Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD), also known as "Wild Weasel" and "Iron Hand" operations in the United States, are military actions to suppress enemy surface-based air defenses (Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA)), primarily in the first hours of an attack.
One fourth of American combat sorties in recent conflicts have been SEAD missions.[1]
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The weapons most often associated with this mission are anti-radiation missiles (ARMs) such as the American AGM-88 HARM and British ALARM. Weapons used for SEAD missions can be anything which damages or destroys a component of an air defense system. A Paveway LGB, for example, is not a SEAD-specific munition but, when used to destroy a radar antenna, it achieves the objective of Suppression of Enemy Air Defense.
Possibly the most effective type of unguided ("dumb") weapon used during SEAD strikes are cluster bombs, because many SAM sites are dispersed over a fairly wide area, in order to increase the difficulty of inflicting serious damage on the battery, and the relative "softness" of the targets (missile launchers, exposed radars, etc.). The Mk-20 Rockeye II anti-armor cluster munition and the CBU-87 general-purpose cluster munition are often used against these fixed-location SAM sites, often for "clean-up" of a site whose radar or C&C facilities are first destroyed by a longer-range ARM or AGM. The relatively new American AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon is a valuable SEAD weapon due to its fairly long standoff range which allows the launching aircraft to avoid being threatened by all but the longest-range missiles, and its relatively large area of destruction against soft targets.
In U.S. service in Vietnam, SEAD missions were carried out by dedicated variants of tactical fighters such as the F-105G Thunderchief and F-4G Phantom II. These aircraft were nicknamed "Wild Weasels", and often used themselves as bait for enemy defenses. On the other hand, the Soviets preferred to use modified stand-off interceptors such as the Mikoyan MiG-25BM and missile-armed bombers such as the Tupolev Tu-22M to destroy targets from a distance rather than up-close.
Currently the main United States Air Force (USAF) SEAD aircraft is the F-16 Fighting Falcon, a multirole aircraft configurable for a variety of ground strike missions including SEAD. The Air Force and Navy's emphasis on multirole strike aircraft has largely made specified SEAD variants obsolete; virtually any aircraft in the U.S. arsenal designed to carry air-to-ground ordinance can, if needed, be configured for SEAD. The F/A-18 Super Hornet navy multirole fighter, F-15E Strike Eagle medium strike fighter, AV-8B Harrier marine strike fighter and A-10 Thunderbolt II Close Air Support aircraft are common secondary choices for SEAD missions depending on availability and mission requirements.
In European NATO air forces, the SEAD mission falls mostly to Royal Air Force Tornado GR.4s, Luftwaffe Tornado Electronic Combat and Reconnaissance variant (ECR), and Aeronautica Militare (AMI) Tornado ECRs. The RAF Tornados rely on the aforementioned ALARM missile and the Italian/German Tornado ECRs employ the AGM-88 HARM missile. The Tornado ECR was designed from the outset as a SEAD platform and is unique in the European NATO air order of battle. Although several European NATO aircraft can carry SEAD weapons, few were designed for, or are specifically tasked with, the dangerous SEAD mission. All modern SEAD aircraft are modified to equip some level of electronic jamming equipment to make the job easier on the pilot.
| Wikisource has several original texts related to: Audio recordings and transcripts with comments of actual Wild Weasel combat missions over Vietnam. |