Sa-2 1/35, Trumpeter + Eduard

Silenoz · April 24, 2019

While waiting on some styrene tubing for the Tunguska I took a start on this one...

The S-75 (Russian: С-75; NATO reporting name SA-2 Guideline) is a Soviet-designed, high-altitude air defence system, built around a surface-to-air missile with command guidance. Following its first deployment in 1957 it became one of the most widely deployed air defence systems in history. It scored the first destruction of an enemy aircraft by a surface-to-air missile, with the shooting down of a Taiwanese Martin RB-57D Canberra over China on 7 October 1959 that was hit by a salvo of three V-750 (1D) missiles at an altitude of 20 km (65,600 ft). This success was credited to Chinese fighter aircraft at the time in order to keep the S-75 program secret.

This system first gained international fame when an S-75 battery, using the newer, longer-range and higher-altitude V-750VN missile was deployed in the 1960 U-2 incident, when it shot down the U-2 of Francis Gary Powers overflying the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. The system was also deployed in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it shot down another U-2 (piloted by Rudolf Anderson) overflying Cuba on October 27, 1962, almost precipitating a nuclear war. North Vietnamese forces used the S-75 extensively during the Vietnam War to defend Hanoi and Haiphong. It has also been locally produced in the People's Republic of China under the names HQ-1 and HQ-2.

In the early 1950s, the United States Air Force rapidly accelerated its development of long-range jet bombers carrying nuclear weapons. The USAF program led to the deployment of Boeing B-47 Stratojet supported by aerial refueling aircraft to extend its range deep into the Soviet Union. The USAF quickly followed the B-47 with the development of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, which had greater range and payload than the B-47. The range, speed, and payload of these U.S. bombers posed a significant threat to the Soviet Union in the event of a war between the two countries. Consequently, the Soviets initiated the development of improved air defence systems. Although the Soviet Air Defence Forces had large numbers of anti-aircraft artillery (AAA), including radar-directed batteries, the limitations of guns versus high-altitude jet bombers were obvious. Therefore, the Soviet Air Defence Forces began the development of missile systems to replace the World War II-vintage gun defences. In 1953, KB-2 began the development of what became the S-75 under the direction of Pyotr Grushin. This program focused on producing a missile which could bring down a large, non-maneuvering, high-altitude aircraft. As such it did not need to be highly maneuverable, merely fast and able to resist aircraft counter-measures. For such a pioneering system, development proceeded rapidly, and testing began a few years later. In 1957, the wider public first became aware of the S-75 when the missile was shown at that year's May Day parade in Moscow.

While the shooting down of Francis Gary Powers' U-2 in 1960 is the first publicized success for the S-75, the first aircraft shot down by the S-75 was a Taiwanese Martin RB-57D Canberra high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft was hit by a Chinese-operated S-75 site near Beijing on October 7, 1959. Over the next few years, the Taiwanese ROCAF would lose several aircraft to the S-75: both RB-57s and various drones. On May 1, 1960, Gary Powers' U-2 was shot down while flying over the testing site near Sverdlovsk. The first missile destroyed the U-2, and a further 13 were also fired, hitting a pursuing high-altitude MiG-19. That action led to the U-2 Crisis of 1960. Additionally, Chinese S-75s downed five ROCAF-piloted U-2s based in Taiwan.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a U-2 piloted by USAF Major Rudolf Anderson was shot down over Cuba by an S-75 in October 1962.

In 1965, North Vietnam asked for some assistance against American airpower, for their own air-defence system lacked the ability to shoot down aircraft flying at high altitude. After some discussion it was agreed to supply the PAVN with the S-75. The decision was not made lightly, because it greatly increased the chances that one would fall into US hands for study. Site preparation started early in the year, and the US detected the program almost immediately on 5 April 1965.

On 24 July 1965, a USAF F-4C aircraft was shot down by an SA-2. Three days later, the US responded with Operation Iron Hand to attack the other sites before they could become operational. Most of the S-75 were deployed around the Hanoi-Haiphong area and were off-limits to attack (as were local airfields) for political reasons. The missile system was used widely throughout the world, especially in the Middle East, where Egypt and Syria used them to defend against the Israeli Air Force, with the air defence net accounting for the majority of the downed Israeli aircraft. The last success seems to have occurred during the War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), when Georgian missiles shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter near Gudauta on March 19, 1993. During the Yemeni Civil War (2015-present) Houthis modified some of their S-75 into surface-to-surface ballistic missiles to attack Saudi bases with them.

