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.
I’m posting this to you because I don’t know where else to post it. :^)
Does anyone know how I ping the Hoosier/Kentucky freepers to this?
May 2, 2007 Contact: Audra Levy
For Immediate Release (812) 436-4969
alevy@evansvillegis.com
History Channel to Evansville for LST D-Day Weekend
(EVANSVILLE, IN) – Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel’s office has just received word that a crew from the History Channel will be in Evansville to cover LST Operation D-Day re-enactments on June 2nd and 3rd, 2007. The crew will also stay to videotape the LST on June 5th.
There will be two re-enactment battles per day at Marina Pointe, home of the LST. Each will have a different battle scenario. One of the battles will involve the LST 325 “Higgins” landing boats, which were the small craft used to land troops on the beach during D-Day. These same Higgins boats were used in the filming of the movie, “Flags of our Fathers”.
American and German re-enactors from all over the Midwest will re-enact what happened at Normandy on June 6, 1944, the greatest amphibious invasion in history. The U.S.S. LST 325 saw service during that invasion and made more than 40 trips between England and Normandy, France, during the summer of 1944.
After World War II, LST 325 was used in military operations in the Arctic and later transferred to the Greek Navy. When the ship was decommissioned in 2000, the U.S.S. LST Ship Memorial acquired the ship to preserve it and brought it to Evansville. LST 325 is the last navigable landing ship tank in service today.
Of course this is the same way the Sagger worked that the NVA were using against us. However the US Army told the South Vietnamese that the Sagger was heat seaking. As a result of this, the ARVN started throwing flares out when ever they saw the big black lauch cloud meaning a missile was on its way. They would also fire in the vacinity of the cloud since the control cable was only a few feet long meaning the gunner had to be nearby. As a result, the NVA gunner would have everybody shooting near him and as he looked through his sights, he would see several flares burning. “Which was his???” The counter measures worked for all the wrong reasons.
