Soviet SAM systems. What are your thoughts?

Garry what's your opinion on the sa-6, sa-8,sa-9,sa-13? (Upgraded )

The SA-6 was flawed in the sense that one radar vehicle per unit could be knocked out with a HARM which rendered the whole battery vulnerable to unguided bomb attacks.

The SA-11 and SA-17 corrected that problem, but optical guidance upgrades would also make them rather more capable too.

The SA-8, -9, and SA-13 are all highly mobile systems and the OSA is reportedly very effective against low flying cruise missiles, but on their own their performance against enemy weapons or high flying threats is not really good enough to base an air defence around.

SA-22 and SA-15 on the other hand have the range and accuracy to really engage individual weapons directed at air defence networks with a very good chance of working.

Not to say 8, 9, and 13 are bad, but really only point defence type systems that in many ways are not hugely better than MANPADS in some ways.

In comparison SA-22 can reach heights the planes will be operating in... not many operate above 15km altitude normally.

Am I correct in saying that sa-4 and Tor haven't got any confirmed kills?

AFAIK, yes. But TOR is an exceptional system... very expensive but also very capable... one of the first SAM vehicles that was mobile yet had a proper 3D search radar and the ability to engage munitions as targets effectively.

And sa-2 through to sa-5 in upgraded versions are no longer a threat to western aircraft?

The originals are totally obsolete and are text book stuff for US ESM specialists to cut their teeth on.

Of course upgrades offer potential for under estimation and surprises that could get pilots killed...

I personally think the shilka is still deadly nothing you can do against a hail of 23mm rounds.

Tunguska uses heavier shells in two cannon that fire those heavier rounds at a higher rate of fire than Shilka over greater ranges with better accuracy...

As for S-300 I personally feel other forums talk it down because in reality they know it's good but don't want to admit it as it's Russian and not western.

The west breaks countries using their air force... to suggest there is a way of making the wests air force go away suggests there is hope for countries around the world potentially to say no to the west...

The west does not like that... it has spent and continues to spend enormous amounts of money... not on healthcare, or education to make westerners healthy or well educated, but on weapons to make the 1% a little richer than they were this morning.

If all of these short range systems work together, some passively (IR missiles and Shilka) other with radars and in a integrated air defence you can destroy lot of targets.

Agreed... and with minor upgrades like a thermal sight and optical backup guidance and totally passive command guidance with auto trackers you can have a defence system that is rather hard to crack.

Sa-6 is dead. Israeli lost lot of aircrafts to it but when they had correct countermeasures it wasn't good anymore. Buk are much better.

There are plenty of targets that need to be shot down that don't need super state of the art systems.

The SA-6 could be plugged in to an SA-11 or SA-17 battery and gain all the performance improvements in the newer systems, yet for lower priority targets like drones the old SA-6 missiles would be fine. Totally passive optical guidance and even flight performance upgrades like canards on the missiles to make them more manouverable would be a serious surprise for NATO let alone a lessor power like a neighbour.

I was in British army and all they had at the time was rapier static and tracked, and javelin shoulder launched and twin mounted on tri pod, starstreak was just entering service starstreak on paper looked good.

When your friends rip on Soviet air defence systems ask them what their western equivalent is... sometimes there is one but often there is not and most importantly even if there is an equivalent they likely only made a few hundred or perhaps a few thousand, but the Soviets made these systems in the hundreds of thousands.

The SA-1 had over 100,000 missiles made and they are still using them as target rockets to this day...

How would an optic guidance work on a radar anti air system like Buk or Sa-6 ? You still need radar for guiding ? I've seen there was a french system I think, old one that looks with its optics on the hot spot of the target and of the missiles and give orders to the missile so that when it look at both of themm they are just one hot spot so it make a line with the two hot spot and the optics, like laser guidance. But I don't think it would have the same Pk as radar guidance.


Even today western air deffence missiles are not that good. For exemple the ground aster system would sound close to S-350 ini terms of capabilities with two missiles, one 120km range and one 40km. But the radar has just a range of 60 km against fighters and the 120 km would be against bombers and non manoeuvring fighters with a big rcs. That's what 've red on the french wiki page.
I've also seen on a french forum that navy doesn't have enough missiles for all their lunchers. CdG carrier, according to them, isn't full. There are some VLS empty !! Because of the cost.

