Interesting .

 

Per Air War South Atlantic, p.84, at the close of 04 May 1982.

 

“The loss of the Sea Harrier at goose Green caused further change to the Task Force’s operations. Never again were these precious aircraft to be hazarded in low-level attack missions involving flights over well-defended targets. From now on, when atacks on ground targets were required, the Sea Harriers would either bomb from a high altitude or use toss bombing methods, which were less risky but also far less accurate.”

 

Was this lesson unlearned by forces in place to defend against the never to occur Warsaw Pact attack in western Europe and again in Kuwait/Iraq during the 1991 war?

Was this lesson unlearned by forces in place to defend against the never to occur Warsaw Pact attack in western Europe and again in Kuwait/Iraq during the 1991 war?

Good question, though I expect the low level tactics seen in Desert Storm (at least during the initial days) were still a function of continuing to train for a high risk environment in Central Europe. Also, several of the RAF losses occurred in the course of Tornados employing JP233 anti-runway munitions against Iraqi airfields, a weapon which required a low level profile. I think as the conflict in Iraq progressed, they started to move to higher altitude as the risk from Iraqi interceptors and radar guided SAMs dropped.

This book, while reading like 12 O'Clock High, continually stresses low altitude attacks, both RN/RAF Air-to-Ground, and Argentinian Air-to-Surface driving home the radar line of sight rules in H4. so far,

 

I can only recall one Argie crashing into the sea due to low flight, while at least two or three instances of very low ejections. One time displaying the particular pilot's presence of mind to wait for his stricken, flaming, and now spinning aircraft to be relatively upright so that when he ejected he would not turn into a "lawn dart" himself.