G Wild Weasel (Serial Number : 69-7571) crashed in the Saudi Arabian desert after attacking Iraqi air defenses. An investigation found that a single enemy 23 mm anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) round had punctured the fuel tank, causing fuel starvation. The pilot (Capt. Tim Burke) and EWO (Capt. Juan Galindez) ejected over friendly territory and were rescued.[9]
January 19 – An F-15E Strike Eagle (Serial Number : 88-1692) was shot down by a V-750AK (SA-2E) surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Colonel David W. Eberly) and WSO (Major Thomas E. Griffith) were captured. They were released on March 6 and March 3 respectively.
January 19 – An F-16C Fighting Falcon (Serial Number : 87-0228) was shot down by a 2K12 Kub (SA-6) surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Captain Harry 'Mike' Roberts) was captured. He was released on March 6.[10]
January 19 – An F-16C Fighting Falcon (Serial Number : 87-0257) was shot down by a S-125 (SA-3) surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Major Jeffrey Scott Tice) was captured. He was released on March 6.[11]
January 21 – An F-14A+ Tomcat (Bureau Number : 161430) was shot down by a V-750AK (SA-2E) surface-to-air missile while on an escort mission near Al Asad airbase in Iraq. The pilot (Lieutenant Devon Jones) was rescued by USAF Special Operations Forces but the RIO (Lieutenant Larry Slade) was captured. He remained a POW until his release on March 3.
January 24 – An AV-8B Harrier II (Bureau Number : 163518) was shot down by MANPADS. The pilot (Captain Michael C. Berryman) was captured. He was released on March 6.[12]
January 31 – An AC-130H Spectre (Serial Number : 69-6567) was shot down by a surface-to-air missile during the battle of Khafji. The entire crew of 14 were killed. Their bodies were recovered.
February 2 – An A-6E Intruder (Bureau Number : 155632) was shot down by anti-aircraft artillery (AAA). The pilot (Lieutenant Commander Barry T. Cooke) and navigator/bombardier (Lieutenant junior grade Patrick K. Connor) were killed. Connor's body was recovered and Cooke's body was never found (officially listed as KIA-BNR).
February 2 – An A-10A Thunderbolt II (Serial Number : 80-0248) was shot down by an Igla-1 (SA-16) surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Captain Richard Dale Storr) was captured. He was released on March 6.[13]
February 5 – An F/A-18A Hornet (Bureau Number : 163096) crashed in the Persian Gulf. The pilot (Lieutenant Robert Dwyer) was lost over the North Persian Gulf after a successful mission to Iraq. Dwyer served in Carrier Air Wing 8 (CVW-8). His body was never recovered (officially listed as KIA-BNR).[14]
February 9 – An AV-8B Harrier II (Bureau Number : 162081) was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Captain Russell A.C. Sanborn) was captured. He was released on March 6.
February 13 – An EF-111A, USAF ser. no. 66-0023, callsign Ratchet 75, crashed[15] into terrain while maneuvering to evade a missile fired by an enemy Mirage F1 fighter[16][17] killing the pilot, Capt Douglas L. Bradt, and the EWO, Capt Paul R. Eichenlaub.
February 15 – An A-10A Thunderbolt II (Serial Number : 78-0722) AAA ground fire 60 miles northwest of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. Thought to have been engaged by SA-13 Gopher SAM. Pilot Lt Robert Sweet ejected and made POW; released on March 6.[18][19]
February 15 – An A-10A Thunderbolt II (Serial Number : 79-0130) Hit by ground fire approx 60 miles northwest of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. Thought to have been engaged by SA-13 Gopher SAM. Pilot Captain Steven Phyllis killed in action. Phyllis died while protecting his downed wingman (1st Lieutenant Robert James Sweet). Phyllis' body was later recovered.[20]
February 19 – An OA-10A Thunderbolt II (Serial Number : 76-0543) was shot down by a Strela-1 (SA-9) surface-to-air missile 62 nm North West of Kuwait city. The pilot, Lt Col. Jeffery Fox (call sign "Nail 53"), was injured as he ejected, captured and held as a POW, until his release on March 6.[21]
February 22 – An A-10A Thunderbolt II (Serial Number : 79-0181) Wheels up, hard stick landing after being hit by a SAM. Captain Rich Biley brought 79-0181 in at King Khalid Military City, Forward Operating Location 1 where the CLSS team stripped it of parts, some sent to King Fahd International Airport, Main Operating Base for use on other birds, and then buried it in the desert. Biley was unhurt during the crash.[22]
February 23 – An AV-8B Harrier II (Bureau Number : 161573) crashed when it failed to recover from a high angle dive during a night attack on a tank park in Ali Al Salem, Kuwait, possibly hit by AAA or a MANPAD. The pilot (Captain James N. Wilbourn) was killed and his body was later recovered.
February 25 – An AV-8B Harrier II (Bureau Number : 163190) hit by MANPADS, crashed while trying to land at Al Jaber airfield, Kuwait. The pilot ejected safely.[23]
February 25 – An OV-10 Bronco (Bureau Number : 155424) was shot down by surface-to-air missile. The pilot (Major Joseph Small III) was captured and observer (Captain David Spellacy) was killed. Major Small was released on March 6 and Captain Spellacy's body was recovered.
February 27 – An AV-8B Harrier II (Bureau Number : 162740) was shot down by MANPADS. The pilot (Captain Reginald Underwood) was killed and his body was later recovered.[24]
February 27 – An OA-10A Thunderbolt II (Serial Number : 77-0197) crashed killing pilot Lieutenant Patrick Olson (posthumously promoted to Captain) after a reconnaissance mission over Kuwait on 27 Feb 1991, call sign Nail 51. Aircraft had been hit by surface-to-air missile and was attempting a landing at KKMC FOL in Manual Reversion after losing all its hydraulics, in extreme weather conditions and with only one engine.[25]
February 27 – An F-16C Fighting Falcon (Serial Number : 84-1390) was shot down by an Igla-1 (SA-16) MANPADS. The pilot (Captain William Andrews) was captured. He was released on March 6.[26]

