Talk:9K32 Strela-2

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Alleged service in Turkey[edit]

I edited the page and removed Turkey from the list of operators. SA-7 is absolutely NOT (and has never been) in service in Turkey. It is true that several dozen launchers were captured from the separatist PKK terrorists, but they have never been taken into service.

Exhaust flames[edit]

So I guess when this thing is launched, you don't want anything important to be behind the missile tube because it could get hit by the exhaust flames. Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 17:16, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ripoff of the Redeye[edit]

Was the SA-7 actually a ripoff of the Redeye?[1] Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 17:24, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SA-7B[edit]

Did the SA-7B have an improved seeker head in comparison with the SA-7? Simultaneous movement (talk) 15:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Language[edit]

Interesting article, but the writer(s) get(s) very technical in places where a simpler explanation would do. Example: start by saying the missile has infra-red guidance, then explain in less fancy words that this means that it has to (be) manoeuvre(d) behind its target.

I think the use of "kinematic" is cute, but I do so wonder if it is correct. "Dynamics," the branch of mechanics involved with real movements (and not with abstracted motion, what kinematics is), seems the righteous term when discussing the actual movement of a missile, in combat at that ! The very use of that term and other digressions might just betray that the writer has lost sight of what should be aimed for: a good definition and description of a missile in a certain class. This article goes way beyond that. Sure: Some of the write-up would be very good for a general article on missile guidance. But I miss simple information on this class of weapon, on similar missiles and systems, about tactical considerations and about economical reasons for the wide spread use of the Strela.

Finally, there are quite a few weaknesses in the written English: omissions, grammar and above all: style inconsistencies.

Not my cup of tea to improve this lengthy article, too technical for my taste, but wil someone, please?

VNCCC (talk) 02:21, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Useful text[edit]

I took this out of the intro, will re-add in appropriate sections tomorrow.

The 9K32M “Strela-2M” (NATO reporting name SA-7b “Grail” Mod 1) was introduced in 1971 [1] and featured a number of improvements, increasing both its range and the size of its warhead. Improvements in the guidance system allowed the missile to engage transport planes and helicopters head-on, unless the aircraft were flying faster than 540 km/h.[2]

Primarily a tail-chase missile system the effectiveness of the SA-7 depends on its ability to lock onto the heat source of low-flying fixed and rotary-wing aircraft. Like many other missiles of the time, the Strela's simple infra-red seeker mechanism is easily overwhelmed by simple countermeasures like flares, and pulsing “hot brick” jammers, and even environmental effects like infra-red reflections from clouds.

The Strela-2 has a small directed-energy blast fragmentation warhead with impact and grazing fuzes. The impact fuze detonates the warhead immediately upon impact, while the grazing fuze reacts to the slightest bending of the missile fuselage. The warhead weighs 1.1 kg, including 370 g HE content in a pre-fragmented casing.


The small warhead had the drawback of low kill probability against jet and especially multi-engine targets; as the missile homed in on the hottest spot, it typically hit only the afterburner nozzles, and due to the small size and instantaneous fuzing was not unusual that it failed to destroy even the engine that was hit. Although the basic warhead design remained the same in all Soviet MANPAD systems from Strela-2/2M through Strela-3 and Igla-1 to the final Igla, the later missiles had much-improved lethality with little extra warhead weight due to better terminal homing aimed at hitting the aircraft fuselage, delayed fusing allowing the missile to penetrate into the target before detonation, and in later variants also a 20 g secondary charge to set off remaining rocket fuel.

Despite its shortcomings in range and lethality the Strela-2 did force enemy pilots to fly higher, into the engagement envelope of more capable air defence systems. In addition, in several cases it has forced enemy pilots to adopt higher altitude bombing tactics, which degraded the accuracy and usefulness of air strikes [3].

