Re: GMS Air

On Thu, 30 Sep 1999, Los wrote:

> 
> 
> 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!
Sorry, due to the wonders of the internet I get the postings to this
list
in a somtimes bevildering order. Answers to questions before the
questions
etc. Indeed the newer models of the RBS-70 do come with a small HEAT
warhead, it caused a slight bit of panic when the army realised that the
original pre-fragmented warehead wouldn't knock out a Mi-24 Hind or the
Su-25 Frogfoot due to their heavy armour. So Bofors quickly got togheter
a
new missile with a HEAT warhead.

> 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? 

When the RBS-70 was designed in the 1970s the heatseeking gms were just
BAD Redeye (which we purchased in limited numbers) SA-7 and such. They
were all limited to rear-aspect firings which won't help you tp knock
down
the aircraft before it drops the bombs.

So Bofors came up with the idea of a beam rider, it would not matter
from
which direction you fired the missile, as long as the operator keeps the
aircraft or helo in his (or nowadays hers) sights the missile will hit
the
target. No flares or chaff will work, the only defence is to spot the
launch and engage the operator with fire.

To my knowledege it has never been tested in combat but the results form
range firings are quite imperssive. The major problem is that 99% of the
operators will never fire a live missle due to the cost and the
difference
between the simulated launch and a real one can throw of their aim quite
a
bit.
> 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.

Sound realy horrifying! 

> These are just personal observations I've heard numerous horror
stories about
> dragons. Makes you wonder how they would have performed in wartime...
Well my own limited experience of gms firings are not to imperssive, but
most of the errors were due to faulty soldiers rather than faulty
missiles.
Here in Sweden we still have a conscript army, basicly everyone between
Private and 2nd Lieutenant is a conscript with a diffrent amount of
training. While doing my orginal stretch as 2nd Lieutenat I sereved in a
AA artillery unit (40mm autocannons). There was a bitter rivalry between
the tripel-A company and the SAM company which was the first to recive
the improved version of the RBS-70, the RBS-90.
At the end of our service both companies deployed to a firing range for
some finishing exercises. As part of these the RBS-90 company would fire
5! missiles (most companies never get to fire 1 missile). However the
first missile launched, flew 50 meters and promptly hit the ground since
a
private had forgoten to remove the protective covering on the laser.
The second missile missde the target drone, number 3 hit the drone but
its warhead failed to explode and numbers 4 and 5 worked just fine.
However it should be noted that the 3 first missiles had been in stroage
for some 10 years and 2 of the failures was due to human error.

At the time we of the tripel-A company thought that most of the failures
was due to the faulty way in wich the SAM company trained, they simply
didn't train as they would fight.

Daniel
 > Los
> 
>