Air Power: ARH: The French connection | ADM February 2012

Mark Brown | Canberra

But for the last two years, French Tigers have gone to war in Afghanistan and most recently in Libya at high operational tempo, suggesting there’s no fundamental problem with an aircraft which once graced the Australian government’s list of defence projects of concern.

To show off the capabilities of Tiger in Afghanistan, Eurocopter and the French military hosted a small group of Australian journalists in a visit to the French helicopter battalion based at Kabul airport.

France now has some 4,000 troops in Afghanistan, most operating in Kapisa Province, north-east of Kabul. At 1,842 square kilometres, this is Afghanistan’s smallest province but its proximity to Kabul makes it strategically important. It has been described as the Taliban gateway to the capital, home to a disparate array of insurgent and criminal gangs and suicide bomb cells. Many of the high profile attacks conducted in Kabul start out in Kapisa.

Current French operational practice was strongly shaped by an incident on August 18, 2008 when insurgent forces ambushed a French vehicle column, killing nine French soldiers and wounding 17. French positions were overrun, with one soldier actually stabbed to death. Insurgents escaped with an array of equipment including four FAMAS assault rifles, two Minimi light machines guns and two FR-F2 sniper rifles. Personal effects of dead soldiers were offered for sale in marketplaces.

This was the heaviest loss of life by French forces since the 1983 bombing of the French military barracks in Beirut and, unsurprisingly, there were severe recriminations. Various reports including one by NATO said the French force ran low on ammunition, was poorly equipped and ill-organised and lucky to escape as lightly as it did. French forces had controlled this region in 2006-07 but apparently rarely ventured into this particular sector.

A company of Italian troops took responsibility up to August 2008, presiding over a period of comparative tranquillity. A subsequent report in the London Times newspaper said that was because the Italian secret service paid bribes to local Taliban groups to keep the peace.

Whatever the cause, the result was that France well and truly took off the gloves, reinforcing its task group – known as Task Force Lafayette – and giving the go-ahead for its troops to take the fight into the green zone, the cultivated river valleys where most people live.

In September 2009, France deployed three Tigers to join Task Force Mousquetaire 5, the French helicopter battalion – known as BATHELICO – based on the multinational base at Kabul airport.

French team

The unit now operates 15 helicopters – four Tigers, five Gazelle light attack helicopters and three Caracal and three Cougar transport helicopters – which support only French forces, but will conduct medivac missions for others.

This numbers around 130 personnel, including aircrew, maintainers, administration, a medical team, and even a designated immediate extraction team with special forces component whose job is to provide speedy evacuation of crew from a downed helicopter.

All this gives TF Mousquetaire a diverse capability which the group happily displayed through a series of “gun camera” video compilations. One shows helicopters escorting transport helicopters in a night time landing to withdraw French troops from a ridgeline. Others show helicopters obliterating suicide car bombs.

Eye-catching video of a mission on October 11 shows an operation by Tiger and Gazelle helicopters after intelligence located a pair of carbombs being prepared in a residential compound in the Badraou Valley. Rather than just blow these devices to bits from standoff ranges, considerable effort was made to first ensure all civilians, innocent or insurgent, vacated the area.

That was done with a succession of three-round bursts from the Tiger’s gun, moving progressively closer to the building walls and finally impacting on the inside wall. One man, possibly one of the insurgent bombmakers whose handywork was about to be atomised, stalked out the compound gate, making a distinctive “up yours” gesture with his hat.

Thoughtfully, he left the gate open, simplifying the job of the circling Gazelle. Its HOT missile streaked at head height through the gate demolishing carbomb one with a thundering blast which sent car parts high in the air but surprisingly left the compound’s sturdy baked mud wall and buildings seemingly unscathed. Carbomb two was dispatched with a series of bursts from the Tiger’s gun.

French Tigers in Afghanistan are armed with the GIAT 30mm gun and SNEB 68mm free-flight rockets. For combat over Europe, French Tigers were developed with an air-to-air capability by way of the Mistral infra-red homing missile. It carries no air-to-ground missile and that capability is provided in Afghanistan by Gazelles equipped with HOT missiles.

There’s a further Tiger limitation – SNEB rockets used in Afghanistan use only flechette anti-personnel warheads.

In theory, that would make Australian Tigers, equipped with gun, rockets and Hellfire missile, a more versatile package. In practice, the weapons load in Afghanistan is dictated very much by climate and altitude and French practice is to operate Tigers and Gazelle in mixed packages.

“Tiger is used with other assets. Some times we can use Tiger alone but in fact it is in the minority of cases that we use it this way,” said the commander of TF Mousquetaire, identified only as Colonel B (France’s large Muslim population makes the French military sensitive about identifying its personnel).

What Tiger does have every mission is its gun, which even the US apparently agrees is exceptional.

“The power of the Tigers is in the gun – it’s very powerful and very precise. It’s incredible; you can sure about that. We are very very happy,” Colonel B said.

Difficult environment

Operating any helicopter in Afghanistan is challenging and Colonel B says. Afghanistan may be the most difficult theatre for helicopters French forces had ever encountered.

“All my predecessors made this conclusion,” he said, adding that US, which operated helicopters extensively in Iraq, agreed. “For the helicopters in Afghanistan, you have two enemies – the insurgents and the environment. Plenty of others have discovered that Afghan dust is unlike any dust anywhere else.”

