#1: The Senses and Stingers of Wasps

The origin and engagement process of the SA-8 family, particularly SA-8B.

See the U-shaped bit atop our strong wheeled friend? That stuff in the front needs to point at the target all the time. The spinny boy on top is always searching, if it wants.

This effortpost stands on the shoulders of giants: Hpasp, PDFs, Wikipedia, Google Translate, social media, and other miscellaneous wildly uninformed speculation of mine. Take it for what it’s worth: $3 in unsorted coins and a fresh roll of electrical tape apocalypse barter value, by my generous appraisal.

From left to right: the SA-8B’s range, angle, and firing stations. If you panned the camera to the right, you would look forward over the driver’s shoulders, generously speaking. There’s as much space as there needs to be, and not one bit more.

Design & Family Tree

The 9K33 Osa (“Wasp”, SA-8A Gecko) is a Soviet mobile SAM conceived in the late 1950s as budget point defense for motorized divisions that could follow where the more expensive systems covering heavier units could not.

After a bungled initial design, the subsequent redesign and rescoping, cost overruns, and delays, it had two and a half jobs:

1. Keeping up with the force, which implies river-fording capability.
2. Keeping up with the force, which implies a small logistics tail.
3. Keeping the force up, which meant killing targets at speeds up to Mach 1, altitudes from 50 to 5000 meters (~150–16,000 feet), and ranges up to 8km.

After trial firings, the redesign entered service in late 1971 as the 9K33/SA-8A firing 9M33 interceptors.

Why not watch an original SA-8A deploy? Click for hot missile action

The Soviets promptly wedged the top half onto a boat¹ as the 9K33M Osa-M/SA-N-4. You should assume the Soviets immediately put every SAM they think of onto boats. They’re good at it.

After an F-35-tier development process boondoggle, immediate problems were identified:

• the driver could literally only see forwards
• the missiles had room to improve

1: If you think about it, wasn’t it technically already on the top half of a boat?

To Soviet credit, they immediately began an iterative development to address these shortcomings: the Osa-A.

This handsome specimen lives(d?) at Nellis for a time and is not an Osa-A.

Not only did it get side windows, it also got better missiles. 9M33M1 had larger folding fins and a more sensitive proximity fuze to improve its ability against high-speed targets. On net:

• less of a nightmare to drive around
• 25G missiles with expanded range and speed engagement envelopes

Not bad!

As this upgrade is chugging along, Dimitry Ustinov, Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union, rolls up to the party:

😘

“This Israel-Egypt scuffle has me worried about how many ready rounds our SAMs have. I need you to double the payload to eight because I CRAVE MISSILES! Thanks comrades :^)”

Ustinov, shortly before settling for 6 missiles and, in hindsight, correct.

Ustinov’s upgunned design request was merged with the ongoing work to form the 9K33M2 Osa-AK, and lo, it becomes a good system for the time, but unlike the F-35 it’s so late and so over-budget that hardly anyone buys it, except maybe Greece I think?

It’s 1975, and the prospect of that thing scares the Soviets. The Osa-A doesn’t have a missile for it, so one is developed:

Can you order these with custom paint jobs?

The new 9M33M3 interceptor has three tricks up its sleeve:

• it can dive on targets, especially low-flying ones
• yet another proximity fuze iteration, which isn’t a trick, but whatever
• when you arm a 9K33M2 with it, it becomes a 9K33M3 SA-8B

On a flat surface, SA-8B shooting 9M33M3 can theoretically intercept targets down to nearly 0m. In practice, it’s not easy: targets that low require backup manual angle guidance via the TOV and still require ranging data (?) from the SSC.

To its credit, the SSC is allegedly capable of providing accurate ranging data down to ~0m on small targets. This requires a very precise manual track, which is as hard as it sounds.

Finding & Tracking Targets

1. The left seat is occupied by the range officer, who is responsible for acquiring and tracking targets in range.
2. The middle seat is occupied by the angle officer, who is responsible for acquiring and tracking targets in — you guessed it — angles.
3. The right seat is the firing officer’s throne. The firing officer pushes buttons to make pew pew whoosh and, secondarily, controls the (typically automatic) capture and tracking of targets in elevation.

A Targeting-Quality Track

Complete the Infinity Gauntlet by acquiring the azimuth, range, and elevation stones.

The SOC spins around at the whim of the operators, locating targets in azimuth and approximate range. The SSC tracks range and elevation. The paddles handle most missile guidance.

Search & Initial Track: SOC + SSC

The heap of radar stuff on top is the 9A33BM2 (Land Roll) mechanically-rotated antenna system, which spins — not quite a full 360, but close — to face the tracked target.

Land Roll’s spinny hat is the SOC target acquisition radar, responsible for the first step of the engagement. The 270kW C-band (7.5GHz) radar can display targets out to 45km and searches three range bands: low (very low, like helicopter or Tomahawk low), medium, and high.

The SOC is how the SA-8 crew surveys their airspace. All other radars are fixed forward in the Land Roll assembly. They lock and track the system’s target while guiding up to two missiles to it.

The big flat one in the middle is the SSC target/missile tracking radar, a 180kW J-band (15 GHz) monopulse-Doppler radar which has two important jobs:

1. Tracking targets.
2. Measuring missile-target range.

Once a target is located by the SOC, the angles officer rotates the Land Roll to face it in azimuth while the range officer dials in the target’s range. Once aligned, the range officer locks the target in range and azimuth with the SSC, after which the firing officer (usually automatically) achieves an elevation track and is presented with the option to fire when in parameters.

