Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the French military launched
Operation Daguet as their contribution to the build up of coalition forces
during the gulf crisis. Twenty-eight Jaguar As of the Armee de l'Air would
eventually be stationed at Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. Coalition air attacks
began on January 17th and when daylight came, it was time for the French to
launch their first combat mission of the war. Twelve Jaguar aircraft
launched to attack the "Scud" missile facilities at Ahmed Al Jaber Air
Base in Kuwait. Eight Jaguars carried BLG-66 Belouga cluster bombs which
were dropped from a height of only 100ft. The other four Jaguars carried
the AS30L laser guided munition. Low-level tactics was a controversial
subject in the 91 Gulf War and the French do not seem to be an exception.
Four aircraft received battle damage during their first mission. One
aircraft, A91, was hit by a SA-7 missile and diverted to Jubail where it was
later dismantled and flown back to France in a cargo plane. Another, A108
had its canopy pierced by a bullet which also struck the pilot. The
Belouga cluster bomb, optimized for low-level delivery, was used by the French
only on the first day of the conflict. Afterward, French Jaguars began
bombing from medium altitude with general purpose bombs or laser guided
munitions.
Click on
images below to see larger images
I
used the Heller boxing to build my Jaguar A; it is not a great kit, but the
other option is the Escii Jaguar which I was told was not any better. Some
basic improvements to the kit I did include: drilling out the space for the 30
mm DEFA 533 cannons found on the fuselage sides, adding some styrene rod to
represent the cannons, fixing the fuel dump area by adding a new bulkhead and
angling the dump pipe upwards, adding wire to the landing gear struts, and
adding two more probes to the nose. Aftermarket sets used for this kit
include: Eduard Jaguar A photoetch set, Neomega cockpit set, Paragon
exhausts, Paragon wheels, Paragon flaps and slats, PJ Productions French pilot
figure, Belcher Bits BLG66 Belouga cluster bombs, and Two Mikes Jaguar seamless
intakes.
I
chose to build a Jaguar on the first day of combat loaded with Belouga bombs
because I wanted a more interesting load than SAMP general purpose bombs that
Jaguars typically carried during the war. I will save the SAMP bomb load
for a French Mirage F1CR of Operation Daguet. The Belcher Bits Belouga
bombs are nice but required more work than I anticipated; the cluster munitions
are raised from the bomb body and do not appear to be so on the real bomb, and
using a paper template to build the bomb fins was another tedious chore.
After the bombs are assembled and painted, they do look nice.
Although most pictures of Jaguars during the war show them with a Magic missile
on the starboard wing, I used a Phimat pod instead because aircraft A91 carried
one on that mission as did another plane, and I have a pre war picture of the
plane I built with a Phimat pod.
Getting the proper colors for my Jaguar was rather complicated (for me at
least). I used Tamiya Flat Aluminum for the underside. The two
topside colors are a mixture of either Gunze Sangyo FS33531 (with white and
yellow added) and Model Master FS30277 (with white added). Finer painting,
weathering, and washes were done with various enamels.
The decals I used were from Carpena which includes decals for aircraft A123 of
4/11 "Jura" Squadron. I know this jet flew in the first combat
mission because the bomb mission tally markings include one representing a
BLG66. Since I was representing the first day of the war, I left the
mission tallies off.
Benner
|
|