Between 1964 and early 1965, the Vietnamese had nothing to threaten American pilots in the air. U.S aircraft flew at an altitude of 4−5 kilometers, and the Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns were not able to reach them. However, after an S-75 shot down a U.S F-4 Phantom aircraft, the U.S bombers began to descend below three kilometers. This brought them within the reach of Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns. On July 24, 1965, four U.S. Air Force McDonnell F-4C Phantoms took part in an airstrike against the Dien Ben Phu munitions storage depot and the Lang Chi munitions factory west of Hanoi. One was shot down and three damaged by SA-2's. This is the first time U.S aircraft were attacked by SAMs. After two days, President Johnson gave the order: attack all known SA-2 positions, which had also been discovered outside the 30-mile exclusion zone. On the morning of July 27, in 48 F-105s were to participate in the strike, Operation Spring High. But the Vietnamese knew U.S. aircraft were coming and set up many 23mm and 37mm anti-aircraft guns at the two SAM sites. These anti-aircraft guns were lethal at close range; as a result the Vietnamese shot down six aircraft, and more than half of the remaining U.S aircraft suffered damage from groundfire. Both SAM sites were devoid of missiles and equipment, and the Vietnamese had substituted white-painted bundles of bamboo for the fake SA-2s. Operation Spring High had destroyed two worthless targets for the loss of six aircraft and five pilots.

Between 1965 and 1966, the US developed countermeasures to the S-75 problem. The Navy soon had the AGM-45 Shrike in service and mounted their first offensive strike on a site in October 1965. The Air Force fitted B-66bombers with powerful jammers (which blinded the early warning radars) and by developing smaller jamming pods for fighters (which denied range information to the radars). Later developments included the Wild Weasel aircraft, which were fitted with anti-radiation air-to-surface missile systems made to home in on the radar from the threat. This freed them to shoot the sites with Shrikes of their own. The Soviets and Vietnamese were able to adapt to some of these tactics. The USSR upgraded the radar several times to improve ECM (electronic counter measures) resistance. They also introduced a passive guidance mode, whereby the tracking radar could lock on the jamming signal itself and guide missiles directly towards the jamming source. This also meant the SAM site's tracking radar could be turned off, which prevented Shrikes from homing in on it. Some new tactics were developed to combat the Shrike. One of them was to point the radar to the side and then turn it off briefly. Since the Shrike was a relatively primitive anti-radiation missile, it would follow the beam away from the radar and then simply crash when it lost the signal (after the radar was turned off). SAM crews could briefly illuminate a hostile aircraft to see if the target was equipped with a Shrike. If the aircraft fired one, the Shrike could be neutralized with the side-pointing technique without sacrificing any S-75s. Another tactic was a "false launch" in which missile guidance signals were transmitted without a missile being launched. This could distract enemy pilots, or even occasionally cause them to drop ordnance prematurely to lighten their aircraft enough to dodge the nonexistent missile.

At the same time, both the evasion maneuvers were used, and intensive bombardments of the identified SAM firing positions were organized. Under these conditions, measures to observe the regime of camouflage and radio silence became especially important. After the combat launches, the anti-aircraft missile division was to leave the region immediately, otherwise it was destroyed by a bomb-assault strike. Until December 1965, according to American data, 8 S-75M systems were destroyed. However, not infrequently, American aviation fiercely bombed false positions with fake missiles made of bamboo. Soviet and Vietnamese calculations claimed the destruction of 31 aircraft, the Americans acknowledged the loss of 13 aircraft. According to the memoirs of Soviet advisers, before the anti-aircraft missile unit was out of action by enemy, its destroyed, on average, 5-6 American aircraft. Despite these advances, the US was able to come up with effective ECM packages for the B-52E and later models. When the B-52s flew large-scale raids against Hanoi and Haiphong over an eleven-day period in December 1972, 266 S-75 missiles were fired, resulting in the loss of 15 of the bombers and damage to numerous others. The ECM proved to be generally effective, but repetitive USAF flight tactics early in the bombing campaign had increased the vulnerability of the bombers, and the North Vietnamese missile crews adopted a practice of firing large S-75 salvos to overwhelm the planes' defensive countermeasures (see Operation Linebacker II). By the conclusion of the Linebacker II campaign, the shootdown rate of the S-75 against the B-52s was 7.52% (15 B-52s were shot down, 5 B-52s were heavily damaged for 266 missile).

However, some of the U.S aircraft "crashed in flight accidents", in fact, were crashed due to S-75 missiles. When landing at an airfield in Thailand, one B-52 was heavily damaged by a SAM, rolled off of the runway and exploded on mines installed around the airfield to protect from the guerrillas, only one crewman survived. Subsequently, this B-52 was counted as "crashed in flight accidents". According to Dana Drenkowski and Lester W. Grau, the number of U.S aircraft lost confirmed by themselves is uncorroborated since the U.S figures are also suspect. If a plane was badly damaged, but managed to land, the USAF did not count as a loss, even if it was too damaged to fly again. During the Vietnam war, the Soviet Union delivered 95 S-75 systems and 7,658 missiles to the Vietnamese. 6,806 missiles were launched or removed by outdating (including 5,800 launches). In total, the U.S lost 3,374 aircraft in combat. According to the Vietnamese, 31% were shot down by S-75 missiles (1,046 aircraft, or 6 missiles per one kill); 60% were shot down by anti-aircraft guns; and 9% were shot down by MiG fighter. The S-75 missile system significantly improved the effectiveness of the Vietnamese anti-aircraft artillery, which used to data from the S-75 radar stations.

The kit: