NakedWeasel
Posts: 500
Joined: 1/14/2014 Status: offline
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Like most people here, I can only go by what I've read, or in this case, not read- about the SA-8. My first knowledge about the Gecko comes from the Beqaa Valley in '82. AFAIK, this was the first real test of the SA-8 in large numbers under actual combat conditions, and the total tally for the OPFOR in that conflict was three Israeli aircraft out of nearly 200 engagements. It is unknown if any such kills were due to SA-8 involement. This was at a time that the SA-8 was supposed to be at the top of it's game, the Soviet Union's most State of the Art SAM system. In decades afterwards, the system became less and less prevalent, the kill ratio became less and less indicative of a world beating front-line SAM system. According to this timeline, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_combat_losses_of_United_States_military_aircraft_since_the_Vietnam_War there are no definitive reports of an SA-8 being the cause of a successful shoot down of any American pilots since records of SAM engagements were made public after Vietnam. Some shoot downs are certainly possible, as in several cases the aircraft was shot down by a missile, it's positive ID unknown. But even if a couple occurred, there a very few as compared to all the other engagements in US history. Now, please understand, I'm no expert, of course. I can only speculate through the prism of a Cold War era military brat who read volumes of Janes Defense for countless hours at the base library... But so far I haven't really seen any impressive kill ratios for the SA-8 against Western pilots, tactics, and aircraft. The respect is there, absolutely- it is obviously lethal to less advanced aircraft, especially helicopters- and if completely dismissed could certainly wreck a flyer's whole day. But in a heavily jammed environment, and utilizing the West's typical A2G stand off weapons systems like the Maverick and the HARM, the SA-8 doesn't seem particularly dangerous, as compared with other more modern systems like the SA-11, SA-13 and SA-19. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it.
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