Re: GMS Air

Daniel Staberg wrote:

> Sorry Los but the RB70 is a laser beam rider not a wireguided missile,
and
> I would be intreested know who claimed that they could knock out
tanks.
> Maybee scratch the paint on a T-80....
> Before leaving the army I used to command a SAM unit with RB70s and
the
> idea of using it to stop tanks would not have been apealing....
> I would leave that to the infantry with RBS56 BILL and TOW or Carl
Gustav

Thanks for the correction though noone claimed it could knock out a tank
(someone
else did?) I said it could probably knock out a slight skinned vehicle. 
Even a
STinger and the redeye which has a very small smaller warhead has done
that BY
ACCIDENT <grin> on several occasions on army ranges (blew up a duece and
 ahalf
when I was ay Bragg once and I know it also happened once at Fort Hood)
which is
why whenever SAM live firing occurs they prohibit all vehicular traffic
anywhere
within the range fan of the firing! The interesting thing about the RB70
is that it
is one of the few SAMs that I know of, which is optically guided as
opposed to self
guided. I always wondered why the designers went that route. How
effective was it?

BTW while we're on the subject of missiles, last month while we were out
at Hunter
Ligget two GMS firings (both the yucky M47  dragon) resulted in
malfunctions. (Not
by me). In one case the Dragon flew about 60 meters (which I believe is
the minimum
safe arming distance) and exploded showering everyone with debris. In
the second
case the dragon flew out about 400 meters then veered sharply left and
flew up and
off the range over a hill. A minute or two later they heard a feint
explosion. I've
seen GMS' live fired maybe five times and twice here were malfunctions.
A
Shilelghleah (sp?) missile (from a  Sheriden) flew out about 1500 meters
then did
a180 and much to everyone's horror came right back at the tank exploding
on a berm
about ten meters behind it, (Much to everyone's horror) Noone was hurt
but you
could imagine the paperwork. A second time on the range one of the guys
in my
platoon (early eighties) fired a dragon that went out about 300meters
then went
straight ballistic and disappeared from sight again over a hill.

These are just personal observations I've heard numerous horror stories
about
dragons. Makes you wonder how they would have performed in wartime...

Los