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.

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.

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.

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.

The Changing Face of War

The face of warfare has been changing rapidly ever since the American colonists decided to hide behind trees and shoot down the British rank and file like so many ducks in a row. We look at that example and wonder how the British could be so stupid as to conveniently line themselves up to be shot.

But where retrospective vision is always 20-20, it's a lot more difficult to accept the truth that we, today, are just as bound in our traditionalist thinking as the British were over two hundred years ago. This is the history of warfarel the side that innovates usually wins.

It is said that most commanders are still fighting the last war. It is not easy to break out of conventional thinking. All you have to do is to look at the commanders of the Vietnam war to see how easy it is to fall victim to conventional thinking.

Traditional thinking eventually made utter fools out of some highly decorated men, some of the very same men who won WWII. The few that break out of conventional thinking are called geniuses, when all they really did was to see beyond the range of common ideas, beyond the doctrine taught in war colleges.

The innovative military minds who left behind traditional ways were not more intelligent, better, more educated or smarter men. In fact, the most innovative thinkers are often those without formal education. Odd, isn't it.

Yet it's understandable, because they were not trained by some school as to how and what they should think. Instead, they were forced to think on the fly, they were forced to take the time and effort to find alternative means to an end. Observe the performance of the likes of Mao, Patton, Giap, Halsey, Rommel, Napoleon, Sherman, Grant, etcetera. These men were mostly educated, but not in schools that slaved them to standard doctrine.

The Lesson for Us

In this is a good lesson for all war strategy gamers, including Falcon 4 campaigners. This campaign presents us with a reasonable representation of what a conventional war with North Korea might be like.

Bearing in mind that we did not win the 1950 war with them (despite the fact that many people believe that we did), there is no reason not to believe that the outcome of future war would be any different if we fight it the same way. That is particularly true considering the political constraints present today that were not present then. (The use of the A-bomb was so seriously considered that it had actually been prepared for use. McAruther and Curtis LeMay almost got their wish to "bomb them back to the stone age.")

For those who may be interested, the History Channel runs a new series, "Korea, the Forgotten War," beginning September 20th.

The Falcon 4 Challenge

The challenge presented us in the Falcon 4 campaign is how to defeat a numerically superior enemy on his home turf, and to do it with the tools given us. It is not an easy challenge, nor should it be. It is a strategic as well as a tactical challenge for war gamers to break out of modes of conventional thinking in order to win. We should take our cue from Vietnam where, to fall victim to conventional thinking, and to play by self-imposed "rules", is to lose.

Falcon 4 is not just an air combat simulation. It merges war gaming with air combat, and to win you have to think as much like a battlefield commander as a fighter pilot. The name of the game here is not numbers (the Vietnam doctrine of attrition), but strategy. That's why Microprose starts you out at a disadvantage in the first place. The theater is teeming with SAMs, and you may have noticed that the enemy has four times as many air defenses as our side does (at default settings that can be changed).

No matter how bad the odds, there is always a way to win. Our job as campaign strategists is to find it.