Air Defence Artillery in Combat, 1972-2018 - The Age of Surface-to-Air Missiles (Singh Mandeep)(Pevná vazba)

Having made its debut in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, anti-aircraft artillery was used extensively in the First World War. It was, however, not until the Second World War that anti-aircraft artillery truly came into prominence, shooting down more aircraft than any other weapon and seriously affecting the conduct of air operations.

The development of anti-aircraft artillery continued into the Cold War, resulting in the extensive introduction of surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs. Such weapons are cheaper to manufacture, simpler to maintain, and easier to operate than the vast fleet of aircraft required to defend an airspace. Though the first combat success of such weapons was during the Vietnam War, when a Soviet-designed S-75 Dvina missile shot down a USAF F-4C Phantom on 24 July 1965, it was the Yom Kippur War of 1973 which brought surface-to-air missiles to the center
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