SA-2 Guideline

Overview

The S-75 Dvina, whose V-750 missile NATO calls the SA-2 Guideline, was developed in the mid-1950s and entered service in 1957. [1] [2] The Soviet Union began exporting it in 1960, and it was the SAM US crews met over North Vietnam. [2]

The site

The SA-2 “did not operate alone, but as part of a complete system.” A typical site held six missiles on launchers, control and support vans, a long-range acquisition radar and a guidance radar. [2] The six semi-fixed, single-rail launchers stand about 60 to 100 m apart in a hexagonal “flower” pattern with the radars and guidance vans in the centre, and about six more missiles wait on tractor-trailers nearby. [1]

Each regiment has three battalions. The regimental headquarters holds the early-warning radars: the P-12 Spoon Rest (about 275 km) detects aircraft and hands them to the sites, with a P-15 search radar and a PRV-11 height finder alongside. [1] At the site, the SNR-75 Fan Song tracks the target and guides the missiles. [1]

A trained crew could pack up a site and move it in about four hours, which is why the Wild Weasels’ job of striking active sites quickly mattered. [2]

How it engages

A solid-fuel booster launches the missile and drops away after about six seconds; a liquid-fuel sustainer then carries it while it is guided to the target. [2] Guidance is by radio command: the site’s computers steer each missile on one of three channels. A site tracks one target at a time but can guide three missiles at it. There are two guidance modes: one keeps the missile on the line of sight to the target, for short-range shots, and a lead mode flies up to 10° ahead of it. [1]

Envelope

The museum gives a minimum range of 5 miles, a maximum effective range of about 19 miles, a maximum slant rangeSlant range GlossaryNavigation: The straight-line distance from the aircraft to a station, including height, which is what DME measures, rather than horizontal distance.Weapons: The straight-line distance from the aircraft to the target, or from the release point to the impact point. of 27 miles (about 4.3, 16.5 and 23.5 NM) and a ceiling of about 60,000 ft, with a speed of MachMach number GlossaryFlight: The ratio of the true airspeed to the speed of sound. All compressibility effects depend on it. 3.5 and a 288 lb blast-fragmentation warhead. [2] Figure 1 uses those figures. Other published figures differ: the S-75 article gives 45 km (24 NM), a flight altitude of 25,000 m in its summary and about 20,000 m in its text, and a 195 kg warhead. [1] Treat any single SA-2 number as variant-dependent.

On the radar warning receiver

In the DCS F-14F-14 Tomcat AircraftThe Navy's swing-wing fleet defence fighter: two crew, AWG-9 radar and AIM-54 Phoenix., the AN/ALR-67 shows the Fan Song track radar as 2 and the Flat Face search radar, used with the SA-2, SA-3SA-3 Goa Threat systemCommand-guided by the Low Blow radar from two- or four-missile launchers; the system that downed an F-117. and SA-5SA-5 Gammon Threat systemA very long-range strategic SAM guided by the Square Pair continuous-wave radar., as FF. [3]

History

An S-75 shot down Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 near Sverdlovsk on 1 May 1960, and another downed Maj. Rudolf Anderson’s U-2 over Cuba on 27 October 1962. [1] [2] Over North Vietnam, an S-75 shot down a USAF F-4CF-4 Phantom II AircraftThe big two-seat Cold War fighter-bomber; the F-4E added an internal gun and slats after Vietnam. on 24 July 1965, the first US aircraft lost to a SAM in that war. In eleven days of Operation Linebacker II in December 1972, 266 missiles were fired at B-52s and 15 B-52s were lost. [1]