by Dave Pascoe

Lessons in Counter Tactics

It is the ultimate reality of the arms race that for every new weapon developed, there will soon follow a counter weapon or counter strategy. This is how the NVA developed effective anti-helicopter tactics within about six months after the introduction of the chopper in the Vietnam war, resulting in 4600 official chopper losses (and probably many more "off the books".) Think, for a moment, of what the loss of four-thousand, six-hundred helicopters really means. Yet our military claimed the introduction of air mobile tactics was a complete success.

This is a point yet to be driven home in recent wars for a variety of reasons. In Desert Storm, Iraq failed to make effective use of MANPADs, instead opting for the more impressive-looking but far more vulnerable large missile systems. Serbia made a similar mistake, opting for a more vulnerable integrated air defense system. Yet the small number of MANPADS present in Kovoso were enough to hold even the A-10s at bay most of the time.

While the Afghan war was a dramatic demonstration on the portent of portable SAMs for the future of high tech fighters and bombers, this war was not followed closely by the media or the general public. As a result, its message was largely lost to the public, but certainly not to the Pentagon or Kremlin planners. The bad news for them was that this piddling little shoulder fired missile had forever changed the face of high tech warfare. It threatened to make the 30 million dollar aircraft, in which they had so heavily invested, nearly useless.

A Hope for Stealth?

While it might seem reasonable that the MANPAD was responsible for the huge sums of money poured into stealth development, actually it wasn't. Stealth is primarily an anti-radar technology with a bit of anti-infrared tacked on.

Unfortunately for high tech nations and their militaries, infrared targeting systems have more than kept pace with stealth development, whereas radar has made only modest gains. The jet aircraft is never going to be able to completely eliminate its heat signature, and that's why the Russian Archer is so deadly with its dual tracking systems.

Falcon 4 drivers should take note that there is not a single weapon system advancement in the world that has not been quickly countered or neutralized, either by the opposition gaining the same weapon in equal numbers, or through a superior counter weapon, or via counter strategy. Within five years of the development of the A-bomb, the Russians had their own. The Germans invented the jet; within 5 years we had them too. And on and on it goes.

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The SA-18 GROUSE

• Summary: Range (KM): 0.6-5.0
• Altitude (FT): 30-20K
• Speed (Mach): 2.5
• Guidance: Passive IR Warhead
• (LBS): 4 Missiles/launcher: 1
• Reload Time: 10 sec

The SA-18 GROUSE (Igla 9K38) is a further development from the SA-7 & SA-14 series of manportable SAMs. It is an entirely new design missile with substantially improved range and speed. Its higher speed enables it to be used against faster targets.

The 9M39 missile of the SA-18 employs an IR guidance system using proportional convergence logic. The new seeker offers better protection against electro-optical jammers; the probability of kill against an unprotected fighter is estimated at 30-48%, and the use of IRCM jammers only degrades this to 24-30%. The 2 kg warhead is fitted with a contact and grazing fuse. The SA-14 is used by the following countries: Angola Cuba India Iraq Syria

How the War Was Won

Most Americans today believe that the US won WWII with superior weapons. This is not true. At the outset of WWII, the US military was ranked 19th in the world, a third-rate power. Japanese naval vessels were not only superior to ours, they outnumbered our fleet by 3:1 in warships.

Up to the mid point of the war, their aircraft were also better than ours. That did not prevent us from defeating them in their own backyard. The same applies to the Germans. Virtually everything about their war machine was superior to ours. That did not stop Patton from taking Europe with the grossly inferior Sherman tank. The truth is that Hitler defeated himself by attacking Russia and spreading himself too thin. Had that not been the case, we might never have entered the European war.

Go to Part III