From about 1943 to the end of the Second World War the Allied armies operated in an environment of air supremacy, leading to the virtual neglect of air defences for armies in the field during the early years of the Cold War. There was therefore a continued dependence upon Second World War gun-based systems well into the 1950s in the West, and it was only when the Soviets began to field missile-based systems that Western development was given any real sense of urgency. As in other areas, however, the Germans had left a rich legacy of guided-missile projects, and these were used as the starting point for new air-defence systems.
US Air Defence
The Hawk missile entered service with the US army in 1959 and was also purchased by a NATO consortium (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands), which laid out a complex network of static Hawk sites covering most of western Europe. These were subsequently upgraded to Improved Hawk (I-Hawk) by all except Belgium. Both Hawk and I-Hawk were effective, with a maximum range of 40 km, and not only were capable of intercepting aircraft, but also demonstrated a capability of attacking missiles and battlefield rockets such as NATO’s Honest John. The British meanwhile produced a mobile air-defence missile, the Thunderbird, which was deployed in Germany from 1959 to 1976.
At the lowest end of the scale – within infantry battalions – miniaturization led to a spate of missiles which were light in weight and easy to control and which could be carried in a container which doubled as the launch-tube. Typical of these were the US Redeye and its successor the Stinger, and the British Blowpipe. Guidance methods varied, with Redeye/Stinger using an infra-red seeker to home on an aircraft’s exhaust, while Blowpipe was steered by the operator, enabling it to attack an aircraft head-on. It was originally envisaged that such weapons would be distributed on a wide scale, giving a broad coverage of the AFCENT area, but NATO pilots were not very enthusiastic about flying over their own troops armed with such weapons, especially if the operators were ‘trigger-happy’ as a result of recent enemy air attacks. So, identification friend-or-foe (IFF) systems were fitted and missile operators were brought under centralized control to ensure that they did not blaze away regardless.
At the divisional level there were a large number of missile systems, although all took much longer to develop and cost very much more than planned. The US army rushed the Chapparal system into service in 1966, by mounting four Sidewinder missiles, normally used by aircraft, on an existing tracked chassis and adding a simple radar. Chapparal was to have been replaced by Roland, a Franco-German programme which started in 1963 and eventually entered service with the French and German armies in 1977 – fourteen years later. It was then adopted by the US army for service in late 1977, but there was a four-year delay before it actually entered service, and even then the promised large orders were cut back to just twenty-seven. Meanwhile, Chapparal, the interim system, remained in service until the 1990s. The British developed the mobile Rapier, which went into service in 1967 as a fairly simple optically guided system, towed by a light truck, but was then developed into a much more sophisticated weapon mounted on a tracked vehicle.
At the corps level the US Patriot system also suffered from a long-drawn-out development, which started with intensive studies in 1961. By 1965 the system had been designated SAM-D and was intended to defeat saturation air attacks by large numbers of aircraft at all heights and by short-range missiles, both of them in an intense ECM environment. Full development did not start until 1967 and was protracted, to say the least, as the first unit did not form until 1984. Nevertheless, it proved to be an exceptionally good system, using a combination of command and semi-active homing guidance to control a missile travelling at speeds of Mach 2–3 and with a maximum range in the region of 65–70 km.
Soviet Air Defence
In contrast with the NATO nations, the Soviet Union gave high priority to air defence from the start of the Cold War, and in particular to missiles, and proceeded to follow a coherent development plan throughout. In the ground forces, area coverage was provided by SAM brigades, whose operations were co-ordinated with those of the tactical air army, while at division and regimental level SAMs and anti-aircraft guns provided point defence. These were tied together by an efficient target-acquisition and early-warning system, whose tasks were to provide the air-defence units with target data and other units with warning of incoming attacks. All units were encouraged to use shoulder-launched short-range missiles, machine-guns and rifles against hostile aircraft.
