Dr. Kenneth P. Werrell - ARCHIE, FLAK, AAA, and SAM: A Short Operational History Of Ground-Based Air Defense

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Text originally published in 1963 under the same title.

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ARCHIE, FLAK, AAA, AND SAM A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air Defense

By

Dr. Kenneth P. Werrell

Figure

1.German 7.7-cm antiaircraft gun, 1916

2.Improvised antiaircraft weapons

3.Antiaircraft battery training

4.British women receiving antiaircraft training

5.British experimenting with rockets during World War II

6.British 40-mm gun and crew

7.V-1 buzz bomb over London

8.Initial British defensive deployment

9.Preparing Pile mattress

10.3.7-inch gun mounted on a Pile mattress

11.Final British defensive deployment

12.Defense of Antwerp, Belgium

13.US 90-mm M-l AAA gun

14.German 88-mm gun

15.German 88-mm gun was versatile

16.88-mm gun on the march

17.German 128-mm gun

18.Ploesti mission was dramatic and costly

19.German radar in Romania

20.Ploesti was protected by smoke and guns

21.German light flak was very effective

22.German 20-mm guns aboard train

23.German light flak pieces mounted on motor vehicles

24.40-mm Bofors on truck chassis

25.50-mm gun on five-ton towing vehicle

26.128-mm railway guns were largest in Ploesti

27.German Taifun rocket

28.Enzian rocket

29.Rheintochter rocket

30.German Schmetterling

31.Wasserfall

32.Chaff

33.Liberator over Italy

34.B-17 nose shot away by flak over Cologne

35.German flak was impressive

36.Douglas A-20s attack Japanese positions at Karos

37.B-29 hit by Japanese flak on bombing run

38.75-mm Sky Sweeper

39.F-51 Mustang fighters at air base in Korea

40.F-80 Shooting Star jets destined for Communist transportation targets

41.B-26 light bombers

42.C-119s

43.T-6

44.Nike Ajax

45.Nike Hercules

46.Hawk

47.Redeye

48.Talos missile

49.Tartar missile

50.Boeing IM-99 Bomarc guided missile

51.Bomarc interceptor missile

52.American adviser instructing South Vietnamese troops

53.C-123K delivers needed supplies

54.North Vietnamese scramble for their guns

55.A-6A Intruder attack aircraft over the Gulf of Tonkin

56.F-105 Thunderchief pilots head for North Vietnam target

57.Phantom attacks

58.RF-4C reconnaissance aircraft

59.Abandoned surface-to-air missile site in North Vietnam

60.North Vietnamese SA-2 position

61.Soviet SA-2

62.SA-2 launch against US aircraft

63.EB-66

64.A-4 Skyhawk aircraft fires Shrike missile

65.F-105G Wild Weasel on the wing of a tanker

66.CH-53 helicopter

67.VNAF Choctaws

68.Regional forces scramble out of an H-34

69.Soviet SA-7 Grail surface-to-air missile

70.AQM-34V in flight with an AN/ALE-38 chaff Pod

71.Marine EA-6B Prowler aircraft

72.B-52 dropping bombs

73.B-52 aircraft damaged by SAM missile

74.Standard arm missile (AGM-78) igniting

75.Soviet SA-6

76.Soviet ZSU-23-4

77.Soviet SA-9

78.Canberra

79.Avro Vulcan

80.Hawker Siddeley Harrier

81.Blowpipe launcher ashore on the Falkland Islands

82.Stinger

83.Rapier surface-to-air antiaircraft missile

84.Rapier system under a camouflage net

85.7.62-mm GPMG deployed ashore on Falklands

86.Seacat

87.British antiaircraft weapons

88.Bofors antiaircraft gun served in the Falklands

89.Seaslug

90.Sea Dart launch during peacetime

91.Afghanistan rebels down Soviet helicopter

Dr Kenneth Werrells history of ground-based air defense performs an important service both to scholarship and, more important, to the defense of our nations freedom. It is perhaps human nature that we tend over time to lose sight of the lessons of the past, especially when they do not conform to certain cherished preconceptions of ours. That such myopia can be dangerous, if not downright disastrous, Doctor Werrells study richly illustrates. Without sentimentalism, he chronicles a pattern of lessons learned and too quickly forgotten, as the marvel of air power was reminded again and again of its limitations and vulnerability. In Korea and in Vietnam, the American people were stripped of their illusions of national and technical omnipotence. The unhappy outcome of those two conflicts were doubly lamentable because the lessons of World War II wereor should have beenfresh in our minds. In that world war, as Doctor Werrell shows, relatively cheap ground-based air defense did make a difference: at Ploesti, at Antwerp, and at the Rhine bridges.

And it will make a difference tomorrow. The greatest value of Doctor Werrells work is that it provides guideposts and guidance for us as professional soldiers and aviators charged with upholding American security. We have taken historys lessons to heart as we plan and program our ground-based air defenses into the next decade and beyond. In both the forward and the rear areas, we have emphasized the time-honored principles of mass, mix, and mobility. No one weapon, not even todays modern aircraft, can do the job alone. That truism applies with particular force to antiaircraft defense. And at least one other truism emerges from Doctor Werrells and our own studies: effective air defense requires a joint and combined effort. Our planning has been predicated on the assumption that counter air will play a central role in safeguarding our ground forces from air attack. On the ground, the Air Defense Artillery will count on the cooperation and assistance of our colleagues in the infantry, armor, and field artillery. On our success or failure in working together to meet the challenges of tomorrow will rest our nations future.

DONALD R. INFANTE

Major General, US Army

Chief of Air Defense Artillery