SAM effectiveness

[Grumbler]

Dupuy (sp?) had an analysis in his book "Arab Israeli Wars" and found that it took about 70 SAM's to shoot down an IAF Jabo. The Numbers from Vietnam were just as bad (good?). I don't have the book handy but I think the Chinese should have done better, since they were using SA-2's and SA-3's for the most part. The Eqyptians used mostly SA-7's. The ManPADS have small warheads, less then a kilo in most cases. The process that goes on inside a Jet engine is much more powerful, destructive and HOTTER then anything a 1.8 pound warhead can produce. So the Strella would fly up the exhaust of the Jet and explode, doing no major damage to things designed to suffer MUCH worse in their normal usage then that small warhead was able to produce.
However, if a red light goes on in the cockpit, the jet goes home, which is a mission kill.
The bigger SAMs might have a 100 Kilo warhead, which is basically a large shotgun shell that used a proximity fuse to send out a cloud of projectiles. These are more then capable of blotting a jet fighter from the sky, IF they got close enough. Remember the early SAMs were not as agile nor a lot faster then the fighters. Nor very smart. They flew to a point in space and if they were close enough to what their radar said was a target, they would trigger the warhead. Avoid that point in space and or fool the radar and the missile would miss.
One of the most successful guided missiles was the 'sidewinder' series. IIRC about 1200 war shots produced over 100 kills. Most of the kills were against single engines jets.
Guided missiles are death to helios. The small warhead is more effective against the small, less powerful jets in a helicopter. Maybe I'm pounding your Hawk batteries because I have a bunch of AH's waiting to swoop around your flank and slaughter you armor?