April 19 marks the 65th anniversary of the American A-6 Intruder deck attack bomber

April 19 marked the 65th anniversary of the American A-6 Intruder deck-mounted attack bomber, which was developed by Grumman Aerospace. On that day in 1960, its first prototype, the YA2F-1 prototype, took off.

For its time, the A-6 had the most advanced and sophisticated avionics with an onboard computer and radar integrated into a single system. However, as was often the case in aviation, the innovative equipment had rather low reliability, and it took a long time to improve it.

Serial production of the Intruder lasted until 1992. A total of 693 copies were built in three basic versions. Of these, 90 were converted into KA-6D air tankers, and 26 were produced as EA-6A electronic warfare aircraft. In addition, another 170 EA-6B Prowlers were built, specialized electronic warfare aircraft that, although they belonged to the Intruder family, were considered a separate type.

Among the attack bombers, the most advanced was the A-6E, which was equipped with two Pratt & Whitney J52-P8B engines with a thrust of 4.2 tons each. It had a length of 16.7 m, a wingspan of 16.15 m, a maximum takeoff weight of 27.4 tons, a maximum speed of 1040 km/h, and a range of 5200 km. The aircraft could carry up to 8.2 tons of various weapons on five external nodes. For example, among the weapons were guided missiles: anti-ship AGM-84 Harpoon, anti-radar AGM-45 Shrike, and air-to-ground AGM-65 Maverick. The Intruder also had a wide range of bombs in its arsenal, including nuclear ones.

Only the US Navy and Marine Corps aviation units became operators of the Intruder. The A-6 remained in service until early 1997 and was used in many regional conflicts, including the Vietnam and Gulf wars. In Vietnam, 84 of these aircraft were lost, 56 of which were shot down by conventional anti-aircraft guns, which indicates the shortcomings of the tactics of using an expensive aircraft with the most modern equipment rather than the problems of the Intruder itself.

After overcoming the “childhood diseases”, the A-6 earned a high reputation among its crews, which was almost unaffected by the high losses in Vietnam. After the Intruder was retired, many experts believed that the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet multirole fighters were not a full-fledged replacement.