Rocket earth - air: photo, characteristics, video

One of the features of modern missile weapons is a wide variety of combat missile models. Missiles of modern armies differ in purpose, type of trajectory, design features, control method, engine type, target position, launch site, and many other indicators.

The first sign that missiles will be divided into classes is the launch site and the position of the target. The word “land” means the placement of launchers on land, on a ship (on water) and under water (on a submarine), and the word “air” means the location of launchers on board a helicopter, aircraft and other aircraft. Exactly the same situation applies to the position of the target.

According to the second indicator (by the nature of the flight) missiles are cruise or ballistic.

Earth-to-air missiles

These missiles are called anti-aircraft, that is, shooting up at zenith. In the modern air defense system, they occupy a leading place. This is the basis of firepower. Anti-aircraft missiles are designed to counter air targets: air-to-ground and ground-to-ground cruise missiles, airplanes and cruise missiles, as well as ballistic missiles of the same classes. All anti-aircraft missiles have the following combat mission task - delivering a warhead to the right point in space with its subsequent undermining in order to destroy an enemy air attack vehicle.

Conventionally, the ground-to-air missiles can be divided into three types. The first is manual rockets like the Soviet "arrow" or American "stinger". They are ineffective, cheap, can be used for shooting at low-flying helicopters or airplanes. So far, no Israeli helicopter or aircraft in Lebanon has been shot down by this rocket, although attempts have been numerous. However, one should not be too optimistic: Afghan fighters were much luckier, and not so long ago Chechens were able to shoot down Russian aircraft with such 2 missiles. If the Golan surrenders to Syria and they are declared a demilitarized zone, soldiers armed with such missiles will be able to appear there even before the start of the war — it is simply impossible to control the movement of such light weapons. This will seriously complicate the bombing of the Syrian infantry by our air forces. The second type of earth-to-air missiles is mobile or stationary batteries having a range of several tens of kilometers. They may be in the Golan if the Syrians receive them without the condition of demilitarization or if the agreement on demilitarization is not respected. Farsighted Israeli politicians will certainly require American guarantees of an agreement on demilitarization. Guarantees and far-sighted Israeli politicians will be received, so again they will not go on the same rake.

History reference! 7 August 1970 The United States secured a treaty to end the war of attrition from Egypt and Israel. According to this agreement, the 20 mile band located along the Suez Canal should become a demilitarized zone and the US pledged to "use all its power" to fulfill this agreement. But after five days it was broken by the Egyptians. The air defense battery was moved to the channel zone. In the future, violations did not stop. When Israel turned to the United States to use all its power, they replied that the agreement could not be violated. Such a reason was not so much in Kissinger’s clinical anti-Semitism (then held the position of national security adviser) and Nixon’s absolute immorality, and inability to solve Israeli problems when the US lacked problems in Cuba (finding Soviet submarines) and Cambodia, and also approached presidential elections. As a result, the “demilitarized” zone turned into a zone of unprecedented concentration of air defense batteries. For these guarantees the price was paid in the 1973 Doomsday War of the year.

The third type of ground-to-air missiles is a state-of-the-art air defense system that provides an “air umbrella” with a radius greater than 200 km (Soviet-made C-300, etc.). The cost of such a system is about 2-3 billion dollars, which Syria (with a GNP of approximately 10 billion dollars) is clearly not affordable).

It is worth noting that anti-aircraft missiles are guided and unguided. All the first missiles were initially unmanageable. To date, all existing anti-aircraft missiles, which are in service with different countries, are controlled. The anti-aircraft guided missile is an integral component of the anti-aircraft missile weapons of any country, the smallest fire unit of which is the anti-aircraft missile system.

In the period from 1960 to 1990, the anti-aircraft guided missile was constantly improved, but now, as if the limit has been reached and the output of new designs is becoming less frequent. In addition, improving their resistance to missiles and air targets. This requires rocket designers to work on new countermeasures.

The use of anti-aircraft missiles began as early as the Second World War, and by the middle of the 20 century they were considered fairly accurate to replace heavy artillery against high-flying aerial targets. In fact, the first anti-aircraft guided missiles had insufficient accuracy, as their developers would have liked. It is known that during the Vietnam War, X-NUMX SA-4244 “Guideline” missiles were used to shoot down 2 US aircraft. In 76, it took as many as 1960 missiles to shoot down one U-14 Gary Powers aircraft over Sverdlovsk.

Since that time, the characteristics of anti-aircraft guided missiles have improved significantly, but their resistance also develops. Depending on the type of missile guidance system, the method of targeting in the final part of the trajectory and other physical factors that can be measured and detected, it became possible to develop radars and other jamming systems in order to “deceive” the missile. In turn, this led to reciprocal countermeasures of manufacturers of missiles, and this process does not stop.

Portable rockets such as the Grail or the Stinger have become more reliable and highly efficient. Now they are being installed on mobile four or six-launch launchers equipped with radar, as well as a fire control system in order to act as a light anti-aircraft weapon. The disadvantage of a portable rocket is that it is serviced by one person. There was a small margin of time to see the approaching aerial target, raise the rifle to the shoulder, aim, completely capture the target and launch the rocket. Today, this flaw has been mitigated - various simple warning radars appeared that detect an approaching plane, give a special sound signal and indicate the direction the air target is moving, check whether the launcher is installed on the shoulder, and turn on the indicator while the target enters reachable rocket.

Unfortunately, as it approached the end of the century, many projects were stopped (most often for financial reasons). The British Bloodhound rocket is outdated, but so far there are no analogues to replace it. In service is the "Rapier 200". The Americans have not yet chosen a mobile anti-aircraft defense installation, and have high hopes for a new launcher built on the basis of the 8х8 wheeled armored personnel carrier armed with the Stinger 8 missiles and the Gatling cannon.