The maximum range and altitude of these missiles were consistently underestimated in the West. For example, although an altitude limit of 1.500 ft was widely quoted, an SA-7 hit an Omani jet (in 1974) at 11,500 feet.[4]

The SA-7, like many other MANPAD systems, leaves a white vapor trail that can betray the location of the launcher.[5]

To Do[edit]

Recent massive edit[edit]

With all due respect to the person who did the recent heavy editing, I would think twice about using somethind as dated as 1984, or picture books by Bill Gunston & Co, for reference material. I will try to correct the most glaring errors soon; in the meanwhile, "On arrows and needles: Russia's Strela and Igla portable killers", Journal of Electronic Defense, Jan 2004 by Michal Fiszer and Jerzy Gruszczynski is a pretty good english-language summary on the topic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmsaari (talk • contribs) 15:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Said person has a name. My apologies if I've added anything wrong to the article, but I simply went by 2 of the sources I had, which agreed with each other. What is wrong with Bill Gunston's published works, may I ask, just for future reference? I can link you to scans of the works I've referenced if you like. Anyway, I'll have a look at your links tomorrow, and see if we can work out these discrpencies. Sarcastic ShockwaveLover (talk) 15:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's one thing I've got a problem with, with regard to your edits; the fact that you removed/changed 2 referenced sections without any explanation, or the showing of references to support the new information.

These are the sections concerned:

Finally, improved filters were added, increasing resistance to flares and other countermeasures. Reference: War Machine, Issue 64 (Magazine), 1984, Orbis Publications, P1274. If you've got a more recent reference about the SA-N-7 to the contrary I'm more than happy to remove this section, but until then, I'm replacing it.

Platoon level - Strela-2 (NATO SA-7 “Grail”) Reference: Weapons of the Gulf War (ISBN 0-86101-615-7), 1991, Ian Hogg-Doug Richardson-Bill Gunston, Land Weapons-P121. Again, if you can prove that this book is wrong, please do. I want this to be an accurate article as much as you do, but it's up to you to source this.

I would like to thank you though, for correcting the placement of the SA-9 on the list; my brain must have been on holiday when I made that edit. Also, cheers for correcting my (Aussie) spelling of 'defense' to the accepted Wiki version. Sarcastic ShockwaveLover (talk) 15:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yugoslav Wars[edit]

Both planes were shot, Serbian claims that only one are false. Even Serbian site states both planes were down: [2] Those are 2 aircraft lost on September 20th 1991., one at Šibenik and other further to the archipelago of Kornati. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AurgelmirCro (talk • contribs) 06:06, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That may be so, but that website does not provide evidence for everything in the preceding sentences that it is supposedly verifying. It would be great to find some more reliable sources. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Problem is that there is no source in English. For the reason of neutrality, I didn't put any Croatian link. Only Serbian. If it is Serbian site to confirm loss of two aircraft, that must be it. No bias or false war propaganda. That site is simple as it can be: you have table with year (1991.), date (20.9., which is September 20th in Serbian language; that is wrong date, it happened on September 21st, but nevermind), name of two airplanes (N-60 Galeb and J-21 Jastreb), locations (Šibenik & Kornati which are close) and name of pilots (Valter Jurišić - dead & Dragan Maksimović - missing). As simple as it can be. Anyone who visit the link I provided will simply find that reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AurgelmirCro (talk • contribs) 06:40, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editing[edit]

I am currently undertaking a large-scale copy-edit of this article, in order to fix readability issues and sometimes weak English. I will not touch content, as I am not by any stretch an expert. That being said, I am adding clarification needed tags to the article where there are statements that don't appear to refer to anything. Dpenn89 (talk) 22:43, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Falklands War[edit]

The section on the Falklands War states that the Argentinian missiles likely came from Libya, then says (they actually came from Peru). Which was it? Can we please not have the article contradict itself directly? Dpenn89 (talk) 22:43, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/i83ht_Russia2_Garcia.html cites a Brazilian newspaper that reported they came from Libya. I'll change the article.--Flexdream (talk) 23:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Ireland[edit]

The article states that the missile was used to shoot down a British army helicopter, then says the missile was not successful. Did it shoot down a British Army helicopter, or did it miss? Dpenn89 (talk) 01:19, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of Redeyes and Vietnam[edit]