The first step is to locate the target by looking for blips on a screen.

SOC: Area Search

The angle officer’s SOC display is central to the cabin. They are responsible for using the SOC to search airspace. The SOC has a moving target filter that allows the crew to filter out clutter at the expense of not seeing slow, low-flying targets.

The SOC has three range settings that the operator can change fairly rapidly:

• 0–15km: Short range, often used while shooting
• 0–35km: Medium range, often used when preparing to shoot
• 0–45km: Long range, no moving target filter. Not much better than 35km and often much harder to spot targets on, but sometimes useful when not operating with an IADS.

The SOC can search three separate altitude bands by focusing exclusively on one band or automatically switching through several:

• Low altitude. No moving target filter. Low-flying helicopters and aircraft with terrain-following radar, cruise missiles, drones, etc.
• Medium altitude. Intermittent hits on low-flying aircraft. Good general-purpose use for shooting at most things.
• High altitude. Searches well up into the sky, for things flying over you.
• Automatic scan all: Switches through all three altitude beams.
• Automatic scan low-med: Switches between low and medium altitude.

A line on the SOC display indicates the Land Roll antenna system azimuth, and by extension, where the SA-8B’s tracking and guidance radars are pointing.

The angle officer’s job is to visually locate the target return on the SOC display and turn the Land Roll to face it. Once that’s done, the target can be locked.

The knob below and underneath the legend (good job, me) is what the angle officer spins for fine Land Roll azimuth adjustment. There’s a switch above it for max speed left/right.

SSC: Precise Track and Range Data

With the target azimuth and rough range identified, the range officer is responsible for acquiring a track with the SSC by moving the range gate over the target’s return as shown on the SSC range display (2 below) and SOC azimuth display (1 below).

When the SSC is radiating and the range gate has been moved over the target by spinning the knob, presuming the system is working as designed, the SSC will automatically lock target range and azimuth. The SA-8B now tracks the target, pointing the Land Roll as required and freeing the angles officer to focus on searching airspace with their SOC. It still requires an elevation track to fire.

The image lies: the top range sweep is 0–28km, not 0–25, and the bottom is 1.5km.

SSC: Elevation

Honorable mention goes to this bit of geometry, without which the missiles would not be able to visit the target. The firing officer can enable automatic elevation capture with the press of a button, which scans the full volume and and typically works within a few seconds because the system is already tracking in azimuth and range and therefore knows where to point.

Now that tracking is established in azimuth, range, and elevation, the target can be intercepted.

Push the red button! But first, safety off:

Look at all those buttons and status lights! Note the symmetry of the left and right launchers + channels.

1. Missile firing mode selector. Turn left for live.
2. Firing authorization key. Turn right for live.
3. Left missile canisters’ status lights, same as the right missile canisters’ status lights.
4. Engagement status. From right to left: target is ≤ 15 sec from entering DLZ, missile is ready, and the locked target is in range. I dunno the leftmost.
5. TOV target tracking camera display, ft. wide and narrow FOV. Follows SSC track except when in manual mode.

With the safeties off and a target tracked in range + angles, the SA-8 will automatically choose a missile from its canisters and, once the target is ≤15s from entering range, spins up the missile’s gyroscope. When the in-range indicator lights up, the red button will fire up to two missiles at the SA-8’s currently tracked target.

1. Illuminates when a missile is ready to launch.
2. Target is in range.
3. A raw voltmeter is allegedly useful as a range sanity check. I don’t know if I believe this.
4. 🚀

SOON

I’ll get back to the firing officer’s status lights when I analyze some real video later, presuming there’s interest.

The Missile Doesn’t Know Where It Is

…because the SA-8 knows where the missile is.

The SA-8 has two identical missile guidance channels: one for the left group of three missiles and one for the right.

Both sides of the Land Roll antenna feature a 🏓

This is the order in which they’re “used” in a launch, if that makes sense to you.

This 🏓 is a missile interrogator (1), a conical scanning wide-beam tracking radar (2), and a medium-beam missile guidance radar (3). After missile launch, these components work together to track and guide it.

1. The interrogator transmits an RF question and waits for the missile’s radio beacon to respond.
2. The wide-beam tracking radar scans for the missile, guided by its beacon response, and acquires a track.
3. The guidance radar acquires a precise track on the missile and begins transmitting steering commands.

Because it has two 🏓s, the SA-8B can guide two missiles at once.

Terminal Phase

The SSC’s target and missile tracking plays a starring role. Its range measurements are obeyed down to ~0m, but it can’t provide angle tracking for targets that low.

The SSC is the source of range data. As a missile approaches the tracked target, it tracks both to measure the range from the missile to the target.

When the missile is close, the guidance system transmits a command to activate the proximity fuze (3).

If the missile is a 9M33M3 and the target is flying low, it may pop up in the terminal phase before diving on its target for intercept to present a more favorable profile to its proximity fuze.

When the fuze is triggered, the missile detonates:

#2: Anatomy of an Engagement builds on this knowledge to analyze a video showing an Armenian SA-8 engaging a claimed Azeri Orbiter drone. It focuses on interpreting the intercept from pre-launch to post-boom through the lens of internal indicators, instruments, and settings, particularly those of the firing officer.