OT: was GMS Air

Daniel and Alan wrote:

> > > Well first off an RB70 is a wire guided optically sighted SAM.
> 
> > Sorry Los but the RB70 is a laser beam rider not a wireguided
> > missile

Thanks, Daniel. I was going to check this with my collegues at work
today since I haven't worked with the RBS70 myself; but I saw your post
in time so I didn't have to :-)
 
> Carl Gustav - another fine piece of Swedish engineering that the
> Australian Army uses.  Just be careful of the back-blast.

As a US officer told our sales people:	"The three most important
features to introduce into the Carl Gustaf system is Soft Launch, Soft
Launch and Soft Launch". I'm the one stuck with solving that problem
:-/ Now if only those sales people could stop bugging me about
supporting them and actually let me work...

Los wrote (also in reply to Daniel):
 
> 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.  

Not that it matters much, but I read you as talking about AFVs in
general rather than specifying light vehicles only <shrug> The original
discussion was about tank killing vs copter/airplane killing.

> 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. 

Size, cost and reduced vulnerability to countermeasures.

> How effective was it?

Pretty effective. (Though I may be considered biased, of course :-/ )

[Horror stories about the M47 Dragon snipped]

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

Would you mind if I forward those observations to our sales people? :-)

Best wishes,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry