Flying SAM site

[Monk78]

Maybe it was the kind of beverage I had but was thinking of this way of covering large swathes of country with decent SAM coverage.
What about fitting transport planes with batteries of surface to air missiles and radars ? Mostly directed upward like a regular SAM site but can move from place to place ( provided they have rough field capability and operate from unpaved airstrips )

 

[Grey Havoc]

A Cold War variation on the theme:

Yakovlev VVP-6 flying platform

has this been discussed before? http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/yak_vvp-6.php

www.secretprojects.co.uk

 

[Monk78]

S-125 could be a great missile for it as it’s not as bulky as SA-2/5

 

[totoro]

flying sam site could work, but it'd have to be a distributed battery. Of course, it'd very much blur the line between a combat aircraft and sam battery.
it'd have to be fairly large, for very long loiter times. carrying 4-8 missiles. it'd definitely have to be unmanned to be somewhat cheap.
It'd have to be quite subsonic and very simple, without a radar, for example. Again, for financial reasons. Speed isn't as important as altitude here, and turboprops should be able to offer long loiter time while still at 30 thousand feet up.

Other components of the battery might or might not be flying. Some radars could be flying, sure. But I would imagine that ground based radars would also be used, perhaps more so, for survivability reasons.

 

[sferrin]

Maybe it was the kind of beverage I had but was thinking of this way of covering large swathes of country with decent SAM coverage.
What about fitting transport planes with batteries of surface to air missiles and radars ? Mostly directed upward like a regular SAM site but can move from place to place ( provided they have rough field capability and operate from unpaved airstrips )

I always though putting something like this on rail cars would be the way to go.

 

[Monk78]

I always though putting something like this on rail cars would be the way to go.

Good idea , just the vulnerability of tracks and mobility limited by availability of tracks can be an issue
Pros are definitely less expensive

 

[Monk78]

flying sam site could work, but it'd have to be a distributed battery. Of course, it'd very much blur the line between a combat aircraft and sam battery.
it'd have to be fairly large, for very long loiter times. carrying 4-8 missiles. it'd definitely have to be unmanned to be somewhat cheap.
It'd have to be quite subsonic and very simple, without a radar, for example. Again, for financial reasons. Speed isn't as important as altitude here, and turboprops should be able to offer long loiter time while still at 30 thousand feet up.

Other components of the battery might or might not be flying. Some radars could be flying, sure. But I would imagine that ground based radars would also be used, perhaps more so, for survivability reasons.

How about just modifying a Bison or Blinder preferably type bomber aircraft to carry large IR all aspect AAMs. Of course they are not there to play a red Baron but they can perform head on attacks on a formation of strike aircraft. If nothing else just disrupt their cohesion and achieve mission kills by forcing them to dump ordinance and fuel to take evasive actions.
I think SARH missiles will be too hard to manage with a clunky bomber type and ARH missiles pre AMRAAM era is not possible esp in USSR
Advantage probably over conventional PVO interceptors is that bombers can carry several times as many AAMs

 

[Scott Kenny]

How about just modifying a Bison or Blinder preferably type bomber aircraft to carry large IR all aspect AAMs. Of course they are not there to play a red Baron but they can perform head on attacks on a formation of strike aircraft. If nothing else just disrupt their cohesion and achieve mission kills by forcing them to dump ordinance and fuel to take evasive actions.
I think SARH missiles will be too hard to manage with a clunky bomber type and ARH missiles pre AMRAAM era is not possible esp in USSR
Advantage probably over conventional PVO interceptors is that bombers can carry several times as many AAMs

ARH missiles are perfectly possible with 1950s/60s tech. AAM-N-10 Eagles say hi.

Sure, they're going to be 1000-1500lbs each, but so what? You're already using a large airframe for the necessary range/loiter time.