Colonel B said at the start of the mission, it was assumed that Afghan dust was the same as dust in Morocco, Africa or Djibouti.

“But we were wrong. After analysis, the specialists said the dust in Afghanistan is less than 10 micron size, even though we find 80-90 micron (dust) in other places,” he said.

That places a heavy emphasis on support. The Tiger maintenance element comprises 20 personnel in three specialist areas – engine, electronics and airframe - achieving a claimed availability of 80-90 per cent, with each aircraft flying around 400 hours per year.

Each aircraft remains in theatre for 12-14 months before heading back to France aboard chartered Antonov transports for deep maintenance. Daily maintenance is facilitated by two shipping containers full of spares and a line straight back into Eurocopter for prompt delivery of anything not available from inventory.

BATHELICO’s head of maintenance Captain Stefan (again one name only) says they’ve gained considerable experience since the Tigers arrived. He said Tiger was easier to maintain than the older Gazelle and Caracal aircraft because of its modern design and newer systems.

“Tiger is a good helicopter. It is an easy system for maintenance,” he said.

That still comes with its challenges. One Tiger was lost in a collision with terrain on February 4, 2011. That was essentially a night time hard landing on a relatively even surface in windy weather. The crew survived. Just why this occurred hasn’t yet been disclosed, although insurgents weren’t involved and issues with night vision equipment have been ruled out as a primary cause.

Task Force Mousquetaire’s only fatality – Captain Mathieu Gaudin, 37, – occurred in the crash of a Gazelle at Bagram on June 10. Again that did not involve insurgent action, although the precise cause hasn’t been disclosed.

French Tigers have taken a number of hits from insurgent smallarms fire, most, including a few through rotor blades, have caused not the slightest problems. But in October, one lucky shot penetrated an engine. The aircraft made an uneventful precautionary landing at Forward Operating Base Nijrab, 10 minutes away, but wasn’t going any further. Another engine was delivered slung under a US Chinook and the Tiger maintainers managed a field engine swap in a day, making use of a truck-mounted crane from the base.

TF Mousquetaire, with 15 helicopters and 130 personnel seems by Australian standards, a very lean operation. In contrast, Australia flies two Chinooks out of Kandahar with a team of 64.

And back at home

There appear to be a whole variety of reasons to explain why Australian Tigers have taken so long to reach operational maturity. That now seems close with all 22 aircraft now in defence hands and with defence saying the Tigers will be declared operationally ready in 2012. As well, an Australian officer will be posted to TF Mousquetaire in 2012 to learn from the French experience of operating Tigers.

There are still some hurdles. Defence says flying rates have not been sufficient to maintain aircrew currency and proficiency at required levels.

“Several systems continue to require restrictions and limitations that prevent operational deployment,” a defence spokesman said.

“Among these is the Tiger helmet mounted sight and display which is being upgraded to meet Army’s requirements in support of a night fighting capability. Issues with the helmet mounted sight and displays have now largely been resolved and delivery of upgraded devices is now in progress.”

The reality of that, defence says, is that Tiger can fly at night but can’t yet fight at night.

“This is due to airworthiness restrictions imposed by the proper authorities until sufficient upgraded aircrew helmet mounted sight and displays are delivered and enough pilots have been trained.”

Still, Army Tigers have participated successfully in a series of exercises, most recently Falcon Pitch in October last year which culminated with the first live night firing of gun rocket and Hellfire. Defence acknowledges a 66 per cent availability rate of the eight Tigers which participated in last year’s Talisman Sabre exercise and the Hamel 11 exercise which immediately followed.

Tiger has featured in an Australian National Audit Office report and in defence estimates committees, though not that recently.

It featured briefly on the government’s projects of concern list back in 2008. That was formed soon after Labor won office at the election in November 2007 and new minister Greg Combet was given the job of sorting out a procurement system that featured all too often in newspaper headlines. Tiger went on the list in January 2008 and was removed in April, with the project deemed remediated. Only the Seasprite project was on the list for less time.

ARH history

In July 2007, the Defence Materiel Organisation had taken the unusual step of halting progress payments to Australian Aerospace for failing to achieve initial operating capability according to timetable, so the company was well motivated to get on board with a deed of agreement to resolve outstanding contractual issues.

Some half a decade of various media and other reports on Tiger point to a range of reasons behind the delay and technical problems, of which the most fundamental appears to be that Australia signed up to buy an aircraft that was more developmental than anticipated.

That’s not a wholly unusual. The Eurotorp MU-90 was ordered in 1999 in what was thought to be a low risk acquisition of a weapon already in service with other navies. It wasn’t and 12 years on, still hasn’t entered service.

In Australia’s case, delays in the Franco-German Tiger development and certification flowed on to the Australian project, with a variety of knock-on effects including delays in the aircrew training program and delays in Australian Military Type Certification. That’s not just our problem - French Tigers have been deployed to Afghanistan without all the certification boxes being ticked.

Australia stipulated some particularly modifications, notably integration of the US Hellfire missile, completed in December 2005. That took time and added complexity, although the ADF believes it now has what will turn out to be the most capable of all the international Tigers.