Effectiveness & lethality of man-portable SAMs

[Badar]

Hi,<P>Akilesh, the preferred acronym for Man Portable Sams is MANPAD. <P>MANPADS are very good at denying low airspace to the enemy. This means that they are good at disconcerting and frightning enemy airmen, enough maybe to make them miss or abort their mission. But MANPADS ability to actually shoot down enemy aircraft is rather limited. This is because they have a very short range, are comparitively slower and less energetic than heavier sams, and have a very small warhead. But MANPADS remain a very credible threat against helicopters.<P>MANPADS are expensive rounds of munitions. They are most likely to be issued only to troops near the FEBA. Ordianry infantry men 100 kms away from the front are unlikely to receive a MANPAD on a regular basis.<P>Some missiles have built in IFF equipment, which tells you if you have a friendly aircraft in your sights. This eliminates to a certain extend aircraft losses due to friendly fire. Also most armies have special air defence troops or qualified personnel to operate MANPADS. These men are well versed in the art and science of aircraft recognition.<P>Aircraft losses to friendly fire has always been an major source of worry since the Great War. Most major armies and air forces spend a lot of time, money and effort developing procedures and protocols to minimise blue on blue fire in any future conflict.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by Badar (edited 02-08-1999).]

[Badar]

Hi,<P>Akhilesh, The general proceedures for identifying and engaging aircraft are not classified.<P>Here is the US Armys field manual for a/c recognition <a href="http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl. ... ce.htm">FM 44-80 VISUAL AIRCRAFT RECOGNITION</a><P>And the US Army field manual <a href="http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl. ... oc.htm">FM 44-18-1 Stinger Team Operation</a> gives instructions in chapter 4 and 5 about how to detect aircraft and when to engage them respectively. It also contains some information on how to handle and fire a stinger missile should you be planning to fire a stinger anytime soon. <P>Normally ground troops in any good army will not open fire on every aircraft that they think is hostile, but only on those that directly threaten them. A average infantry man in the feild is not going to willingly play substitute for his brothers in the AD art branch. He will be more inclined to lie low and let enemy aircraft go past rather than attract their attention and give away his position by firing missiles at them.<P>The July 1999 issue of Janes Missiles & Rockets has a nice article called <a href="http://jmr.janes.com/samples/sample5.html">Man Portable Systems Still Popular</a><P>Hope this helps.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by Badar (edited 03-08-1999).]

[Ved]

Akhilesh,<P>"The reason I fel this is because there is absolutely no reliable friend-or-foe system for a mps." True - but MP SAMs (as the IAF calls the) are meant as visual weapons, and the operator must be able to recognise aircraft. <P>Badar,<P>"They are most likely to be issued only to troops near the FEBA." Generally true, but targets in depth would also be protected by MP SAMs. They would be guided by voice commands from the local AD centre, in much the same way as other SAM systems are.

[Kuttan]

Hey, experts, I need some technical advice. <P>I have acquired a copy of Jane's F-15 and the combined F-16/MiG29 pack, from the local CompUSA/OfficeMax. Now my questions: <P>1. Is Jane's F-15 actually accurate in flight dynamics, etc.? <BR>2. How about the F-16/MiG 29 pack (not Jane's, but I expect that you have all played this). <P>3. These are to be supplied to nephews etc. in a very few days: impending visit to the Motherland. Chances of winning straight combat are negligible against people like that, who live for computer games. Let me have any dirty, underhanded tricks that I can use instead. <BR>Like, some combination of keys that will make opposition disappear? Or should I surreptitiously pull mouse cord out of keyboard?

[Badar]

Hi,<P>Hello Uncle narayanan (do I get a game now? ), I havent had an opportunity to play much computer games (the computer administrator at my place is a regular nazi) but I believe that you can find a lot of 'cheat codes' at on the web. On to the real experts now...<BR>

[Vikram Rathore]

back to MANPADS, I think the impact is more of deterrence than actual threat of shooting down fighters. Even in Kargil, India lost just 2 (incl a slow chopper) to MANPADS, and from what I read, over a 100 were reported to have been fired. The Israelis also regularly encountered SA-7s over Beirut and the Bekaa valley...lost just one F-16 in over a decade...a few took hits but got back to base...once again showing the small warhead size on MANPADs.

[Prasenjit Medhi]

