Barnhart wrote:

While working with B 52s for a short while, they mentioned they would

practice the "sam slip" or "sam maneuver" where they evade sams over
unfriendly skies in southeast Asia.  Any idea how that went?

Barny

Hi Barny

I flew EB 66s in Southeast Asia and flew B-52s during the "Cold War" as an
Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO) and have a degree of familarity with SAMS.
The SA-2 SAM system predominately used by the NV during the war was an older
Soviet Design (but with a big 400KG warhead).  Its principal intercept
algorithm was based on constant velocity of the target.  Therefore any
"Acceleration" that could be introduced to the problem degraded its
accuracy.  This short coming resulted in maneuvers designed to introduce
varying acceleration factor into the guidance equation and thereby degrade
the SAMs accuracy.  Together with jamming of the SAMs radar and dumping
"Chaff" it would hopefully degrade the SAM sufficient for a miss.

Later in the war, there was a lot of controversy over whether the B-52
performing SAM maneuvers was effective.  The argument went that it exposed
the B-52 longer, that it caused the aircraft's Jamming pattern (foot print)
to be less effective due to the shifting geometric footprint due to the
aircraft's unusual attitude, etc.  In fact, there was a letter published by
one of the B-52 units which threatened disciplinary action to B-52 crews
which took evasive action.  You can imagine the roil that created.

Fighters (and EB-66s) would do the same thing with more radical maneuvers
such as turning into the SAM or going into a steep dive, hard turn.

I can verify that the maneuver if used properly and at the right time could
save your butt.

Ed Anderson
Matthews, NC

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