While it is clear that the SA-7 owes much to the Redeye, the explanation as to how the Soviets acquired a Redeye to "borrow" ideas from seems more than a little dubious. I have read that the Redeye was, indeed, deployed to Vietnam as some sort of contingency or "what the hell" kind of move, but I can't for the life of me figure out when exactly would one of these missiles have had the opportunity to be fired at a MiG (though it would have to have been before the 1968 introduction of SA-7 into service) and where would such an action have taken place (MiGs south of the DMZ? American soldiers or marines inside the DRV?). It goes without saying that this marvelous load of bullshit is completely unsourced.172.190.25.129 (talk) 09:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing out the dubious nature of this unsourced material. The key issue here is that the material is both unsourced and disputed. However, from a "how likely is it?" point of view, it's also worth adding that (as mentioned elsewhere in the article) the Redeye was pretty ineffective compared with the later Stinger, and had a fairly limited engagement envelope. So not only would there be the likelihood of a MiG being somewhere that U.S. ground troops could fire at it, and the likelihood of the troops in question having a Redeye to hand, and the Redeye failing to detonate and getting stuck in the fuselage in an intact condition, and the aircraft making it back to base, all in some time frame significantly before 1968, but also the likelihood of them actually having hit the aircraft in the first place. The probabilities thus end up looking vanishingly small. Anyway I've added a couple of tags to indicate this in the article. If no sourcing turns up within a week or two, I suggest you go ahead and remove the two sentences concerned. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, that part of the story is just as ridiculous. Come to think of it, the whole "failing to explode and sticking in the fuselage" bit is exactly the story on how the Soviets got their hands on the Sidewinder missile after a scuffle between Taiwan and the PRC. In any event, I was reluctant to remove the offending text as it is the only information provided for the developmental history of the SA-7, but I guess no information would be better than bad and misleading information.172.190.7.104 (talk) 01:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a thought, no source, just an idea, but it kind of sounds like a Soviet cover story for "stolen by the KGB". The Soviets reused their cover stories as much as they reverse-engineered Western technology, so when you spot a duplicate story with such characteristics...well... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morenus (talk • contribs) 14:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
According to the Redeye page the production version of the Redeye only entered service in 1968, so its difficult to see how one could have been fired into a North Vietnamese jet some years earlier and then reverse-engineered into the Strela to enter service in ...1968. I have never heard of any use of Redeyes against North Vietnamese Migs as it could only logically have occurred over South Vietnam or along the DMZ, both areas where the USAF/USN had air supremacy. The story seems to be confused with how the Soviets developed the AA-2 Atoll. I think that the offending sentences should be deleted. Mztourist (talk) 13:48, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mongolian Picture[edit]

That was not a SA-7. Picture and caption are now removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.207.201.211 (talk) 21:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article title[edit]

I propose the title to be changed to 9K32 Strela-2, to be consistent with the article titles of the Strela-3, Strela-10, and Igla. —Masterblooregard (talk) 16:00, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake[edit]

In this chapter => Yugoslav wars, I can read :

"A Croatian MiG-21 had been shot down over the same area on 14 September 1993. The tail control surfaces were damaged, the left engine failed and several passengers were injured. The crew managed to land the aircraft at Rijeka, Croatia. Spanish technicians were able to [...]."

"Passengers" and "two engines" in a MiG-21 ? :O I think someone failed a copy/paste and was talking about the first hit, with the CASA aircraft... --Friday83260 (talk) 23:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Wanna talk?) Friday83260 (in French) (but english spoken too) (pls excuz my accent...)

(References)[edit]

  1. ^ Jane's Air Launched Weapons, Issue 44.
  2. ^ http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/asmp/MANPADS.html
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference lbad was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ http://www.devili.iki.fi/pub/Commodore/docs/Project64/games/gunshi10.txt
  5. ^ "Defence & Security Intelligence & Analysis | Jane's 360".

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