Dodging the Golden BB

Since Saturday was the First of March, Rancho Juvat officially switched out of Winter Mode and into Spring Mode. I gotta tell ya folks, it's a moving ceremony. Lots of Pomp and Circumstance.

I mean, it's almost just like this.

On Friday, I broke out the sacred vessel and carefully mixed the special concoction and placed it in its revered ceremonial preparation spot.  At precisely 7:42 AM Saturday,  I performed the special ceremony to officially welcome Spring.

Ahhhh.....Iced Coffee!  Only authorized March 1-November 1.  High Temp on Saturday was 80°.  A perfect beverage.

Of course, this is Texas.  In Texas, Mom gets a big vote.  No, not Mrs J.  She gets a VERY big vote, but Mom gets an even bigger one.

Woke up this morning to go visit with the Big Guy, afterword took my beloved to breakfast  and decided to check my weather app.

Crap, it's not even daylight yet and we've hit the high temp for the next 3 days already. Guess I'd better fire up the French Press again.

BTW, 4:30 in that video, I thought it a bit Cheeky of us.  But loved it nonetheless.

Was "Tank Week" something or what?  Who knew there was so much to know about Tanks?

In one of the comment strings, Our Esteemed Commander of the Royal Poland Chant Commenters (AKA Pawel) commented about the ZSU-23-4 Shilka ".. would be nightmare to any low-flying pilot in anything less armored than A-10..."

The ZSU-23-4 is a nighmare to anyone flying low level. Even an A-10.
I decided to do something dangerous and think about that a bit. to see if I could turn something into this post. The discussion thus far of Iced Coffee, Cold Weather  and bagpipes didn't seem to get me to OldNFO's 9999 word level, which I gather is where he starts making the "big bucks" in writing. And...pay here at the Chant...Well.....

Anyhoo, I did some digging and found out that the science of AAA hasn't changed much over the years. Basically it's "Aim a gun out in front of the aircraft and fire when the aircraft will arrive at the aimed airspace one time of flight after you pull the trigger." 

Sounds simple.  The defense against AAA is even simpler.

"Don't be in that airspace at that time."

See, kids, flying a fighter is easy, just follow that second rule.

As one may surmise, it ain't that easy.  If it were, Even the Marines could fly fighters.

Nope, not going there.

There is some physics involved here, and the actual rules of thumb haven't changed much over time. I found this video online and the rules of thumb were essentially the same as they were in WWII.
It's an interesting 16 minute video narrated by, I think,  Ronald Reagan.  Watch it if you wish realizing that the cameramen actually flew on real missions to get this footage.  Volunteers.

I'll summarize the operable data below the link.

Basically, if you were below 10K', fly as fast as you can, as low as you can to get through the area while making frequent random changes in altitude and heading (AKA jinking).  Oh, yeah, don't hit the ground either.  The majority of the weapons in that envelope are not radar guided.  (We'll discuss the Shilka exception shortly)

For High Altitude, the film quotes a bullet speed of 1000 FPS (feet per second), so a bullet fired at you flying at 30K' would take about 30 seconds to reach your altitude.  So, if you've received data that AAA has locked on to you  move the aircraft.  The film says wait 20 seconds and then move it.  That's fine for the first round, but there are going to be several more rounds behind it.  So one shouldn't remain in a steady heading and altitude for more that a few seconds.  The AAA systems the film talks about did not have high speed digital tracking that current systems do, so the WWII pilot could make a course or altitude correction and have an interval between then and his next correction.

Not so today, by the time the first round leaves the barrel, the aiming control system has already recalculated and repointed the weapon. Only the time of flight hasn't changed all that much.

However....

In this video which focuses on the physical features of the Shilka, the narrator brings out an outstanding point about air defense in the modern battlefield.  WWII was only two dimensional, AAA and Fighters.  The modern battlefield adds Surface to Air Missiles.

 While clearly, if a SAM hits you, you are in deep kimchi, however one of the other things they bring to the fight is that to defeat the missile, one must expend quite a bit of energy.

Regaining that energy frequently means losing altitude, as the engine is almost certainly at max thrust.

I showed this video to my class at Leavenworth in '92.  It is an excellent representation of what it's like in a modern day war in the air.   This guy gets 6 SAMs shot at him.  The flight starts at about the 2 minute mark.  Air speed is the left side vertical bar.  Altitude is the right side vertical bar .  At the start of the festivities, he's doing about 390K at 25,500'.  He ends up after defeating all the missiles, (You can see several of them in the film.  they look like jagged contrails.) and is around 200K and about 11000'.  Remember, AAA becomes much more effective below 10K'.  So, this guy is getting driven down to where the Shilka will be very effective.

I didn't then and don't now like watching this video.  One very lucky young man, but there's a point at the 8:10 mark where I think he's dangerously close to violating the "Never Give Up, Never Surrender" edict.

So, juvat, if one of the functions of SAMs is to drive the attacker closer to the ground, what happens then.

Well.  here's a video of a Shilka taking on a MiG-23.  I don't know what the result was, however, since they didn't film a fireball which one would assume they would if one had occurred, I'd say they damaged the MiG, at best.  Notice that there is an unprotected person standing outside the Shilka and that the radar dish is folded down.  The MiG is a fast aircraft. Given the slew rate of the turret, I'd say the MiG pilot is using the "Speed is Life" defense as outlined in the WWII film.

So,  based on these videos, I hope I've better explained why I HiSSS when AAA is mentioned.  SAMs are only slightly lower on the dislike meter.  Generally, if you see one of them, you can defeat them.  With AAA, if the round is in the air, since you can't see it, all you can do is hope that he's a lousy shot.and  avoid the golden BB.

Finally,  I offer the following without comment.

BTW Friday is supposed to be back in the 70's. Gotta love Winter in Texas!