SAM the Sham

How effective are the Soviet-made surface-to-air (SAM) missiles that ring Hanoi? Not nearly so effective as had been feared originally, report U.S. air men returning from raids near the North Vietnamese capital. In the six months since the first sites became operational, Red missilemen have fired 150 missiles at U.S. aircraft. Only nine U.S. planes have been hit.

Still, the rockets are treated with respect. Whenever possible, U.S. airmen fly outside their 28-mile range. And when the U.S. is attacking a SAM-defended area, rocket-firing fighter-bombers streak in before the main force to knock out the sites.

U.S. airmen have also learned, as one Viet Nam veteran puts it, "that any weapon, even a rocket, is susceptible to countermeasures." The 2,000-m.p.h., 25-ft.-long SAM is susceptible, among other things, to violent maneuvers. Flying at 25,000 ft. or higher over North Viet Nam, U.S. pilots keep a sharp look out for blast-offs, yell "telephone pole" to warn other planes in the formation when they see a SAM streak up ward. For nerveless moments, the pilots fly on steady course until the pole's radar guidance system has locked onto one of them. Then they go into violent prearranged maneuvers -- sharp turns, dives or climbs. Unable to negotiate abrupt high-speed maneuvers, the rocket whisks harmlessly past, hopelessly lost.

Another anti-SAM tactic: to fly so low that the missile's radar is hopelessly confused by tall objects on the ground and cannot select the correct target.

Many U.S. aircraft do not have to take such precautions at all; they are equipped with top-secret electronic countermeasure devices that befuddle the SAM radar and send the missiles off course.

Old-fashioned flak worries U.S. pilots far more than the SAMs. So far, some 150 U.S. planes have been downed over North Viet Nam by antiaircraft fire ranging from rifles to radar-controlled 100-mm. guns. The worst may still be ahead. Because of the decision to avoid bombing Hanoi and Haiphong, the North Vietnamese have had time to place at least 2,100 heavy antiaircraft cannon in the area, in addition to thousands of smaller guns. If and when the U.S. decides to attack those-two cities, American airmen will have to fly through what Air Force Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell last week described as "the greatest concentration of antiaircraft weapons that has ever been known in the history of defense of any town or area in the world."

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