Israel DEAD SOP

Training

Pilots should study the dash-1 manual on the Delilah and laser guided JDAM (GBU-54).

Planning

Standard DEAD loadout is a combo of GBU54 and Delilah TV in a flight. IN 4.34 IR weapons are fucked, and it's difficult to capture targets - stick with the TV variant. Effective capture range is about 10 miles with the IR variant and 30+ miles on the TV.

1. Mark possible AAA positions (EWR sites, towns, factories) in the briefing within 30 miles of the furthest planned flight path. This allows you to anticipate strategic SAM popup threats that could fire on the package. This is very important as these pre-briefed positions may be referenced during the flight.
2. Brief cover, altitude and de-confliction plans while employing Delilah
3. Brief WPN steer points vs TGT steer points - if applicable.

Tactics

1. GBU-54 can be used on moving AAA and on SAMs with <8 mile effective range. It's a safe primary engagement method against SA-3s and SHORADs. Use in conjunction with the TGP, have the option of using laser terminal guidance or WPN steerpoints (bomb on GPS coordinate) as an option.

2. Use the Delilah on SA-2, Hawks, Patriots, SA-10 and other strategic SAMs. Fire at ~70 miles from 20-25k feet using steerpoint SPI (cz), supported by a wingman. While one pilot can have multiple weapons in the air, there should be a max of two weapon operating pilots in the flight at any given time while others cover. It's easy to lose SA while heads down guiding the missile. it takes 3-4 minutes to get on station from rmax and has a 20-23 minute flight time, so roughly 16-20 minutes of loiter time.

You can also use the Delilah for pop-up threats but this becomes more dangerous because in order to capture a pop-up strategic SAM you often need to be within their engagement envelope. In this case its better to have a wingman flying defensively (high speed, possibly terrain masking and popping up) and trying to capture the site (referencing pre-briefed road networks, towns and EWR sites, the most common places for SAMs) marking a steerpoint using the pod and then sending data to the rest of the flight, while the shooter remains at a 50+ mile range from suspected targets and prepared to fire.

Alternatively for a more conservative engagement shooter can fire on pre-briefed positions (hooking the pre-briefed positions in the HSD) and then use the Delilah as a sort of remote UAV to capture and engage. The risk here is losing a weapon if the anticipated position is not occupied. Reminder that you can hook nearby positions on HSD to update SPI on the Delilah weapon view, so one weapon can capture multiple steer points given the 20+ minute flight time.

Cloud Masking

Cruise altitude of the Delilah can be modified from the control page and is represented in 'flight level', e.g. "080" means 8000 feet. This can be modified even after the weapon is off the rail, which means that you can respond to obscured targets by changing cruise altitude as need be.

Meta Notes

• The GBU-39 would probably be a viable alternative to the GBU-54 and would allow for strategic SAM engagements but it's unclear if Israel ever received an approved shipment from 2009
• The AGM-88 HARM is in the same boat. It was offered in 2013 but not confirmed purchased.
• Video of Israeli DEAD IRL from 2019 - multiple Delilah are fired at SA-19 sites