So, where was his body found ? Close to the airplane or in a gulag somewhere ?

kwg

Watch the video you will find it interesting and it will answer most of your questions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J2hgM94Mt0

Dean

Supposedly tube tech is significantly less affected by an EMP versus all the new solid state stuff...

Sing it, Brother. There are so many cases of editing or even poetic license to alter the real story.

Buddy of mine, Captain Dino ( Machine) Peros, VMA-311 new three out of five of the AV-8B pilots that were shot down, Captain Berryman (RAZ) VMA-311 was the first he was shot down by SA-6 Gaskin. Reggie Underwood and Trey Wilbourne from East Coast squadron, VMA -223 bulldogs, Both killed. Dino flew, I believe three missions in the battle of KHAFJI , That was hot, tons of AAA, surface to air. He flew a total of 48? combat missions,Amazing stories.

Tag

So a little bit of Marine Corps aviation history, who was the first to drop ordinance during wartime out of the AV-8B Harrier ll? I asked Dino

I was the 4th in the very first attack on Jan17 1991. The first bomb was dropped by Cary Branch, C/S STUMP..followed by PUGS, BEANS, & MACHINE ( I'm Machine 🤗). Show you the archive when were together next next🛩

Bump. Damn!!

So, what happened to the Iraqi pilot? I assume he had a second missile too. What happened with that?

I had never seen a list of losses and was surprised that there were as many as there were. We here at home were certainly shielded from the losses we incurred. Thank you for the information.

I am just an old dumb hillbilly. The closest I have come to flying an aircraft is "Row 3B". And I am not meaning to pick on anyone. However, I am incredulous that:

1) The good guys observed the bad guy taking off from a hostile airfield.
2) The "eye in the sky" painted the bad guy multiple times.
3) An experienced pilot had visual confirmation that the afterburner plume was NOT ONE OF OURS.
4) The craft blew through or by a formation of good guys going the wrong way.
5) And yet he was able to do a 180, sneak in the back door, and lob a Hail Mary non-visual rocket up a good guy's six...

I understand that war is hell and combat is chaos. Was there an AAR? Was the AAR published? Teachable moments from the AAR? Changes to ROE's?

Again, not trying to criticize. I've only ever been a civilian. I understand that the guys who have served want civilians to shut the "eff" up. But this scenario is disappointing...

That was a smart move on behalf of the Govt. We Americans, back home, don't seem to have the stomach for our soldiers getting killed. Keep it out of the news. Report the victories but not the costs of getting them. That lesson was learned in Vietnam. Every night on the news they gave out the total Americans, South Vietnamese, and North Vietnamese and allies KIA and WIA. It was a damn scorecard.

Jim

Actually, the losses we all well publicized in the media as the war went on. Same for the POWs. There was very little misinformation on the part of the Coalition, except in those instances to send false intel to the enemy. A lot of our losses, particularly the ones from Air Wing One (CAG 1) were as a result of the air wing commander, who really was weak on tactics and went in the old fashioned way, "low and fast" on the initial strikes. After we had that sorted, our losses were really pretty minimal, when you consider the tens of thousands of combat sorties flown.,

Orion, you raise some very, very good questions and to fully answer, would take a long post and I'm lazy. I'll just say the first time at bat is always very confusing, with the "fog of war" taking its toll. Also, another BIG issue with the Hornet, is it's lack of an IFF interrogator (for Modes III & IV, the latter being encrypted). Instead, they had a pretty worthless system called NCTR (non-cooperative target recognition) which was basically a "harmonics detector" of the frequency put out by an airplane's engines and it works ONLY in the forward quarter (in other words "beak to beak" only). All our other fighters, Tomcats, Eagles, etc have them but the Hornet does not. So, I can easily accept EITHER theory, that is the MiG bagged him or friendly fire, but I will NOT ACCEPT the authoress' notion we left him behind because of someone's ego. FAR too many people involved to try and hide something like this.
J

Hey Jorge, What about the British, I remember the tornado did not fare too well.

