Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: cperlebe@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM (Chris Perleberg)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Shoulder-Launched AA Missles
Message-ID: <12063@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 7 Dec 89 04:16:50 GMT
References: <11927@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: NCR Corporation Wichita, KS
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: cperlebe@encad.Wichita.NCR.COM (Chris Perleberg)

In article <11927@cbnews.ATT.COM> military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) writes:
>I hypothesize that the shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missle makes
>much of the modern air force obsolete.  The major reason is the cost
>differential.  Secondary considerations are size and portability.
>In short, any airplane you can build, I can shoot down for much less
>cost and from pretty much any position.


While the cost differential is there, I think your assessment is premature.
Such missiles are, by necessity, small, and there is an upper limit on
big they can get.  This limits both the warhead and the propellant.  Also,
line of sight considerations limits their usefulness, as does copious
use of decoys.  I think the real purpose of such missiles, aside from
damaging the occasional aircraft, is to force attacking aircraft to
fly at a higher altitide, making them vulnerable to other, more deadly
missiles.  A missile like the SA-7 can't even hit an aircraft until after
it has passed overhead and presumably made its attack.

On the other hand, the Stinger worked fairly well in Afghanistan, by
all accounts, but then it is an all-angle missile.  The Blowpipe (laser or
optical guidance, I forget) didn't work as well in the Falklands, nor
did the SA-7 work very well against the Israelis in 1973 or against
the US/RVN in Vietnam.  Are there any other examples of small SAM usage
out there?

Chris Perleberg
cperlebe@encad.wichita.ncr.com