#2: Anatomy of an Engagement

A step-by-step dissection of all 12 pixels visible in a video showing an SA-8 shot on an alleged Orbiter drone.

My first effortpost in this series, #1: The Senses and Stingers of Wasps, is required reading unless you are already familiar with the system.

I have never seen an SA-8 with a clean TOV display. When your sensor eats missile exhaust and ground crap, that’s life.

We can learn more from this video than you might think.

We’ll start, tautologically, from the beginning: footage of the target tracking camera (TOV) at the firing officer’s station.

The top left doodads on the firing officer’s station. You’ve got the target tracking camera (TOV), the left canisters status lights (bottom left frame), and engagement status lights (bottom right frame ).

1. The left missile guidance system is transmitting or¹ is ready to transmit commands.
2. From left to right, left missile canisters status lights 1, 2, and 3.
3. The target is in range.
4. A missile has been automatically readied. The system can fire.
5. The target is ≤15s from being in range. Implied by indicator #3.

This tells us our SA-8 is tracking its target in range and angles. That’s targeting-quality, and the system is ready to shoot. It was actually ready to shoot before this clip started, as evidenced by indicator #4 showing a missile hot and ready.

Believing its target within parameters, the firing system has selected a missile² and readied itself for launch + guidance.

Five of the firing officer’s status lights, arranged two of top of three. The upper-rightmost appears lit, indicating the target tracking radar (SSC) is directing the Land Roll antenna system in automatic target range and angle tracking.

The horizontal blip in the middle shows the SOC

Wobbling to the right, we are blessed with a look at the firing officer’s elevation return indicator. The faint horizontal line with a blip in the middle shows the targeting radar (SSC) tracking the target in elevation, further suggesting normal Land Roll FCR lock.

The footage meanders left to the SOC’s hypnotizing display:

Left: search radar (SOC) display, explained below. Right: Three vertically stacked lights — a traffic light of sorts— show you which altitude band the SOC is scanning. The highest altitude band appears⁴ selected.

1. Ground clutter from the previous sweep.The search appears in the highest altitude band and the target is close. We can’t see where the switches are set, but it is unlikely that the system would be in a mode incompatible with moving target filtering. This suggests the Doppler moving target filter hides the target drone.
2. Land Roll azimuth indicator, where the engagement radars are staring. The range gate appears close — within a few km — of the SA-8 TELAR, but I can’t tell for sure if the very small gap in the line is actually it thanks to the resolution. The locked target is on this azimuth.
3. SOC sweep indicator. Spins around like in the movies. Whee!

Can the SA-8 locate, lock, and shoot down small, slow, low-flying loitering munitions like the Harop? Technically, yes! With a good crew and permissive conditions, because they need to spot all the small returns hiding in the clutter and coming for them.

Is it designed for that? No!

Would it be difficult under combat stress? You bet!

Our view returns to the firing officer, who has finished mucking about indistinctly with something (?) and has the honor of pressing the small red button at ~0:08.

clonk-WHOOSH⁵

The TOV camera display is whited out by missile exhaust and two indicators immediately change:

1. The missile has left its container — via some kind of break sensor, I think.
2. Left missile #1 status light goes out.

Our dear friend, left missile #1 (we hardly knew ye), is now on its way to nowhere in particular. Within the next second or two, before the sound of the launch fades, more things happen:

THERE ARE THREE LIGHTS

1. ~With ≤1s delay, the left guidance 🏓’s conical wide-beam tracking antenna begins listening for missile beacon signals.
2. A fraction of a second after (1) illuminates, the left guidance 🏓’s medium-beam radar begins tracking and guiding. Left Missile #1 is now being guided to the target.
3. Because I forgot to point it out last time, the hey-a-missile-is-ready light has gone out.

This shows that the missile is being actively tracked and guided by the left channel. As the TOV clears and the missile’s plume enters the frame, the last two lights illuminate in sequence:

1. The SSC is measuring the distance between Left Missile #1and the tracked target. A second or two later…
2. K3. Indicates that the proximity fuze has been enabled as a result of the SSC’s missile-target range data.

RIP Left Missile #1 and target drone.

About a second after our late pal Left Missile #1 detonates (~0:18), the system considers the engagement complete and the status lights are extinguished. The system maintains a track on the target as it appears to fall. At 1:06, we get a look at the range readout, showing the full 0–28km sweep on top and 1.5km magnified around the range gate below:

Range sweep showing the drone contact post-boom.

Given the obvious return no more than a quarter of the way along the range scope, the target’s distance was — very roughly — at most 7km. We already knew it was at least that close-ish because it was within missile range, but this serves as further evidence.

The video concludes with excited glimpses of the crew, whom we have now verified to have engaged a live target with an SA-8. Further, we learned how to read more of the firing officer’s indicators, and inferred:

• The target was moving so slowly and/or had such a small return that the moving target indicator filter likely hid it from view⁴. This suggests small slow drones are difficult for an SA-8 to organically detect!
• The target was above the system³, somewhere within single-digit km.

Baseless Speculation

If I were the Azeri armed forces and I were planning SEAD/DEAD, I might want to bait Armenian SAMs in the months beforehand to develop an understanding of their IADS behavior vs. small drones.

Footnotes

If you have rumors or better related to my speculation, reach out!

1 I lean towards believing this indicates active missile guidance command xmit, but it IS clearly on before launch. Two guesses: the guidance system is actively transmitting commands so the missile guides ASAP after launch, or this light just means it’s ready to do its thing.

2This missile readying process is often irreversible, but I think it’s fine on the SA-8, at least with the containerized M2 and M3 interceptors. The system automatically begins readying another missile after firing the first and it’d be shame to waste the second when the first hits. You can see the second missile ready up at ~0:23 in the video, and it’d be a waste for someone to have to go outside to load new AA batteries before it could be used again.

3 Sadly, the precise elevation and range readouts are not legible.

4 If I have the lights backwards, it could have the low band selected, which would also explain the lack of moving-target filter. I presume the crew is watching the Orbiter on the SOC because it’s the only thing they shot at in the video. Alternatively, the crew could be using automatic 2 or 3 band-search.

I bet the Orbiter is too slow.

5 Explosive bolts, then WHOOSH. I hope this clears things up.