Hi,<P> I would suppose that man portable SAM's offer a low cost alternative to short-range SAM's ported on tracked carriers, and also offer greater options as far as usability on vaired terrain goes, ie you can lug em wherever a human can carry em.<P>In the long run any SAM's deployed by a ground force is part of its defence that it 'stacks', if you will, against the attacker, or defender if it is on the offensive. Man portable and other SAM's are designed to increase the survivability and to reduce attrition to the ground force in the face of air attacks. <P>Consider a hypothetical base case where the military considerations are the only one's extant. Pursuance of military goals by commanders on both sides, will ensure attrition, regardless, SAM's and all the other knickknacks reduce attrition in your favor. That is about all.<P>Since of course no military action is independant of political and psychological considerations, one must understand that in the case of a high risk 'limited' engagement like Kargil, the loss of fighter aircraft, even at a favorable attrition rate against ground targets would have been unacceptable. Therefore, the decision to fly high and fast and to disrupt the enemies detection devices. In a full military conflict man-portable and other short range ground support SAM's offer some degree of arrested attrition as has been already mentioned due to the simple psychological effect of seeing a HE projectible being fired at you as you wiz past at high speeds, just as in the case for AAA, and because attrition to the attacking force in the air will hopefully entail that the air-attacker has fewer resources to throw our way the next time round.<P>In the pure attrition game however, I would believe that man-portable SAM's would not be as effective as longer ranged, more sophisticated missiles and AAA systems such as the Tungushka etc. A man portable SAM may be a poor man's weapon, but it can still be an effective tool. The last I looked, the more the better, as long as one coordinates the effort, and no one ever said that man-portable SAM's are _that_ expensive .. The IA uses the Strela I believe.<P>Prasenjit<P>

[Kuttan]

Without losing much mobility, jeep-mounted weapons, or weapons mounted on tracked all-terrain vehicles, may offer much better return on investment: these systems can also include radar and other sensors, and offer better launch stability. <P>The man-portable is basically a terrorist weapon, or a helicopter-killer. <P>In the Falklands war, the British managed to transport and set up batteries of SAMs on hillsides, and scored extremely high attrition rates among the Argentinian attack aircraft: this was probably the decider in that conflict, and about the only instance I know of ground-based, hastily-set-up defenses, supported by just a few VSTOL fighters, defeating a fleet of regular fixed-wing fighter-bombers. The distances and other obstacles involved in that mission were pretty daunting. <P>I think the Argentinian pilots were seen to be very brave and tenacious, but they got wiped out, nevertheless. <P>

[Sukumar]

MANPADS are effective against slow flying targets like helicopters. They afford some amount of air defense to infantry in the sense that they can shoot back, which is a psychological advantage. <P>All MANPADS in existence are IR guided (except the Swedish RBS 70 series) and seek the heat emitted by aircraft engines. They can be decoyed with flares or high G maneuvers. They are almost completely ineffective against hi speed targets like strike fighters. Even when they score a hit, depending on how close they were to the target, the warhead is so small that the damage does not have to be fatal. <P>They make good weapons to ambush strike fighters however, when they are in a turn or caught unawares.<P>In the Falklands war the majority of Argentinian aircraft were brought down by SAMs fired by the RN ships or air defense guns. The Argentinian AF pilots were brave, but lacked training and tactics. After the campaign, the British Army positioned Rapier and other SAM systems.<P>Boeing has mounted the Stinger on Humvees. The system is called Avenger. There have been attempts like creating a ground based version of the Sidewinder called Chaparral (both land and sea based). <P>Overall, more powerful, mobile SAMS have been more effective anti-air defenses. The MANPADS does add another dimension. The more s**t you got coming at you, the more scared a fighter pilot you are.<P>The Indian Army has the Russian SA-7 Grail (Strela-2MD) and SA-16 Igla. Other famous MANPADS are Redeye, Blowpipe, RBS-70 and SA-14 Gremlin.<P><BR>[This message has been edited by R Sukumar (edited 04-08-1999).]<p>[This message has been edited by R Sukumar (edited 04-08-1999).]

[Sukumar]

The Mi-8/17s engines exhaust the hot gases sideways and into the rotor wash. The exhaust looks like a hole in the engine cowling. They do not have any kind of IR suppression devices.<P>What the choppers lacked in Siachen was flare dispensers. Hot choppers make excellent targets against the cold snowy background.

[Ved]

Sukumar,<P>"The Argentinian AF pilots were brave, but lacked training and tactics."<P> Perhaps, but the main fact against the Argie AF was that the mainland was so far from the Falklands, the Mirage V/Super Etendards were critically short of fuel when they reached the target, even without any evasive action. Thus, they always had to come the shortest way, the same route at the most economical height. If they were attacked by Harriers, even if they engaged reheat ONCE and turned, they lost all hope of reaching the mainland... they were so short of fuel! In spite of that, many pilots did turn and fight, knowing fully well that they would either get shot down or eject over the sea due to fuel starvation. The 30 odd Argie fighters shot down by the Harriers in "combat" was not, therefore, as much a victory as was claimed by UK.<P> Secondly (I know I'm digressing from the thread) the RN came perilously close to losing the war. Consider just two facts:-<P>1. The Argie pilot who launched the Exocet which sank the "Atlantic Conveyor", a container ship, was in fact hunting the HMS Hermes (now INS Viraat) - being somewhat the same size, the radar blips looked similar. Can you imagine the effect of the losing the carrier/Harrier combination?<P>2. There were 11 Mk 82 thousand pounder bombs which scored direct hits and landed up inside the RN ships, but failed to explode due to defective fuses - can you imagine what the loss of even 10 more ships would have meant to the RN? Is there a lesson in this for our MOD (regarding the equipment part)?<P><BR>