The first missile, the SA-1 (NATO = ‘Guild’), which was also the world’s first air-defence missile to be deployed on a significant scale, entered service in 1954 and was intended for homeland defence, while the first mobile missile system for the field army, the SA-2 (‘Guideline’), entered service in 1957. The SA-2 missile was mounted on a wheeled transporter–erector, launched vertically, and guided by radar, and its capabilities were amply demonstrated on 1 May 1960 when an SA-2 missile hit the US spy plane piloted by Gary Powers, thus not only provoking the ‘U-2 Incident’ but also effectively ending the USA’s ability to overfly the USSR with U-2s. The missile was widely exported and was constantly updated, particularly as a result of operational experience by its export customers, including North Vietnam, Egypt and Syria.
Next came the SA-4 (‘Ganef’) system, which entered full service in 1967 and consisted of two missiles mounted on a tracked carrier. This highly mobile system was designed to accompany advancing forces, each army having a brigade of twenty-seven launchers, which moved in two echelons, one some 10 km behind the front line, the other 15 km further back. The amphibious tracked carrier was specifically designed for the SA-4 system, but was subsequently used for many other systems. The SA-4 remained in service until the early 1990s but, as far as is known, was never used operationally, although a brigade was deployed to Egypt in 1971–2 and another brigade was deployed to Kabul Airport in 1979.
The series of army air-defence missile systems continued with the SA-6 (‘Gainful’), which, like the SA-4, was powered by a ramjet. It entered service in 1970 and complemented the SA-4 in the forward areas, the first echelon being some 5 km behind the forward troops and the second echelon 10 km further back still. The system was designed to combat low-level fighter-bombers and was widely used in the Soviet army; it was also exported to Egypt and Syria. The initial version of the SA-6, with one radar for three launchers, was used to great effect in the 1973 Arab–Israeli war, where it initially caused great problems for the Israeli air force, due, at least in part, to surprise. After suffering losses, however, the Israelis discovered three weaknesses: the missile could be defeated by a combination of chaff and manoeuvre; the engagement radar was vulnerable to attack; and the system could be saturated.
The SA-6 was due to be replaced by the SA-11 (‘Gadfly’), but problems with the new system’s missile led to a stop-gap system being fielded, which was designated SA-6B by NATO, and which combined the proven SA-6 missile with the SA-11 trailer, launcher and radar; it served in limited numbers from 1979 to the mid-1980s.
The Soviets had, however, already developed another new divisional-level system, the SA-8 (‘Gecko’), in which each 6 × 6-wheeled, amphibious launch vehicle also had its own engagement radar. After prolonged problems with the missile, this entered service in 1980.
The development of these Soviet missile systems followed a constant path. The early missiles were designed to counter the medium- and high-level threats that prevailed in the 1950s and 1960s, while the SA-6, SA-8 and SA-11 also countered the low-level threat that started to become important from the 1970s onwards. These systems were deployed at divisional level and above, while at regimental level there were SA-9 (‘Gaskin’) vehicle-mounted missiles and air-defence guns (e.g. the ZSU-23–4 – see below) and at battalion level there was a plethora of shoulder-launched missiles (e.g. the SA-7 ‘Grail’). There was at least one SA-7 launcher in each tank and motor-rifle platoon, while each regiment had a platoon of four quadruple SA-9 launchers and a platoon of four ZSU-23–4 guns. The missile’s infrared seeker was reported to be fairly susceptible to deception, and the West developed a multitude of countermeasures, including baffles over helicopter engine exhausts, flares with varying heat intensities, and infra-red decoy pods.
One of the notable achievements of the Soviet system was that it managed to develop a series of missiles and associated radars which could be deployed both on land and at sea, only the launchers being different. Another strength was that most of them were very simple to use.
Those missiles that were used operationally in conflicts outside the USSR usually achieved some success in the early days of the conflict, followed by diminishing returns as pilots learned how to cope with them. In a war in central Europe, however, these systems would have been operated by much more skilled operators and would have been at much greater density; they would undoubtedly have caused NATO pilots considerable difficulty.
The Soviets claimed that their goal was to produce an air-defence ‘umbrella’ over their forces, and in this they substantially succeeded.
Low-Level Air-Defence Guns – a Case History
Nowhere was the difference in approach between the Western and Soviet approaches to weapons procurement shown more clearly than in the development by each side of a self-propelled, tracked, low-level gun system to provide air defence for rapidly moving armoured units.
