Greetings, and welcome to the World Affairs Board!
The World Affairs Board is the premier forum for the discussion of the pressing geopolitical issues of our time. Topics include military and defense developments, international terrorism, insurgency & COIN doctrine, international security and policing, weapons proliferation, and military technological development.
Our membership includes many from military, defense, academic, and government backgrounds with expert knowledge on a wide range of topics. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not register a World Affairs Board account and join our community today?
I think the key part of that is that SAMs can be effective simply by their existence. As the Kosovo/Serbia conflict showed, the presence of SAMs forced NATO to operate mostly about 15k meters. As you say, the presence of Stingers made the Soviets change their tactics.
SAMs traditionally seem to have merely restricted the operational freedom of attacking forces - i.e the first operation of the Iraq War was to remove SAMs/Radars.
Even Patriot during the First Gulf War wasnt as effective as first claimed against the Scuds - some even claim that its success rate was zero. (Largely because the Iraqi Scuds were modified and prone to breaking up all by themselves lol)
I suspect that the modern missiles are far more capable and its difficult to judge the effectiveness of SAMs based on their previous performance. However, I do think that land based SAMs are always going to struggle given adverse terrain/stealth and other countermeasures.
Y'know.........if you lads were to read the essay on this subject i posted(which discusses exactly this operational reality in some depth)...
The term for what you're describing is "virtual attrition".
[QUOTE=PubFather]Wikipedia - for what its worth lol
More than 1 500 MISTRAL 1 and MISTRAL 2 missiles have been fired by many armed force units under realistic operational conditions with a 93% success rate on a large range of targets (from hovering helicopters to high-speed jet-drones).
So it has never been tested in combat - thanks for the verficiation
I think the key part of that is that SAMs can be effective simply by their existence. As the Kosovo/Serbia conflict showed, the presence of SAMs forced NATO to operate mostly about 15k meters. As you say, the presence of Stingers made the Soviets change their tactics.
I have to agree with that. The pilot I was talking to told that helicopters were forced to fly lower thus becoming exposed to a machine guns. And most of combat losses of helicopters and aircraft in Afganistan were incurred due to MACHINE GUN fire... So indirectly presence of Stingers increased success rates of machine gunners. But statistics say tha Stingers themselv did not kill most of the targests they were launched against. They often missed targets due to malfuctions.
As for efficiency - when helicoptes had to fly in a groups of 2-3 helicopters the efficiency of the helicopter fleet in total reduced dramatically from earlier case when a single helicopter trips were used.
Still my point was that Logistics line of Soviet Army in Afghanistan were not broken to a point when it had to quit. Even oil prices were not TURNING POINT though when oil price declined it reduced the revenues of USSR budget and made Afghanistan campaign cost more sensitive. Gorbachev asked himself a question - WHAT CAN BE ACHIEVED BY STAYING THERE? And he come to an answer which USA got in Vietnam - NOTHING. This war should have continued for another couple of decades to have any CHANCE for success..... and he did not want Soviet guys going back in body bags another decades.... He ordered pull back. And that was WISE
ps. just browsed again and found the site where there is data on SOME of the helicopters and aircrafts lost by Soviet Army in Afghanistan. It actually gives details to less than 1/3rd of total crashes.
Here's some more specifics on SAM success rates that I got from a series of books called "Lessons of Modern War"
Afghanistan - Stingers scored 269 hits out of 340 firings
Falklands - Blowpipe hit about 10% of the time
Rapier claimed 14 hits with 45 firings (I think this figure is inflated)
Iran/Irar War - Overall success rate for SAMs on both sides was - at best -
one hit for every thirty firings.
I guess one variable could be that some targets could have been hit by multiple missiles, and of course it's been pointed out that the missiles doesnt need to actually hit the target to shoot down or write off the plane.
I guess one variable could be that some targets could have been hit by multiple missiles, and of course it's been pointed out that the missiles doesnt need to actually hit the target to shoot down or write off the plane.
Equally - id be suspicious of such accurate figures regarding the firing of Stinger in Afganistan. it's not like the Muhjahadeen (cant spell it lol) were an organised army, carefully counting rounds and recording success rates. And there were that many CIA "advisors" lol...
I think the key part of that is that SAMs can be effective simply by their existence. As the Kosovo/Serbia conflict showed, the presence of SAMs forced NATO to operate mostly about 15k meters. As you say, the presence of Stingers made the Soviets change their tactics.
I guess that we did not discuss a heavy toll which Israelly Air force paid to UNCOVERED SAMs in 1973 conflict.... I don't remember what number of aircraft was shot down but it was measured with few tens... I also remember that IAF had ask ground forces to make an initial breach in SAM defenses to cut losses.
Unfortunatelly not much can be found on the web.... I hope somebody can post some data on these battles.....
It is more surprising that those SAMs were not covered by Syrian and Egyptian air foces.... fighting IAF without support - ALONE!
