The SA-6 ‘Gainful’, linked to a tracked ‘Straight Flush’ radar vehicle, can ‘kill’ as low as 30 m and as high as 18 km. Its triple launcher is mounted on a tracked vehicle. Warheads weigh 80 kg. The IDF AF made SA-6 sites its major targets. On both fronts in 1973 they attacked the enemy’s anti-aircraft missiles, but on neither were operations pressed home. No sooner did any one of them show signs of success than it was interrupted by the need to carry out some other, seemingly more urgent, task. Another difficulty was the unexpected appearance on both fronts of highly mobile SA-6s—by the time fighter-bombers, properly configured for dealing with them, arrived on the scene, the missiles were often gone and had to be located all over again. Looking for them, let alone providing ground support before they had been knocked out, turned out to be extremely costly. Pilots who, with 1967 in mind, tried to evade the SAMs by flying low ran into the fire of radar-guided, quadruple-barrel ZSU-23 guns. Spitting out 4,000 rounds a minute, the latter literally chewed up the Israeli planes.
