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From: quimby@rpi.edu (Tom Stewart)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Future of SAM
Message-ID: <1991May2.040007.19776@amd.com>
Date: 1 May 91 07:42:52 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.044658.4761@amd.com> <1991May1.030348.20065@amd.com>
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From: quimby@rpi.edu (Tom Stewart)


(more post-storm thoughts on SAM and AAA)
  
I think it's a safe bet that the presence of a few thousand radar
decoys in Iraq would've made destroying their air defence system
much more complex.  A combination of decoys and highly mobile SAM's
probably would have made mid and high level flight dangerous for
a long time, requiring visual ID to knock out each mobile SAM site.

Given that most ground attack aircraft don't carry a whole lot of
armour -- even the A-10, as I understand it, has armour only for
pilot protection -- wouldn't it make sense to field some smaller,
lighter, faster AA guns?  Swapping an M3 or M60 for a 7.62 or
5.56 minigun would raise the rate of fire 4-16 times, with little
if any weight gain.  With groundfire, even from rifles, seemingly
such a threat to low level flight, I'm surprised it hasn't
received more attention from the sending end.
 
quimby@mts.rpi.edu, quimby@rpitsmts.bitnet