CASR
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Canada in Afghanistan – NATO – Reconnaissance and Air Support
– March/April 2007 
“...the only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.” Leading up to the Riga Summit, the German government acquiesced to a NATO request to deploy its Tornado GR 1A reconnaissance aircraft to support ISAF forces in Afghanistan. The Tornado is a sophisticated multi-role aircraft [1] but the German defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, was quick to emphasize that “Reconnaissance isn’t combat”, addressing voiced concerns that German ‘peacekeepers’ were being dragged into war-fighting in Afghanistan. This first flurry of announcements came in the last week of December of 2006. The German parliament would not agree in principal to the deployment of a Luftwaffe detachment of six Tornado aircraft until the middle of February. The agreement among members of Germany’s current coalition government was predicated upon a “limited mandate” for the Tornado and their crews. The nature of this mandate was to be debated and the details of the deployment released by early March. At the time of writing (07 Mar 2007), this has not yet happened. [2] 
[Update the Bundestag voted 09 Mar 2007 to send 6-8
Tornado-Recce to Afghanistan.[3] Six aircraft arrived at Mazar-e Sharif Afghanistan on 05 April and began
flying reconnaissance missions from Camp Marmel on 07 April. On 28 April a Tornado returning from a mission
suffered a nose gear collapse while landing at Camp Marmal. The recce pod took the weight and was
damaged but the aircraft seems largely unharmed.]
Such is the nature of coalition governments – even Angela Merkel’s “grand
coalition”. [4] Critics of the deployment note that, as a multi-role combat aircraft, any
Luftwaffe Tornado sent to Afghanistan can have its role quickly changed in-theatre. That is quite
true. An aircraft carrying a recce pod in the morning could well be slung with bombs that afternoon. The
question is whether this scenario is realistic.The Luftwaffe initially received two variants of the Tornado – the IDS (Interdictor/Strike, an equivalent to an RAF Tornado GR 1) and the ECR (Electronic Combat and Reconnaissance, a type dedicated to Suppression of Enemy Air Defences – better known as ‘Wild Weasels’ ). The “reconnaissance” in ECR got dropped. However, this Tornado role was revived by the transfer of some Marineflieger recce aircraft to the Luftwaffe in the mid ’90s. These ex-naval aircraft make up the equipment of the dedicated Luftwaffe reconnaissance squadron, AG 51. What Gaff ? The Aufklärungs-Tornado’s ‘German Air Force – Reconnaissance – Pods’ 
The ex-Marineflieger aircraft were given new belly- mounted ‘GAF-Recce-Pods’ in 2001.
Developed by Dasa (now EADS), this pod mounts twin Zeiss film cameras [5] and an infrared line scanner (IRLS).
The IRLS is sensitive enough to detect freshly disturbed earth (useful for both landmines and arms caches). The
catch with all this gear is armament.The Tornado-Recce, as the Luftwaffe calls this variant, is armed with Mauser’s 27mm BK 27 
cannon. This revolver cannon is intended as self-defence for the Tornado-Recce (but the same guns are
used in the air-to-ground role by the Tornado IDS). Sidewinder air-to-air missiles are also
carried – although not relevant to the Afghanistan deployment.In other words, the Tornado-Recces of AG 51 are armed for self-defence and the armament- carrying pylons of other Tornado variants are occupied with drop-tanks, countermeasures pods, etc. The concerns of some German citizens over offensive weapons are unwarranted. “Brought to you by the letter ‘A’... ” or Why Aufklärungs But Not Necessarily JaBo 
The GAF-Recce-Pods are very sophisticated. But they are conventional ‘wet film’ cameras.
No ‘real-time’ image processing for these lenses. IRLS may be a different matter but
these thermal sensors are used for nocturnal night imaging. None of the GAF-Recce-Pod’s three imagers is
intended to act as targeting systems. A recce crew may be able to alert accompanying fighter-bombers to potential
targets but the Tornado-Recce, itself, would not be flying “armed reconnaissance”
missions where identified targets would be attacked.Who knows whether such details would reassure the most timorous of German citizens. We have no doubt that there are Luftwaffe aircrews itching to do their part in southern Afghan- istan. However, if Germans are to join their US, British, French, and Dutch colleagues in close air support missions, they’ll also need to deploy some of their plentiful Tornado IDS. The Tornado IDS are the Luftwaffe’s dedicated fighter-bombers. These JaBo have Litening targeting pods for their Paveway laser-guided bombs. They can also be equipped with the awesome MW-1 dispensor (although the cluster bomblet nature of the MW-1 submunitions 
make this politically unlikely). There are two German Tornado IDS JaBo squadrons [6] – the
question is: will they ever be deployed?That question may seem a bit rich coming from a country unable to deploy its own fighter- bombers. However, the purpose of NATO is mutual aid through shared military resources. Having stood on guard in Germany for 40 years (however modestly), does it seem too much to ask for active military assistance now that Canadian soldiers are dying in Afghanistan in disproportionately high numbers while Germany has yet to suffer a single combat fatality? [1] ‘Fighter-bomber’ is something of a misnomer. The Tornado was designed from the out- set as a multi-role combat aircraft with an emphasis on the ground attack role (the Tornado would later be modified to suit the interceptor role but the Luftwaffe does not use the ADV). [2] The 09 Mar 2007 Bundestag vote was closer than expected. There were 157 Nays and 11 abstentions against 405 Yes votes – fewer than the total coalition government seats. The agreed deployment mandate “explicitly precludes German participation in combat missions”. [3] The Tornado were to reposition 02 April 2007 and be placed under NATO control by 09 April. Six aircraft will be operational but 10 Tornado-Recce will deploy to ensure availability. [4] For a review of internal political aspects of the debate, see: Germany deploys Tornado fighter planes into Afghanistan by Andreas Reiss ( Global Research, 14 February 2007 ). [5] The Zeiss cameras are the Trilens 80 (forward) and Pentalens 57 (aft). These cameras are matched with a Honeywell Regelsysteme IRLS infrared linescanner. Together, this is called the KS-153A camera set or the TriLens (to distinguish it from the similar TeleLens set). The GAF-Recce-Pod itself (hung on the central pylon) is 4.3 m long and weighs around 250 kg. [6] The Tornado IDS is operated by Jagdbombergeschwader 33 and JBG 31 (the Tornado IDS also serves with Luftwaffe training Geschwaders, JBG 32 operates the Tornado ECRs). |