To be fair, while Bird was coming in off a strike, he and his wingman checked other clean of damage. Red Crown followed his jet as it steeped up over the gulf and into the water. He was well known to take his mask off for a smoke post strike and the thought is a cabin pressure leak got him. We put on an extensive search to no avail. Get Zeke to tell you the story. He and "Fox" Fallon, our CAG had words.

Not any worse than our Intruders. Ar first, it all had to do with adjusting tactics.

Orion, we have suffered from "ROE Disease" since Vietnam. Because our military is controlled by politicians, we seem to get political restrictions that are based on somebody's idea of fair play - something which should not exist whatsoever in combat.

In Vietnam, I once discovered a large group (hundreds) of uniformed NVA soldiers lolling about and relaxing in a rubber plantation. I radioed in and was told in no uncertain terms that I could not bomb a Michelin-owned rubber plantation, but I could bomb an adjacent swath of jungle - which had no enemy in it because they had learned we were forbidden to bomb Michelin rubber trees! How's that for ROE disease?

The Navy's excellent F-14 was designed to shoot and kill enemy planes from miles away, beyond visual range. But for a long time, F-14 crews were forbidden to attack until they made a visual ID of whoever they were tracking. In other words, "Let them get close enough to kill you first." Directly counter to what the plane was designed to do.

Jorge, I thought all current air frames had IFF? I was going to include IFF in my list, but forgot. Wow...

Rocky, I am in the mode of avoiding conflict when practical. But when conflict is inevitable, hit the other guy so fast, so hard, so bad, that his friends ballz shrivel up as they watch from the side lines. I can only imagine the frustration over ROE's created by pencil pushers...

The current ones might, I'm just not sure, but I'm betting they do. The FA/18 was the only airframe we've purchased that failed OPEVAL (operational evaluation) and as one Admiral put it, "an airplane doomed to success." It was to replace the A-7 and the F-4 and it did neither. It had (has) horrible endurance, so much so, that carrier Cycles (launches and recoveries, had to be shortened considerably and now with really no organic tanker, they have to rely on shore based tanker assets. It sucks...

The night of the El Dorado Canyon strike, our ROE was a fighter pilot’s dream. “Weapons free” for anything northbound above 1000’. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for us, none of them launched. The Libyans did not like to fly over water at night.

Rumor has it that one Mig sitting on strip alert was told to launch and he told his controller that his a/c was down with something like “the a/c is down due to a knife stuck in the attitude gyro”😀

At the time we were flying with the Television Camera System (TCS) and in the daytime visual ID would not have posed a problem. During one mission on our Airwing workup at Fallon we got a visual ID on an A-4 and could tell it was a TA-4J, not a single seater, well beyond Sparrow range.

That was in the F-14A BTW.

That's a cool article jorge. Thanks for posting.

We had IFF modes III & IV. We were forbidden to take off if our mode IV was inop, wouldn't load, or dropped the current load and none was available to reload. Before shut down both pilots verified the switch was set to hold the data.

While I don't understand but about 1% of what you guys are talking about, I enjoy reading it. Thanks also for your service.

In the story on the original post, the lead F-18 pilot said he had an ID. The problem is the ROE always (well, typically) requires two forms of ID. As mentioned, the F-18 did not have an interrogator to get a second form or any long range visual means. They also apparently weren’t able to effectively communicate with other aircraft who could have solved. That’s a training issue.

ROE's are both necessary and a deadly obstacle amidst the chaos of combat. They evolve over time, but the opening bell for warfare presents a lot of fog. It isn't unusual to see the rules get bent once a conflict has matured to some extent. They do lower the number of friendly fire events

I never did it of course. Between the hours of midnight to 5AM.

What am I missing here? These planes are closing at several hundred miles per hour and several seconds go by but the distance between them only decreases by 4 or 5 miles.

Possible point of confusion: IFF transponders are installed in all aircraft---at least military stuff. It responds to interrogations and transmits back an identification code.

What Jorge was talking about is an IFF Interrogator which issue interrogations. Back in my day, that would have been APX-76---at least on P-3Cs. The Transponder on the P-3C was the APX-72.

Target aspect/geometry.

Best thing about this thread, not a single post from the usualasshole crowd!