Re: SAM sites



Andrew Bunting wrote:

Hmm that's pretty.  Especially compared to the mini-cities
that were Guild sites:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/sa-1-imagery.htm


Ah, the Great Flop in the Soviet SAM division.
SA-1 was basically a "product improved" German Wasserfall SAM with the fin layout rearranged.
They sunk an entire year's worth of concrete production into the building of those sites and their support roads around Moscow alone- despite the fact that the missile's operational performance was so low that there was very little chance that it would ever hit any SAC bombers (maximum ceiling of 20 km., slant range of 32-40 km.) unless they flew almost directly over the missile site. So of course Stalin had them completely ring Moscow with thousands of SA-1 launchers.
This may have been the missile that caused the baffling question to be asked to the German rocket scientists that were dragged off in the night to the Soviet Union.
The Soviets were very keen on finding out if the Germans knew how to glue wood to metal, as they were having trouble getting it to work right. The Germans explained that they had some experience doing it due to the lack of strategic materials in wartime Germany and the substitution of wood for metal construction for aircraft components as a result...but couldn't understand why the Soviets would need to do this as they had metal in abundance. They later figured out that the Soviets were getting ready to build so many SAM missiles that they needed to use wood in their fins as an economy measure to cut the overall cost of the program. They savings per missile were probably only a few dozen rubles but the numbers were so large that the use of wood led to a major saving in overall program cost. The SA-1 system eventually had a total of around 3,200 launchers fielded around Moscow, and they were still operational into the mid 1980's.

And in this one you can see that thay've emplaced a Goa site
as a backstop:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/sa-3-imagery3.htm



That would make sense; the SA-1 was only launched vertically so it was ineffective at low altitudes.
The SA-3 Goa low to medium altitude SAM had the traverseable launcher with variable elevation.

Pat
.

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