One time I had the experience of working with a TPQ-10 ground controller. It was great. I gave them the coordnates,adjustements, in meters, and the bombs hit the target. We removed the top of a mountain and exposed a bunch of tunnel openings, This was southwest of DaNang.

Lanny

Thanks for the reply, that is what I was looking for. The pilots perspective of the ASRT.

We were in Korea in 1984, using the AN/TPB-1D than, and got to drop live ordenance. I was told we were the first ASRT to do this since the Korean War, so all of us were anticapating the day.
We locked onto the aircraft and was giving him course corrections, via the TACAN. When it came time for him to release his bombs, he gave us the, "Bombs away" report.
We had a land-line out to range control there and imediately called to find out where the bomb had landed. The Cpl on the phone got a weird look on his face and slowly hung the phone up. We all thought the worse and were already going over eveything that could have went wrong in our heads.
The Cpl looked at us and said, "They said, the aircraft is at 18,000 feet and if we would like to know where the bomb hit. We will need to wait until it falls out of the sky!" All we could do is laugh at ourselves and wait.

By the way, it was 7 meters of off the bulls eye, so we did pretty good. Of course, we all know a lot of credit goes to the pilot.

I should have added that another time, '65, we were sent out to calibrate the TPQ-10 just set up at Chu Lai. They dropped the bombs and we did not see them on or near the target area. We started looking farther out. Should be able to see a load of 250 pounders pretty easily. Way off, I mean way off, 10 thousand meters off, we saw the smoke rising. Someone made an error.
Lanny

10K?!?!? Ouch, that hurts. Someone must have really screwed up the coordinates of the target! It can happen and it usually isn't very pretty when it did.

There is a story about a team that went to El Centro Ca to run missions at the Chocholate Drop bombing range, with fixed wing out of Yuma, Az. It is said that the Strike Controler made that very error and when the MK-25 (practice bomb) landed, it was very near a California Highway Patrolmans car.
The CHP brought the bomb back to the base to see who it belonged to. He took it down to the fly boys and told him it wasn't theirs. So he ended up down at our hanger and the team there told him, "We don't have any aircraft, just a simple radar which nver leaves the ground."
The CHP was at wits end and fed up with the whole thing so just ask if some would take the thing off of his hands. So the the ASRT team gladly relieved him of the proof and rested a little easier that night.

There was a box on the Q-10, I believe it was called a APN-64. We learned how to repair it and all that but never got the change to use it. Of course, I don't blame the pilots none, I don't think I would have liked the idea either. What it was used for: The Srike Controler would tell the pilot to go "Goldie" and the pilot would give control of his aircraft to the ASRT. The 64 would send course corrections to the aircraft and basically fly the thing. I would have liked to seen it work, but never ran across a pilot willing to give it a shot. Have you ever heard of this, or have you done it?

I have heard of the concept and it may have been used in RVN, I do not know. Maybe a fast mover's site could answer that.

When I did direct that mountain top mission, we could give the controller 3 meter adjustments and it worked!
Lanny

I flew a number of TPQ-10 missions when I was flying A-4's (VMA-211) out of Chu Lai in early 1966. I visited three TPQ sites and monitored how the missions were run from the ground. I visited sites at Ky Ha, Da Nang and the Phu Bai. I believe all were operated by MASS-2.

The A-4 had an automatic system that was coupled to the TPQ site. The ground controller actually flew the A-4 and dropped the bombs if everything was working right. Most of the missions were single aircraft and flown at night.

Semper Fi
IGOR

Sounds like it would have been nerve racking for the pilots. I would only assume that letting some one on the ground have control of your aircraft wasn't one of your highest priorities. 🙂

How did most of the missions go? What altitude? Like I said I never got the chance to see this option work and have always wondered how or what it was like.

I know the radar at Da Nang was located on Monkey Mountain, but haven't been able to place the other ones. Could you give me a better idea of where they were at? I remember hearing the
"old guys" talk about the radar on Monkey Mountain, but don't remember the other ones.

Anyhow, thanks for your input.

mabs

In early 1966, flying H-34s out of Phu Bai with HMM 163, I used Mabs (I Think) to direct me to med-evac LZs at night, or while in the soup. It started with a conversation with another Lt who worked at Mabs. We figured, if they could direct jets to a target, they could do the same with helos. I experimented VFR a few times, correlating with the tacan radials and distances I'd drawn on my chart. It worked! I remember one med-evac NE of Hue where it was particularly useful.

ASRT

In early 1968, during Tet and after, HMM-163 used ASRT radar control an several night medevacs when the weather was way below minimums for VFR (ie. 100' ceiling and 75 yds visibility).

Ike Eisenson was the principle practitioner for this, working with the unit positioned at Dong Ha. ASRT would give us direction and distance to the LZ coordinates, and we would provide our own let down to arrive at the coordinates with zero speed and a minimum of altittude. It was a wild experience, but enabled us to medevac some emergencies that might not have gotten out until several hours later.

We only risked this operation over the coastal plains areas where we were not likely to run into anything unforseen. Because of the weather, our wingman was usually left to orbit in a clear area with radio comm. so that we weren't stumbling around IFR with 2 aircraft.

Bernie Gordon
HMM-163, '67-'68

Believe there was also a unit at Vandegrift. We (HMM-161) were flying med-evac out of stud. At end of the day we were essentially socked in. Unit gave us a "reverse" ground controled approach, clearing us of the peaks surrounding the camp to allow us to get back to Quang Tri. A little hairy, but effective.

I have often wondered if the ASRT was still in business

I served in two ASRTs. One in Fla where we did the Q&E for the AN/TPB-1C, and another in Korea. I served as Mission Coordinator and Ops Tng NCO in both. We worked with many types of aircraft on a variety of missions. I kind of lost track of the operations when I got out in '82 and had been wondering if GPS had put them out of business. Glad to know they are still around.