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London & Washington: The growing importance of rapid reaction-type forces underlines the need for deployable air defense systems
During the recent stand-off between NATO and Serbia over Kosovo, NATO attack plans paid close attention to the deployment of Yugoslav surface-to-air missiles such as the Soviet-supplied SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6. Large and unwieldy, they proved relatively easy to plot by NATO reconnaissance during the escalating crisis. Had there been a punitive strike on Serbia, these SAMs would have been among the first targets to have been attacked by NATO aircraft. The problem, however, did not end there, as the Serbs also had a large quantity of mobile air defence systems at their disposal: SA-8 and SA-9 vehicle-mounted systems and even more prolific numbers of man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS). For such weapons, which are almost impossible to plot, NATO pilots had no antidote, except to trust in their on-board countermeasure systems. Because these are not infallible, the most effective tactic would have been to fly above the effective engagement altitude of the mobile and SAMs and their MANPADS counterparts - somewhere in the region of lO,000ft. This, in turn, would have reduced bombing accuracy, driving up the risk of collateral damage -- civilian casualties - a taboo in the eyes of the politicians who were driving the campaign.
The importance of mobile air defence weapon systems, therefore, in the modern era cannot be overstated. In the armies of Western Europe, they have assumed particular importance, because mobile air defence systems are a vital adjunct to the increasingly mobile, rapid reaction-type forces that have emerged since the end of the Cold War. Whilst rear-echelon units will continue to rely on semi-portable medium range SAMs such as HAWK and Patriot and their successors, fast-moving forces at the front need deployable systems to shield them from increasingly sophisticated front-line threats, such as close air support aircraft and highly developed allweather/day-night attack helicopters. They must also be capable of destroying unmanned aerial vehicles, which due to their small size, inherent stealthiness and manoeuvrability are difficult to acquire and hit. To handle this spread of targets, mobile air defence systems tend to be a mix of MANPADS, self-propelled systems and towed systems. In the case of the latter two,...