Talk:AN/ALQ-101 countermeasures pod

Page title

According to Rowland White's book Vulcan 607, the name 'Dash-10' is a short name for the AN/ALQ-101D.

So I think that this page should be renamed accordingly.

On the page List_of_military_electronics_of_the_United_States AN/ALQ-101D is listed but is a redlink.

FerdinandFrog (talk) 19:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

@FerdinandFrog, sorry it took so long. As you can see in the history, I moved the article (changed the name) on Aug 12, 2024. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 02:01, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@FerdinandFrog, I see in the book, White refers to it very often as the "DASH-10" but never mentions how the term came about. Do you see anything in the book to clear that up? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 01:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• It's not a name for the AN/ALQ-101, it's a name for one variant of the AN/ALQ-101, the '-10'. In fact, I don't even think it's an AN/ALQ-101 at all, the -10 is an AN/ALQ-119. Both of which are obsolete for many years, and the similar pods are now of the AN/ALQ-131 series.

The AN/ALQ-101 appeared during Vietnam as a crash programme when it was realised that this funny little war against rice farmers with a few old rifles was somehow managing to down Uncle Sam's finest and shiniest new aircraft. So the first pods were produced in a hurry, and better versions were developed as fast as possible. Note that these were analogue jammers, so any change to their behaviour involved quite substantial redesign and remanufacture. The first AN/LQ-101 were cylindrical, with the distinctive black dielectric conical or conical and flattened end caps, then some had a small fin antenna beneath too. As the AN/ALQ-101 was not standard, it was described as the AN/ALQ-101(V), the 'V' suffix for 'various' meaning that there were many variants of the -101 in service simultaneously and the operator would need to check other details to see just what they had. By the time of the -8 variant (I think this was the last AN/ALQ-101 variant) the additional rectangular 'gondola' casing had been added to the basic cylinder. I think the gondola signified a major upgrade from a two-band jammer to a three-band. Not only were these two or three frequency bands, but they were covered by separate transmitters and TWT (Travelling Wave Tube) amplifiers, hence the need for a gondola of extra space. There was some overlap between the bands, so in some threat conditions two of the band transmitters could be tuned into the same frequency range for either countering two simultaneous threats, or simply double the power. These were some of the last Vietnam equipment and they were also purchased by other F-4 operators, such as Britain, Germany and Israel. They also appeared on the Buccaneer, even into the Gulf.

The AN/ALQ-119(V)-10 appeared late in Vietnam ('70-'73), was externally shorter than the AN/ALQ-101 and also had the gondola. I think that this represented a fundamental redesign of the internals and now used digital logic circuits and ICs to control operation. This made the pods more compact and also more flexible for addressing multiple different threats. Around twice as many of these were built as the earlier AN/ALQ-101 pods, but Britain didn't buy any. Britain plodded on (British ECM suffered in the 1970s) as the older pods were thought adequate to counter the Soviet threats.

Then the Falklands happened. Britain had loads of the AN/ALQ-101 pods available (I think -8 models) from withdrawn F-4 Phantoms. But the Argentinians weren't using Warpac kit, they'd bought the good Swiss stuff from Oerlikon Contraves instead. Which the -8 pod couldn't counter. So the Brits had to beg from the Yanks and get some of the AN/ALQ-119(V)-10 pods instead, which either countered the Super Fledermaus and Skyguard, or could at least be reconfigured quickly to do so. Despite what White says, I don't think there ever was a "dash 10" variant of the AN/ALQ-101, these were all the AN/ALQ-119 instead.

In the mid-'70s, the microprocessor appeared and following with it the AN/ALQ-131 pods. These were shorter again, and now the dielectric radomes turned white. They were more flexible in their behaviour, thus the systems they could counter, they were also smaller owing to the more compact electronics, inherently more reliable and also had some built-in self-test capability making them much more reliable in service.

If anyone has photographs of Falklands ECM pods in service, the length should be able to confirm which series they were. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:06, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Another system, Yellow Veil, was carried by the Lynx helos. It was originally the AN/ALQ-167 training system as a threat emulator. This was another long cylinder, but this one had noticeable 'handlebars' at the ends. Yellow Veil was a development to take it to war as an ECM system, I think the first time this was done. It could now detect Exocet as either the launch aircraft targeting radar or the missile's own terminal guidance radar and then generate a spoofed return as a ship target. Decoying, rather than jamming as the AN/ALQ-101 did.

The Americans used it during the Gulf on a number of fixed wing aircraft, but the British version was only on the Lynx. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:29, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley, great stuff! Are there any sources we can cite to update the article with all of that? I'll put in the work if you can help with some sources. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 03:23, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, this was all just off the top of my head to answer your question. Also I can't even confirm my three guesses here: the gondola was the result of two channels going to three, the smaller AN/ALQ-119 was due to a shift to TTL logic ICs, and (most relevant here) the 'dash 10' pods were actually AN/ALQ-119, not the older AN/ALQ-101. For sourcing this you'd really want an archive (sorely missed!) of Flight International or a few Jane's. Failing that, Bill Gunston would be the general author for a bunch of popular comicbook-level stuff.

@Maury Markowitz: as probably WP's most knowledgeable and visible ECM editor. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:53, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley Thanks for the heads up here, but I can't add much on this topic at this time. My copy of Army Radar by Sayer is enroute so I don't expect to have many free cycles for a while! Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:03, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• There's another pod too, the AN/ALQ-184. This is a remanufactured AN/ALQ-119 that was produced for US home consumption based on experience of the first Gulf and the AN/ALQ-131. It's (broadly and crudely) the radio of the AN/ALQ-119 with the digital controls developed for the AN/ALQ-131. There's also work in there to make it more reliable in Gulf heat, which had been an issue with the earlier pods. I think the AN/ALQ-119 has been pretty much extinct in the US for years now (before Gulf II?), as any still around were upgraded to AN/ALQ-184. But they're probably all replaced by AN/ALQ-131 too (a wild guess). Andy Dingley (talk) 12:01, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Based on our conversation, looks like this article was created in a very myopic way; focused on one single version of the ALQ-101. The article needs to be scrapped and completely rewritten to fit in all of the versions. I found quick (unreliable) sources that mention -1, -2 and -8 versions, for instance. But none of the sources is usable, coming from blogs or chat groups/forums. I'll keep looking. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 13:46, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Sniffing around, I've now been told that the AN/ALQ-131 was bigger inside (or at least, less crowded). This was due to a remarkable mechanical and thermal engineering redesign, which garnered several awards for the designers (the sort of thing that definitely belongs in an article). The mechanical frame of the the pod was replaced with a huge aluminium extrusion, a sort of I beam and this became both a more efficient mechanical structure and also a thermal heatsink. Electronics was now mounted on both sides of the I beam, the aerodynamically draggy antenna radome mounted on the bottom of it, and the top was formed into an airflow-cooled convector 'radiator' as a heat dump. Everything became much easier to work on, modules could be removed by unfastening just the one affected rather than a whole stack of them, and it was better all round. Some of the innovation here began with the AN/ALQ-119 which had a number of extruded T-shaped 'ribs' built into its frame, acting as electronics carriers and also with the outside of the T used as an airflow-cooled heat 'radiator', but curved to fit closely around the pod's main tube (but they're identifiably separate in photos).

If this gets renamed and rescoped, I'd favour something that covered all of the pod family generations, not just the AN/ALQ-101 (we can have redirects for each).

Still short on useful public sources though. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

In lieu of more information, I dropped the DASH 10 from the article title for now. It appears there are several dash-versions that could be documented once we find reliable sources. But without those sources, this articles risks being completely deleted. I would hate to see that happen. My adventures on finding sources is just beginning. Hopefully, I can find something quickly. If @Maury Markowitz or @Andy Dingley locates anything and would like to share, I am more than willing to put in the editing needed here. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 21:17, 14 October 2024 (UTC)