A look at surface-to-air missilery worldwide: covering both shipborne and land-based systems.
Armada International › Vol. 14 Nbr. 4, August 1990
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A look at surface-to-air missilery worldwide: covering both shipborne and land-based systems.
A Look at Surface-to-Air Missilery Worldwide
Covering Both Shipborne and Land-Based Systems Used in combat for the first time during the Vietnam War, the surface-to-air missile emerged from that campaign with a low reputation. Although many US warplanes were downed by missiles, only a tiny fraction of the total number of surface-to-air missiles scored kills. The "SAM umbrella" under which the Egyptian and Syrian armies operated during the 1973 Yom Kippur War saw a modest improvement in kill rates, although these still remained an order of magnitude below brochure figures. Not until the brief Falklands conflict of 1982 did the surface-to-air missile really emerge as an effective weapon, but even there it proved no panacea for the problem of stopping air attacks. Heavy and Medium SAM Systems In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the important type of surface-to-air missile (and for a while the only type) was the heavy long-range weapon devised to deal with high-altitude targets. Still an important class of weapon in the Soviet Union, it is slowly being abandoned by other nations. China's CPMIEC HQ-2J (CSA-1) is obviously based on the obsolescent Soviet SA-2, and is still being offered for export in its latest HQ-2J version. In the early 1980s, Egypt was reported to be planning to develop an improved version of the Guideline. Production of the Arab-British Dynamics Early Bird was due to have begun in 1985, giving Egypt for the first time surface-to-air missile coverage at altitudes up to 28000 metres, but absence of recent news suggests that this scheme proved over-optimistic. The most powerful surface-to-air missile currently offered for export by the Russians is the SA-5 Gammon, which plays a major part in the Soviet air-d...See the full content of this document
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