The sa-4 I thought was massively over sized looking at its more like a surface to surface missile lol.

Just shows how elegant their later ramjet powered missiles are like the SA-6...

Most of its core is hollow for the ramjet engine and large solid rocket boosters are strapped around the outside to get the missile moving.

the SA-6 uses the hollow empty core of the ramjet for the solid rocket booster to get the missile moving... once the fuel has been burned the empty space left behind becomes the ramjet engine area...

Saturation of enemy air defences to rid them of ammo it's also can act as a distraction

But the obvious solution is unmanned drones loaded with dozens of small cheap missiles like MANPADS to shoot down all your drones... in conjunction with electronic weapons to defeat your drones and weapons like 57mm cannon able to cheaply bring down drone aircraft fairly rapidly too... you could end up spending too much on drone aircraft to find they are dealt with easier than expected and not as effective as anticipated.

Even light ATGM like Kornet can be used against close range air targets like unmanned drones and they are very cheap and simple but accurate and effective...

How would an optic guidance work on a radar anti air system like Buk or Sa-6 ? You still need radar for guiding ?

think in terms of an ATGM... the target is tracked manually by optical sight... on an upgraded SAM it could be a thermal sight with automatic target tracking... the system tracks the outgoing missile and compares its position in the optical sight compared with the location of the target as tracked by the system and the difference in the position of the crosshairs and the target generates course corrections for the missile that are transmitted via datalink to centre the missile in the field of view.

It is a 3D problem in a 2D view... you can't see how far away the target is or how far away your outgoing missile is but that does not matter. As long as the command guidance system moves the missile so it is "over" the target and keeps it there assuming the missile keeps heading out toward the target and the target is within range the missile will eventually get close enough to the target to set off the warhead and complete the interception.

Super cheap and capable ATGMs like the Kornet replace the command system with a laser beam... the missile itself looks back at the launcher and looks directly at the laser beam and determines its own position in that beam and manouvers itself to centre itself in that beam... all you need is an autotracker to follow the target and therefore keep the beam on target... not that hard these days.

Because the missile looks back at the launcher and not at the target the target cannot jam or dazzle the missile... also it does not matter if the target is white and shiny or dark and dull... because the missile is looking directly into the laser source it can be five orders of magnitude less bright than if it had to reflect off the target, so the target might not even know it is under attack until it is too late.

A simple improvement for engaging fast moving targets is to add a lead with the laser beam so the missile does not fly directly toward where the target is, but leads it to fly where the target will be in a few seconds... meaning the laser might be pointing a few degrees off to one side or the other until just before missile impact...

But I don't think it would have the same Pk as radar guidance.

Actually you might be surprised... think of a target the shape of a donnut that is side on so you can see the full circle and the hole in the middle... the radar centre of the object would be the hole in the middle...

I remember a discussion on the Su-27 LOMAC website where developers defended a situation where an R-27R missile flew straight through a hovering helos open side doors and did not destroy the aircraft. They claimed it was possible but ignored the fact that the proximity fuse would have set off the warhead likely inside the helo...

I've also seen on a french forum that navy doesn't have enough missiles for all their lunchers. CdG carrier, according to them, isn't full. There are some VLS empty !! Because of the cost.

Active radar homing missiles are expensive... and most western countries prefer their air forces over their armies.

d_taddei2 wrote:Garryb I did say during my post "if facing and enemy with advanced and expensive anti air " of course 57mm wouldn't be classed as highly expensive like patriot missiles etc hence why I said over whelm and use up enemies expensive missiles or face drone attacks lol

Drone that simulate fighter would cost as much as a cruise missiles. They would need to be dropped by a cargo plane near the S-400 or S-300 system thus it would be shoot down long before lunch this drone army. Even for testing SAM, western countries can't use more than 3 or 4 drones at the sam time.

If a S-400 detect this formationn it would send a fighter to see what's coming and would just turn off its radar and let pantsir look with optics what's coming near them, destroying fighters and leting drone fly and fall because of lack of energy.

