In message
,
BlackBeard writes
Not quite. Considering that no known manned aircraft has ever been
shot down buy a sub-launched SAM in a real situation, (does anyone
even know of a successful test?) it is just an anecdote about what
they _thought_ might happen.

The only live-fire test I know about is for the US SIAM (Self Initiated
Antiaircraft Missile) which in 1981 shot down a QH-50 drone at a range
of two miles and altitude of 1500' (Friedman, "US Naval Weapons"). That
seems to have been purely a missile test, not an all-up system
evaluation. SIAM was - as far as I can tell - intended to be launched in
a capsule that contained a search radar which would hand off target data
to the missile, which would then use IR homing to acquire and intercept.

The missile got as far as test firings but it seems the rest of the
system never got beyond concept phase.

--
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.

Paul J. Adam