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To: archy

I remember seeing a few of the SS11’s flying around.


37 posted on 05/03/2007 10:22:53 AM PDT by U S Army EOD
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To: U S Army EOD
I remember seeing a few of the SS11’s flying around.

Yeah, they were. An early wire-guided system we'd gotten from the French in the late '50s when armed helo operations were still experimental, there were helicopter, jeep-mounted and a quad-missile truck mount setup, probably a few others too. The six-missile version on a Huey was designated the M22 armament subsystem.

Range was supposed to be 3000 meters, as the operator guided it with a joystick while following a tracer flare after the rocket's exhaust had burned out, and the tracer burnout occurred at 3KM. But it took both a steady firing platform and a skilled operator to get hits with the things, though the Israelis also used them, in the 1967 Six-Day War, mounted on old WWII US M3 halftracks. The Indians also used the SS11 during their 1971 war with Pakistan, firing theirs of the locally-produced *Jonga* jeeps also used as a 106 recoilles rifle carrier, and maybe also off of British-built Ferret armored cars.

Despite looking really fierce with multiple BIG missiles in a row, only one at a time could be launched and guided at a time, with a rotary selector used to switch the tracker assembly to the next missile if the first one missed. Letting all four go at seperate or a single target in one go was not possible.

39 posted on 05/03/2007 11:16:54 AM PDT by archy (Et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno. [from Virgil's *Aeneid*.])
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