Ukraine Air War: Assault Mode, Part 1
Obviously, I didn’t post any updates in days. Arguably, was busy with my ‘usual “work”’, but also monitoring – often in awe – all the shiploads of morbid nonsense flying around both the mainstream- and social media in reaction to latest developments in the War in Ukraine. No doubt, the last 5-6 days were highly exciting: missiles were – and, today, are – streaking across the skies, there were explosions, fires, things got shot down, one party attacked in this- and the other in the other direction, and lots of people got killed… One way or the other, instead of rushing to ‘report’; I’ve decided to, yes: sit down, lean back, take a deep breath, and do some reflecting – before continuing with my ‘blog’. At least by my profession, I am a historian, and kind of ‘can’t’ but react like one.
This one is going to become ‘quite technical’. Thus, let me start with few abbreviations….indeed, a ‘glossary of sort’:
- ADC = Air Defence Command (Egyptian air defence service)
- ARM = anti-radar missile
- CBU = cluster bomb unit
- CRT = cathode ray tube (those funny old TV-displays, in use for half a century before flat-screens were invented)
- ECM = electronic countermeasures
- ECCM = electronic counter-countermeasures
- GBAD = ground based air defences
- IDF/AF = Israeli Defence Force/Air Force (official title, 1948-2004)
- SAM = surface-to-air missile
- SA-2 = Soviet-made S-75 (Dvina/Volga/Desna) SAM-system
- SA-3 = Soviet-made S-125 (Neva) SAM-system
- USAF = US Air Force
And, it’s going to become quite a long one….well, not ‘one’, but ‘few’ – because I’m preparing something like ‘Introduction to Air Warfare over Ukraine’ since quite some time. That’s why ‘Part 1’. I’ve just eventually decided to start with ‘examples’ instead the other way around. Hope, you’ve got enough time – and patience – to read yourself through all of what is to follow: it’s necessary, because one can’t understand this topic without understanding the backgrounds and context. I promise, it’s going to be worth it.
***
I grew up reading books about pilots flying North American F-100 Super Sabre and Republic F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers of the US Air Force into air strikes on North Vietnamese SA-2 SAM-sites. While my school-comrades were fiercely discussing whether it’s the music by Bon Jovi or Falco that’s better (think, this dispute is going on until today), and who’s got better looks and more girlfriends, they were all united in being 1000% sure: I’m a weirdo, fitting nowhere. Simply uninteresting – because I was, also, spending my Saturday evenings with gulping magazine articles and books about pilots flying McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers of the Israeli Defence Force/Air Force fighting SAM-sites of the Egyptian and Syrian air defence forces.
Bottom line: I read how the Americans, and then – few years later – the Israelis, bombed ‘SAMs’ with general-purpose bombs filled with high explosives; then with cluster bomb units (CBUs); then they targeted them with AGM-45 Shrike anti-radar missiles; then with AGM-78 Standard ARMs….I lost the count – and titles – of all such articles and books, long ago: don’t worry, they’re certainly stored nicely somewhere here around in my library, but I haven’t read them for long. The last few I recall were written by Dr. Alfred Price, before I ‘switched’ to one many still consider ‘the best’ to the topic of combating enemy ground based air defences (GBADs): Anthony Thornborough and Frank Mormillo’s Iron Hand. That was back in the late 1990s and early 2000s…
Now, please, do the same like me. I guess you’re already seated? Lean back, take a deep breath, and think: hands up whoever can name one book by one of North Vietnamese, Egyptian, or Syrian SAM-operators fighting back at all the USAF- and IDF/AF-pilots?
I do not know even one. And (my hand is still on my heart), after 35+ years in the publishing business, I’m quite sure: they’re unlikely to ever be published. ‘Fighter pilots’? Oh, yes! They’re ‘heroes, piloting super-fast, sexy, powerful and loud jets across the blue skies’…that’s flashy, catching the eye, setting fantasies on flame…Fighter pilots sell books.
While…. ‘SAM-operators’? ….wha’z dad?
Who cares about some anonymous people there – usually the ‘bad buys’ – ‘operating robots’, and, sometimes (and always ‘by pure accident’ of course; more often, by their ‘sheer numbers’)… chopping our brilliant heroes out of the skies?
Remember: I’m a weirdo. And so, quite early in my career, I’ve concluded that it might be of interest to search for such people and, proverbially, ‘see (or hear) the other side of the medal’. Because, if nothing else, when one is carefully reading different pilot stories, it turns out that most of flying supermen of the USAF- and IDF/AF and claiming SAM-sites for ‘destroyed’, actually did not know if these were really destroyed, damaged….or in the spot they’ve bombed at all.
….and so, over the times, I’ve learned about lots of – ‘entirely uninteresting’ – SAM-stories…
Again: I’m a weirdo: while watching that video shown ‘dozens’ of Ukrainian PAC-3 SAMs streaking into the skies over nocturnal Kyiv, early on 16 May, and reading diverse claims about that SAM-site being destroyed, or other sorts of guesses about what has happened there, I didn’t think about similar scenes over Israel and Saudi Arabia of 1991, or Saudi Arabia since 2015, for example. Instead, I recalled an entirely unknown story (if at all, possibly known to the readers of one of my books, only).
