Issue 52: September/October 1989

The limitations of the SA-7 led to its replacement in front line service by its derivative designated the SA-14 Gremlin which entered service in the early eighties. Concurrently, the Russians fielded an entirely new missile, the SA-16.

The SA-16 is a larger 1. 55m weapon with a conical (or perhaps ogival) low dragnose cone and presumably better aerodynamic performance. Both missiles are credited with true all aspect performance.

The Man Portable SAM in Combat

The man portable SAM was first fired in anger in 1971 over the Suez Canal, when an SA-7 embedded itself in the tail of an Israeli jet and failed to explode. By mid 1972 the SA-7 was being fired in South Vietnam in large numbers accounting for 45 aircraft in 500 launches by the US withdrawal. The initial kill rate of 33% soon dropped to several percent with evasive manoeuvring and the use of flares. Most kills were against helicopters and slow moving prop transports and fire support gunships.

The SA-7 performed poorly in the 1973 Yorn Kippur war as most of its targets were fast and agile tactical jets. The conflict where the SA-7 was seen to perform best was the final phase of the SE Asian conflict in 1975 where the SA-7s took a devastating toll of the South Vietnamese AC-47, AC-119 gunships and A-37 strike aircraft. The SA-7 attracted little further attention until the the escalation of the Rhodesian civil war where missiles fired by black nationalists downed several unfortunate civilian transports.

The Afghan conflict saw the SA-7 in use again when CIA and Arab nations supplied missiles used by Mujahedeen successfully destroyed several helicopters and transports. The Russians responded by dropping flares and fitting IR suppressors to helo exhausts countering the SA-7s simple seeker. The Afghans were subsequently supplied with Stingers and Blowpipes, the former achieving a good kill rate throughout the conflict. While many sources question the overall impact of the Stinger in this war, pointing to the furious Russian retaliatory strikes on areas known to harbour SAM fire teams, the reduction in CAS sortie rates, bombing accuracy and additional cost in operations cannot be ignored.

The successful destruction of CAS aircraft and Hind gunships was shown to have a major psychological impact upon Soviet and Afghan communist aircrew, while the destruction of transports clearly disrupted internal logistical operations.

The success of the man portable SAM in Hind killing in Angola was a major factor in the success of insurgent operations. It will be interesting to see the real statistics when they become available.

Defensive Measures

Defeating the man portable SAM will, in most instances, require a combination of manoeuvre and countermeasures. The diversity of guidance techniques and missile aerodynamic performance to be countered will rule out any simple strategy.

Third world governments and associated terrorist groups where applicable may well be using US, UK, French, Chinese and Russian weapons of various vintages and revision types purchased legally or illegally.

The first aspect of defence is knowing that a missile has been launched at you. Lookout is therefore essential although a beam or tail aspect shot may not be sighted. It is therefore desirable that fixed wing aircraft and helicopters carry IR detection equipment (eg Cincinnati AAR-44) which can detect and track the missiles’ exhaust plume, very hot with high energy propellants, providing audible and azimuth warning to the pilot. This may be the only warning available of an optical/IA missile launch. Beam riders and CLOS/SACLOS weapon guidance equipment will transmit radio or optical (ie laser) guidance signals which may be detected by a suitable Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) or Laser Warning Receiver (LWR). It is not clear from published literature whether established types such as the Dalmo Victor APR-39 RWR integrated with the Perkin Elmer AVR-2 LWR have such a capability. The dominance of optical homing missiles will eventually dictate the use of an IR warning receiver.

Once the missile is detected and its plume sighted the best combination of measures is the dropping of flares to seduce a heat seeker or at least degrade its seeker while entering a hard break turn to attain beam aspect relative to the inbound missile (refer TE July 1987 for a detailed discussion of evasive tactics). This manoeuvre will force the missile to sustain a high turn rate which may in itself defeat the weapon, it may stall its controls or fall out of control. At least this manoeuvre will slow the weapon down due to the drag induced by the body lift used to turn the missile. This is desirable as the propellant will burn out very quickly and the less energy (speed/altitude) the missile has the less likely it is to get you. As is apparent, this tactic applies primarily to tactical jets with the thrust/weight and speed to make a difference to a supersonic projectile. It is thus mandatory that a CAS aircraft, even when employed in counterinsurgency operations, has the aerodynamic performance to sustain high G high speed manoeuvring at low altitude (the reported RMF interest in using the PC-9 or Macchi for CAS could be questioned in this context).

Helicopters and transports do not have this option and are certain kills if not equipped with IR exhaust radiation suppressors and suitable IA jammers. Exhaust suppressors mix cold air into the exhaust plume to cool it down while also preventing direct IA radiation from the turbine hot end. While flares are often carried by transports and helos, second generation heat seeking SAMs are certain to reject them and jammers are a must. An IRjammer such as the Northrop AAQ-4, AAQ-8, MIRTS or Loral Matador will typically pulse an IR source at such a rate that it will interfere with the seeker/reticle scan of a heat seeking missile.

The effectiveness will depend upon the knowledge of the missile to be countered, like all jammers it must be threat specific to be really effective. An aircraft or helo venturing over unsanitised territory would therefore preferably carry a suite including an IR launch warning receiver, suitable IR jammers and a flare dispenser. Penetration should be at very low level to provide terrain masking or, where the situation permits, well above 10,000ft so as to stretch the threat performance envelope to the lim;t. Jammers and expendables should be tied into the warning receivers to provide automatic dispensing and emission upon detection of a launch. Given the possibility of man portable SAMs being deployed in the immediate vicinity of friendly landing zones or airstrips it is almost mandatory that a 3nm area beyond either threshold be cleared or at least protected from intruders. On climbout at full power and low airspeed a transport is a textbook target for a heat seeker.

The second generation of man portable SAMs has yet to see large scale combat use but its immunity to trivial countermeasures and improving engagement envelope render it a major threat to helicopters, tactical transports, slower close air support/ counterinsurgency aircraft and poorly flown tactical jets. The counter to such weapons lies in a combination of tactical flying, warning equipment and countermeasures, none of which alone are likely to be adequate.

Given the off-the,shelf availability of these weapons and thus almost non-existent warning time to deployment, those air forces and air arms which fail to suitably equip and train do so at their peril.