I guess that we did not discuss a heavy toll which Israelly Air force paid to UNCOVERED SAMs in 1973 conflict.... I don't remember what number of aircraft was shot down but it was measured with few tens... I also remember that IAF had ask ground forces to make an initial breach in SAM defenses to cut losses.
Unfortunatelly not much can be found on the web.... I hope somebody can post some data on these battles.....
It is more surprising that those SAMs were not covered by Syrian and Egyptian air foces.... fighting IAF without support - ALONE!
The Yom Kippur war was the one true shining beacon of SAM systems in war.
The Egyptians used a subterfuge to sneak them up to cover their forward positions EN MASSE, and the Israelis had NO IDEA they were there. Further, because of the success of the Egyptian assault engineer teams in clearing out the IDF fortifications on the Israeli side of the Sinai, the Israelis were completely open to a massive(and mostly unopposed) Egyptian mechanized attack, so the IAF was COMPELLED to throw it's planes at Egyptian armor, which of course is EXACTLY what the Egyptians had planned for.
The Egyptians you see did NOT want to race into Israel for outright conquest, that was SUPPOSED to be done by Syrians in the North(and they actually came VERY CLOSE to doing just that). It was only after the Syrian attack failed(due to indecision on the part of the on-scene Syrian commander) that the Egyptian army was pressured by the Egyptian GOVERNMENT to advance from their SAM umbrella and "help the syrians".
Here's some more specifics on SAM success rates that I got from a series of books called "Lessons of Modern War"
Afghanistan - Stingers scored 269 hits out of 340 firings
Falklands - Blowpipe hit about 10% of the time
Rapier claimed 14 hits with 45 firings (I think this figure is inflated)
Iran/Irar War - Overall success rate for SAMs on both sides was - at best -
one hit for every thirty firings.
Well it sounds quite high for Stingers... this hit rate could be true only for the first 10 MONTH of Stinger use. After than HUNDREDS of stingers yeilded in few aircraft shot down.
Somebody added Afghanistan Air Force to a large number of aircraft shot down. But this is really funny! The AAF never exceeded 50 aircraft of which 36 were helicopters.... the problem - too few Afghan pilots :) So I can not understand where these inflated figures come from! I guess this comes from Afghanistan mojahedeen.... but mojahedeens NEVER reported anything close to reality. Look at what AQ reports on USA losses in Iraq.... and then tell if these reports can be taken for consideration?
The Russian statistics states that total number of helicopters and aircraft lost in Afghanistan was around 350 units of which 333 were helicopters. Of these more than 50% were NOT SHOT down but crashed at non-combat reasons - at mountain landing... engine malfuntion, collisions, lack of fuel, etc. The remaining half was lost due to combat reasons of which MACHINE GUNS were the MAIN reason for 2/3rds of COMBAT losses - leaving around 50 success to Stingers. I don't know how the author of the book could count 269 hits.... and so few firings!!! Indeed around 1200 Stingers were delivered and less than 60 were bought back by CIA and US Army, where are the remaining SAMs?
There is a more reliable data from Pakistani army which reported firing 28 stingers and report NO HITS...... against Soviet Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters.
At Kargill Pakistani army scored two aircraft and one Mi-17 helicopter of Inian Air Force. However number of missiles fired is not reported.
The pilot who flew in Afghanistan on Mi-24 told that during certain missions few Stingers were launched against his helicopter but failed even before he shot his flares.... his view was that MOST of Stingers were NON OPERATIONAL before launch due to bad storage. Other officers from their regiment had experienced stinger missiles exploding right after launch. He served from 1987 and his regiment lost few helicopters TO HIGH CALIBRE MACHINE GUNS being ambushed at landing.......
The Yom Kippur war was the one true shining beacon of SAM systems in war.
The Egyptians used a subterfuge to sneak them up to cover their forward positions EN MASSE, and the Israelis had NO IDEA they were there. Further, because of the success of the Egyptian assault engineer teams in clearing out the IDF fortifications on the Israeli side of the Sinai, the Israelis were completely open to a massive(and mostly unopposed) Egyptian mechanized attack, so the IAF was COMPELLED to throw it's planes at Egyptian armor, which of course is EXACTLY what the Egyptians had planned for.
The Egyptians you see did NOT want to race into Israel for outright conquest, that was SUPPOSED to be done by Syrians in the North(and they actually came VERY CLOSE to doing just that). It was only after the Syrian attack failed(due to indecision on the part of the on-scene Syrian commander) that the Egyptian army was pressured by the Egyptian GOVERNMENT to advance from their SAM umbrella and "help the syrians".
Of course we all know how that went...
Yes, history tells that UNCOVERED SAM will not live long... They are not an independent sustainable weapon..... Only in cooperation/coverage with Air Foce SAMs can be a SUSTAINABLE weapon.
Comment