Soldiers fire an anti-aircraft missile using a Russian-made SAM-18 surface-to-air bomber during a live-fire exercise. (Reuters)
On the twenty-seventh of December, the Qassam Brigades announced on its Telegram channel the targeting of helicopters belonging to the occupation state with a "SAM-18" missile in two areas, the first is the Saftawi area north of Gaza City, and the second east of Jabalya camp, this is the first time that this weapon has been used by the resistance, which is an indication of a dangerous development in the context of the current war.
What is the SAM-18 system?
The SAM-18 is a Russian-made, shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile defense system that can hit relatively close air targets, its first versions began in the eighties of the last century, and like a number of similar weapons, Russia made versions for export, currently used in more than 40 countries around the world, including Mexico, Malaysia and South Korea (1) (2).
The system uses an infrared-guided finder to detect the heat signature emitted by aircraft engines, and when the missile is launched from a bomber carried by one person, the engine that pushes it towards the target activates. Meanwhile, the infrared researcher constantly scans the airspace for the target's heat signature, and when the researcher settles on the target, the missile adjusts its trajectory to hit it directly.
(Al Jazeera)
How does SAM-18 benefit resistance?
An important feature of this piece of technology is that it is equipped with a convergent valve (3), a type of valve that automatically detonates when it approaches a certain distance from its target, which it detects through a small radar group that sends signals and receives their reflections from nearby objects. Proximity valves are designed especially for elusive military targets such as aircraft and missiles, and this ensures effective damage to the target via initial detonation fragments, even if the direct impact is not achieved by hitting the aircraft.
The missile is also capable of making corrections to its trajectory in flight, allowing it to engage agile and elusive targets. In addition, the missile is designed to resist countermeasures used by the targeted aircraft, such as firing sparks, flares or other defensive measures aimed at disrupting infrared guidance systems.
The SAM-18 system is known for its reliability and ease of use, as only one man can learn the basics and operate it without assistance and in any weather conditions day or night, which is crucial in combat situations where it is necessary to react quickly.
With Gaza's urban terrain, the ease of use and relatively light weight of the weapon enable resistance soldiers to position themselves excellently in multiple areas, waiting for any helicopter (or drone) that passes within walking distance, as it is designed to operate only at short ranges.
The entry of SAM-18 into the resistance system could clearly change the rules of engagement. If the resistance succeeds in using the system in the coming period very effectively, this will prevent the occupation helicopters from approaching short distances that enable them to target the resistance soldiers and their fortification points more accurately, and will give the resistance a form of air defense that reduces the occupation's exploitation of the skies of Gaza, especially with drones and helicopters, both of which are targets for SAM-18 missiles.
Besides its relatively cheap price versus the price of an Apache helicopter, for example, used by Israel, the SAM-18 represents an excellent opportunity for small, under-equipped armies (such as the Palestinian resistance) to strike a degree of balance with a technologically advanced enemy with non-stop supply lines.
The evolution of the arsenal of resistance
The current confrontations in the war on the Gaza Strip have witnessed an evolution in the military arsenal of the Palestinian resistance (social media)
This is not the first time that the resistance has announced the use of surface-to-air missiles of this type, for example, last year, the Qassam Brigades announced the use of SAM-7 missiles to target some Israeli aircraft during raids on the Gaza Strip, but this is the first time that the SAM-18 was announced to be used in a battle against the occupation army.
The SAM-18 has the same two-kilogram high-explosive warhead found in earlier versions of this missile, but it is quite different (4) in several other ranges compared to the SAM-7 or any previous version, especially in the missile's radars, infrared finder, and aerodynamic improvements, all of which expanded the SAM-18's effectiveness (5200,3500 meters distance, <>,<> meters altitude), and increased its speed so that it can tackle faster targets.
With the new researcher, the probability of hitting a target if it is not protected by jamming devices is estimated to be 30-48%, and with a target using jamming devices, this percentage is only 24-30%, but it is still clearly better than previous versions. Add to this an important point: some newer versions of the SAM-18 are equipped with two missiles that operate sequentially and can be fired directly at the target, raising the likelihood of hitting it.
The above gives us an important idea of the impact of the Palestinian resistance's development of its military arsenal in the current war, and the matter does not stop only at the development of the SAM man-portable missile system, but it is happening on everything, starting with the "Al-Yassin-105" missiles, which are an upgraded anti-armor version of the usual "RPG" missiles, through the sniper Ghoul rifles, which have become very effective in the current battle, and up to the range of the resistance missiles that are reaching deep into the occupation state, and all this has a very influential role in The current war has increased the losses of the occupation to an unprecedented extent, unexpected by the Netanyahu government.
Hamas's Strategy
Add to this an important note, which is that the resistance, as it seems from the beginning, knows that this is a long-term battle, and therefore did not put all the playing cards on the table at once, as its strategic planners know that the enemy will play along the time of the battle, thinking that the resolve of the resistance will weaken with time, and so they chose to show their new weapons gradually, and whenever two to three weeks passed, a weapon used appeared for the first time, we saw this with the storm torpedo, the Rajum missile system, the SAM-18 missiles, and others.
Whenever the warlords in Israel believe that the resistance is not only able to repel intelligently and steadily on a number of fronts, but is still able to target areas outside Gaza with occasional rocket strikes, this is an important signal that it is still fully fit after all that time.
More importantly, the resistance has the ability to perform more complex operations than before, and you may have recently heard about the multiplicity of ambushes inside Gaza and its ability to target larger numbers of Israeli soldiers, because the resistance is now able to set complex multi-purpose ambushes, which are the most difficult types of ambushes, in which multiple firing angles and various weapons are used to inflict as much casualties as possible on the enemy.
This is done in all forms of resistance fighting in this war, as the matter goes beyond the tactics of individual operations, hit-and-run and guerrilla fighting, to reach complex combat operations that take place in coordination between forces or units of distinct types and specialties and with different weapons, in a manner similar to the operations of joint weapons in contemporary regular armies, and this is what represents the main surprise of the resistance for the occupation.
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Sources
Source : Al Jazeera