That’s the story of the 418th Air Defence Battalion, 92nd Air Defence Brigade, Air Defence Command (ADC), from October 1973 Arab-Israeli War. On 9 October, that unit was rushed to the Port Said area, to bolster local air defences that were under constant and severe Israeli air strikes for days. Make no mistakes: you’re rarely going to find even a line of related text in any of Israeli accounts. From the point of view of both (countless) Israeli military historians and pilots of the IDF/AF: ‘no story’. Something unimportant. ‘Testing’ at most…
Now, the 418th was equipped with Soviet-made SA-2s. Not really a marvel of technology even in its best days, back in 1958-1960, even less so 13-15 years later. A complex system, too. Usually, every SA-2-unit – a ‘SAM-site’ or ‘SAM-battalion’ – had:
- 1 surveillance radar (a P-12 in the case of the 418th)
- 1 RSNA-75 fire-control radar (better known as ‘Fan Song’ in the West)
- 6 SM-63 launchers,
- plus lots of support equipment (foremost: power generators, and its command post with ‘radar displays’, which back then were still big and fragile cathode ray tubes).
And, because there was just one fire-control radar, and this could track only one target at time, one SAM-site could engage just one target at time. Moreover, the short length of cables connecting all the equipment was limiting its tactical deployment. Essentially, one SA-2 SAM-site was usually ‘packed’ in a circle of about 200 metres in diameter, with that Fan Song (aka RSNA-75) fire-control radar in the centre. Something like on this Israeli reconnaissance photo from around 1969-1970:
Long story short: SA-2 was ‘not really mobile’ system. Kind of like MIM-104 Patriot of our days. It was ‘truck-mounted’, and ‘rather road mobile’. The crew packed stuff on its trucks and trailers, which took them a better part of an hour, and then marched all the way to Port Said, which took them a better part of the next day…
The 418th reported ready for action early on 11 October 1973. Less than one hour later (the Israelis were always listening to enemy radio communications), it was attacked for the first time. The Israelis deployed severe electronic countermeasures (ECM) and then bombed its P-12 radar. Another attack followed about two hours later: the crews had barely enough time to re-load their launchers – which back then was anything else than easy. Even if much lighter, each of SA-2 missiles was almost the size of a MiG-21 fighter jet…
Day later, the Israelis hit the 418th again. Indeed, they claimed it as ‘destroyed’.
Was the site really ‘destroyed’….?
Actually, the 418th lost ‘only’ two of its six SM-63 launchers. Thus, the site remained operational – and the Israelis were back to bombing it on 13 October. This time just four McDonnell-Douglas A-4 Skyhawks came in, each from a different direction, at very low altitude – and they hit precisely: one soldier of the 418th was killed and nine wounded. The horizontal antenna of the Fan Song was badly damaged and the max range of the radar severely decreased. Foremost: 3 out of 4 remaining SM-63s were knocked out, too. They couldn’t be repaired with available tools….
Was the SA-2 SAM-site thus ‘destroyed’?
Well, I have little doubt that the Skyhawk-pilots reported so, and not without a reason. It is perfectly possible their intelligence concluded the same. No idea.
And, certainly enough, one could say: the 418th was ‘finished’. Theoretically, it was ‘useless’…
However, its Fan Song and one launcher were still operational. Indeed, for the Israelis – who depended on tracking Egyptian electronic missions to know - there was no difference to the pre-strike situation, because the Fan Song was ‘still emitting’. Therefore, ‘that nifty SA-2 SAM-site over there’ was still ‘up’. Not ‘destroyed’. Still attracting attention and additional air strikes - and Egyptians continued providing Israelis with plentiful of reasons to do so. The crews of the 418th were all the time using only that semi-dysfunctional Fan Song and the sole remaining SM-63 launcher. They re-located them as often as possible, used smoke generators to cover their positions, fired a missile, time and again, and – more often than not – run simulated launches: they would acquire one of enemy jets with the Fan Song and then switch its working mode to the one for guiding missiles, thus (electronically) simulating the launch – and thus forcing the Israelis into evasive manoeuvres… It was only early on 16 October that the headquarters of the ADC ordered the unit to withdraw from the Port Said sector, because it was in the process of being replaced by another…
***
Now, for the end of this ‘episode’, please mind that this was ‘old Soviet SA-2 SAM-site’. Nowadays ‘a piece of rusty junk’. Yes, it had six launchers and six big missiles ready to fire. And if any of these detonated closely enough to its target….but, as of 1973, the SA-2 was next to useless against low-flying aircraft, and especially against entire formations of these. At most, it could engage one of them at time, with 2-3 of its missiles. It was easy to disrupt by ECM, too. And, the short length of cables connecting the equipment of the 418th Battalion, and the geographic limits of the peninsula on which Port Said is situated, greatly hampered the ability of the unit to ‘manoeuvre’: to take the enemy by surprise – or avoid an incoming air strike – through re-deploying to an entirely different place.
The logical question: why am I telling this story ‘within scope of Ukraine War’?
Please, be patient: if it’s not obvious yet, it’s going to become obvious later on.
(to be continued….)
Guess I'm a weirdo too finding this reading about SAM super interesting.
Thanks for another great read.
The story about the Egyptian AD site reminds me of a similar incident in the Battle of Britain, when the Germans managed to knock out one of huge British radar positions by hitting its electrical substation. A mobile emitter was quickly set up by the RAF, and even though it lacked the range and sensitivity of the original array, the Germans picked up its emmissions and concluded their attacks on large antennae of the Chain Home radar are not effective. They decided not to press on with the attacks on British radars, not knowing that there actually was a hole in British radar system, and that continued attacks might succeed in degrading the entire system enough to make it useless.