First to be fielded was the Soviet ZSU-23–4, which Soviet designers based on a standard tracked chassis, virtually identical to that already in wide-scale use for the SA-6 missile system. To this was added a simple turret with 360-degree traverse, in which was mounted an already proven quadruple 23 mm cannon system, each barrel being capable of firing short bursts at an effective rate of 1,000 rounds per minute. The one new item was the ‘Gun Dish’ radar, which performed all the necessary functions of search, detection, automatic tracking, and range and angle calculation. The result was a devastating and totally autonomous weapon system, which achieved great success in various Middle East wars. During the 1973 war, for example, thirty of the eighty Israeli aircraft lost in low-level missions fell victim to the ZSU-23–4. The weapon was not without its problems: barrels had a short life and were prone to overheating, the radar was ineffective below about 60 m, and there were some safety problems. Nevertheless, it was regarded with considerable respect by NATO aircrew and was considered to be a major threat to low-flying aircraft – particularly ground-attack types such as the US A-10, the British Harrier and all types of helicopter.
The US army developed a system known as the Sergeant York, which was similar in concept to the ZSU-23–4, using the chassis of the M48A5 tank, two standard L70 40 mm cannon, and a radar system developed from that installed in the F-16 fighter; the only totally new item was the turret. Development started in 1973, but, despite taking so many elements ‘off the shelf’, the project lasted for ten years and was dogged by difficulties, particularly in integrating the various systems, and costs escalated out of control. One of the consequences of the time taken was that by the early 1980s the threat had moved on, with the introduction into Soviet service of stand-off weapons for fighter-bombers and helicopters. The concept of the Sergeant York was to attack the aerial platform (i.e. the fighter-bomber or helicopter) rather than the stand-off missile, and in the end the gun system, with an effective range of 3,000 m, was perceived to be of limited value. This, coupled with the severity of the technical problems, resulted in its cancellation in 1985 after fifty production vehicles had been delivered.
Having cancelled the Sergeant York, the US army turned to SHORAD (Short-Range Air Defense), based on the French Roland missile; this entered service in very limited numbers. Next came the Air-Defence/Anti-Tank System (ADATS), which was also cancelled. Thus by the end of the Cold War, and after some twenty years of development and very considerable expenditure, the US army still did not have an adequate short-range air-defence system.
TARGET ACQUISITION
Targets had to be identified, their nature and co-ordinates passed to the artillery command system, fire brought to bear, and the results assessed. The increasing range of artillery, however, made this a severe problem: the US M107 175 mm gun, for example, had a maximum range of 32.7 km, while the Lance artillery rocket reached out to 120 km. This meant that, whereas looking into enemy territory to a depth of 10–15 km had once been sufficient, it now became necessary to see up to 100 km or more. Also, the rapidity of movement across the modern battlefield meant that it became increasingly important to acquire targets such as concentrations of tanks in real time, if advantage was to be taken.
Front-line troops could acquire targets using optical methods, but were limited to the line of sight, which under central-European conditions could vary between 1 km and 5 km. Air reconnaissance by manned fighters was important but for many years depended upon the aircraft returning to base for films to be developed and for the prints to be passed to artillery HQs, which, however slick the processes became, involved an in-built delay. There were also other methods, such as monitoring enemy communications and using breaches of security, decryption or traffic analysis to obtain information on such factors as nodal points or artillery nets.
A solution which became increasingly widespread was the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which were directed either by an on-board computer programme (drones) or by a pilot on the ground sending directions via a radio link (remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs)). Such UAVs relied on their very small size, quiet engines and ‘stealthy’ construction to escape detection. Wide-scale use of such devices originated in the 1960s, when they were introduced into the Vietnam War and Israel. At first such devices simply brought back photographs of the targets they had been sent to look at, but later they became capable of transmitting photographs or TV pictures in real time, enabling them to be used to detect targets and also to send back spotting information, so that artillery staffs could assess the results of the fire mission and, if necessary, re-engage.
