by Dave Pascoe

One of the often voiced complaints about the Falcon 4 campaign is that there are too many SAMS, particularly the SA-7 MANPAD. But is this really true? In order to answer that question, let's consider some modern developments as well as historical experience.

Lessons from Modern Warfare

Serious students of war are familiar with the fact that modern warfare tends to be more of a battle between weapons designers than the men in the field who employ them. The Cold War was an astounding example of how warfare has been reduced to an arms race where the greatest advantages are to be obtained with superior weaponry.

The introduction of the airplane shortly after the turn of the century was a good example of how the advantages of a new invention are often slow to be realized. But once the that advantage is realized, it's not long before all the major armies of the world end up with large arsenals of the same weapon. Once this happens, advancements and improvements to the weapon proceed rapidly to the point where the original advantages become more or less neutralized, if not lost altogether.

In the last 30 years, new weapons development has proceeded at an incredible rate. While this would seem to give the more advanced militaries of the world a great advantage over their lesser counterparts, the US experience in Vietnam has, or at least should have, become a real bell-ringer. The Vietnam experience teaches that for every new weapon developed there soon follows a counter development (which may or may not be based upon new technology.) In Vietnam, the offensive counter was as old as Sun-Tzu himself.

Technology and Hi-Tech Weapons

While few would argue that US weapons development in the last decade or so has been nothing short of incredible, critics of extreme high tech weaponry argue two important points. One of these is that the technological advances (such as the enormously costly stealth technology) are usually susceptible to low cost, old technology counter weapons and the method of their employment. The pendulum is constantly swinging back and forth between weapon/counter-weapon, and the rate of swing is ever increasing.

Perhaps the greatest and most important neutralizer of high tech weapons of war, however, and one that has received little notice outside of military planning circles, is the MANPAD. MANPAD simply represents the man-portable anti-aircraft missile as represented by the Russian SA-7 family and the US Stinger family.

These, in fact, are not new weapons, but have been around for nearly a quarter century. While much has been written about how the CIA supplying Stingers to the Afghan rebels was credited with the Russian pullout of Afghanistan, the impact of this development on the overall face of warfare has largely been under appreciated.

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The SA-7 GRAIL

• Summary: Range (KM): 0.8-4.2
• Altitude (FT): 150-7K
• Speed (Mach): 1.4-1.8
• Guidance: Passive IR Warhead
• (LBS): 3 Missiles/launcher: 1
• Reload Time: 10 seconds

"The venerable Russian SA-7 Grail (1966) is comparable to the US Redeye and is only effective when fired at a target aircraft's rear aspect. Since the missile must over-take the target, aircraft moving at extremely high speeds are generally able to outrun it. It does not incorporate solar filtering which prevents pointing the launcher within 20 degrees of sun and 5 degrees of the horizon.

"The SA-7 is easily defeated by IR countermeasures (flares). In 1971, a new, higher-performance model of the SA-7 entered service. This improved system, the SA-7b, includes a more sophisticated seeker with a filter to reduce its susceptibility to infrared countermeasures; however, it is still only effective against rear-aspect targets. It first saw combat during the Egyptian-Israeli Wars (1968-70) with no verified kills.

"The system was used extensively by North Vietnamese during Vietnam War against US and RVN aircraft. Over 4000 missiles were shot by Syria and Egypt at Israeli aircraft during the 19 days of the Yom Kippur War (1973) with just 7 kills, 30 damaged aircraft. It was used in Falklands (1982) by Argentinian occupation forces with no kills. It was used by Iraq during the Gulf War (1991) with no kills. The Chinese HN-5 is a reversed engineered version of the Russian SA-7.

"The current production model, the HN-5A, is a copy of the improved SA-7b. Iran, North Korea, Thailand, and Pakistan possess the HN-5A. Like China, Egypt and Pakistan produce SA-7 derivatives called the SAKR EYE and ANZA, respectively. The SA-7 SAM, including its variants and domestically produced copies, is one of the most proliferated SAM systems in the world.

"It is used in the following countries: Afghanistan Algeria Angola Argentina Benin Botswana Bulgaria Burkina Faso Cambodia Cape Verde Islands Chad Cuba Cyprus Egypt Ethiopia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana India Iran Iraq Jordan North Korea Kuwait Laos Libya Mali Mauritania Mauritius Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Nicaragua Nigeria Peru Seychelles Sierra Leone South Africa Somalia Sudan Syria Tanzania Thailand Uganda Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe."

This becomes apparent when visiting the air combat forums and discussion groups where the complaints about the number of SAMs in Falcon 4 are seemingly endless. Most blame the sim for a lack of realism by having too many SAMs, particularly the SA-7 MANPAD. Falcon 4 campaign battlefields are swarming with SA-7s that are very difficult, if not impossible, to completely eliminate.

The fact of the matter is that Falcon 4 very faithfully represents the huge numbers of MANPADs that have found their way into the hands of even some of the world's poorest nations. That's why they can rightfully be called, "The Great Equalizer." Even the world's most advanced, 100 million dollar stealth fighter or bomber is still vulnerable to low tech, old technology and relatively cheap weaponry.

Go to Part II