The new potential NATO tactic of overwhelming the enemy with just numbers is very shortsighted... the Soviets didn't defeat the Germans in WWII because of numbers... the initial confrontations millions of Soviets went straight into captivity and were generally worked to death in Germany... their enormous numbers made little difference.

Equally in the far east the numbers of Chinese made little difference to Japan... ever.

When dealing with simple targets in large numbers does take tactics and preparation but it is not the holy grail many in the west seem to think it might be.

trying to outproduce an enemy in numbers does not make sense when America does not make anything any more and russia and china do... unless these mass drone attacks are Russian or Chinese made drones... the point is that the russians and chinese could make more than the US could and cheaper... the US has never done anything cheap or even affordable...

Russian and Chinese weapons are known for being affordable and effective.

Of course it would have to be cheap drones even suicide type drones would do good thing about drones low signature and no runways so you could launch these fairly close thus giving enemy aircraft reduced time to react.

They keep talking about super cheap swarm drones used in large numbers to attack targets... but really a swarm needs lots of "aircraft" ...to keep them cheap they will need to be small, which means short ranged and simple. To be effective they need some sort of terminal guidance... so how are such systems any different from say 40 grad rockets with laser homing seeker heads?

They also need to not fly into each other or set off each others warheads with proximity fuses etc etc...

If they need to be controlled then that offers a way of defeating them... jam their guidance channel. EMP them to fry their brains, or even just their warhead fusing mechanism.

Whatever sensors they use to avoid flying into the ground can be manipulated into making them fly into the ground...

This type of tactic would only work against western armed forces as like I pointed out they tend to have small amount of air defence and it's highly expensive missile systems. Most ex soviet etc still have many anti air guns and sa-7 in stock so it wouldn't work on them. And like you say even the western uav are expensive. The Russian armed forces have much more different systems for anti air that it covers every aspect and it's effective.

So we agree... this new proposed US Swarm attack UAV technique is flawed in that when they implement it, the Russians and Chinese are going to reciprocate with their own swarm drones but in all likely hood their drones will actually be affordable and therefore likely effective against NATO defences, while at the same time the Russians and Chinese will likely upgrade their defences to allow for swarm attacks with EM weapons and cheap artillery weapons etc etc.

Regarding swarm attacks if you have 50 small UCAVs attacking an air defence battery... having a 23mm Shilka or 30mm Tunguska defending is a problem, because you need direct hits and in a burst of 200 shells either calibre has a low chance of a hit except at very short range... too short a range.

In contrast a standard 57mm shell with a proximity fuse or a time fuse to detonate within a group of UCAVs can damage quite a few with one shell... small UCAVs are relatively fragile things and a few fragments and a blast wave can knock them out of the sky... a guided shell that hits a centre UCAV within a group can have the same effect.

It would be horribly inefficient to use missiles against 50 targets as the next wave will be attacking during reloading...

Of course the Russians are not stupid and will look for that C-130 in the distance that all the UCAVs seem to be coming from and send an S-400 present to it...

d_taddei2 wrote:Garryb I wasn't suggesting a Usa swarm attack against anyone I was suggesting that Russia or anyone else facing western forces could use a swarm attack. Like I said western forces rely on aircraft and either patriot or manpad and other short range system using expensive missiles. I agree with you that such systems wouldn't be great in this sort of attack especially due to cost of each missile it's a good way to get them to use up expensive missiles and while reloading or possibly ran out of ammo you send more ucav to finish them off. Someone launching a drone can be pretty hard to spot depending on size of drone but there is many hand launched or even 4x4  vehicle or van. Bigger would need trucks etc

That's exactly what Russia is planing. I don't if you follow the news in Syria's civil war thread but Russia almost every months tries it's cruise missiles and you can be sure each time they try new versions, new softwares.

Nato's ability to intercept cruise missile is inexistant. Russia doesn't even need to swarm it with Drones. They can send missiles directly.

The thing with drones you are describing is that they would cost lot of money because they need many sensors, a powerfull computer, a very capable engine and a playload. That's exactly what a cruise missile has. Moreover you can go with pick-ups near a site where is a Patriot system, their are soldiers protecting them.

d_taddei2 wrote:Of course cheap drones out of the shops won't cut it. And like I said western forces use things such as patriot and manpad none have anti air guns although ex soviet countries and Russia have plenty of them and Iran's Sa'ir based on ks-19 is ideal for mass drones. So what I am getting at in this type of attack western forces would possibly find it difficult to deal with. Let's take Canada only has aircraft for air defence when I was in Batus with Canadian troops they had a handful of uk javelin, the enemy in the exercise used very primitive drones for recce only (ucav wasn't in production and neither was good drones at the time) the Canadians didn't even simulate attacking them when I ask why they stated because in reality we wouldn't be able to shoot them down due to lack of javelin missiles they stated their for aircraft and helicopters only. And they didn't even have enough javelin systems to protect it's forces. I know that they were looking for another system as for a while they had no anti air systems. Some western forces aren't much better they rely too much on aircraft.

First of all you can't make a cheap drone because if you want to attack something protected by Patriot, you need a drone with a range of more than 100 km. The most probable lunch plateform would be ccargo plane or big bomber because you can go near a Patriot by roads because their will thousands of soldier around it with big equipement so a truck that transport your drone would be easily targeted and destroyed. So your drone must have a very good engine, a very good datalink, a very good guidance system.

Second, there are plenty of short/Medium SAMs in the west. They just don't use them in big numbers like Russia. You have the German Flakpanzer Gepard which is similar to tunguska without missiles, you have french crotal, you have old Zu-23-4 used by ex-URSS states, MIM-72A Chaparral and much more to come like MIADS. Their have also the advantage in numbers of fighter and AWACS. So if you want to lunch your drones from a cargo plane or a bomber you need to go through AMRAAM and Meteors, same for nato their cargo planes should go through Pak FA's R-77M and R-37.

Finally, like you said most nato countries doesn't relly on their SAM, so the few which are there can be destroyed easily by a Su-34 with Kh-31 by staying out of range from them and it can even jam most of them, airborn fighter and missiles lunch at him. While for your drone attack you need very good coordination, cargo plane which cost much higher than Su-34, lunch system for them and many type of drones. If you produce something even cheap in big numbers it won't be cheap at the end. Better use something proven.

Hey... if you wanted to you could bundle about 10-12 MANPADs in the nose of an SA-5 and launch it over the border towards an enemy airfield... a simple cheap IRST could be used to detect IR signatures of engines running and allocate a MANPAD to each heat source as it approaches the airfield and then all 12 missiles can be released to attack each target... some targets could have two or more missiles aimed at them...

The work they are doing on 3D radar and IR models of missiles and aircraft could further be used to the same end... even aircraft parked at that airfield with their engines off could be identified and targeted with its IR signature... you might want to engage all the Apache helos there lined up, or perhaps any F-22s or F-35s sitting on or near the runway...
as it approaches the enemy airfield the missile could release corner reflectors and chaff and flares to fool the air defences... it could climb to high altitude and maintain that altitude all the way to the target area and then as it falls towards the ground over the airfield the IR sensor could be exposed to scan the ground for targets and then the main cover exposes the missile seekers and each missile is allocated a target and launched down...

GarryB wrote:Hey... if you wanted to you could bundle about 10-12 MANPADs in the nose of an SA-5 and launch it over the border towards an enemy airfield... a simple cheap IRST could be used to detect IR signatures of engines running and allocate a MANPAD to each heat source as it approaches the airfield and then all 12 missiles can be released to attack each target... some targets could have two or more missiles aimed at them...

The work they are doing on 3D radar and IR models of missiles and aircraft could further be used to the same end... even aircraft parked at that airfield with their engines off could be identified and targeted with its IR signature... you might want to engage all the Apache helos there lined up, or perhaps any F-22s or F-35s sitting on or near the runway...
as it approaches the enemy airfield the missile could release corner reflectors and chaff and flares to fool the air defences... it could climb to high altitude and maintain that altitude all the way to the target area and then as it falls towards the ground over the airfield the IR sensor could be exposed to scan the ground for targets and then the main cover exposes the missile seekers and each missile is allocated a target and launched down...

It simplier to use a thousand of cluster munitions inside the sa-5 and release them from 1km altitude to cover all the airfield.