They would be a waste of money if they were not radar guided and not connected to our central grid, but fortunately they are and for low flying aircrafts they are absolutely lethal. Its the same as using smart munitions, its first burst first hit. Don't worry about our Air Defence; from what i have been told we have the high, medium and low altitudes covered. Unless the Indians develop something equivalent to a Raptor, they cannot close our Air Space without us knowing.
Anti Aircraft Guns are not Blind
All anti aircraft guns whether radar operated / guided or manually operated get the early warnings directly or indirectly from a radar. So this notion of
a manually fed and operated AAK AAK gun working in absolute dark and isolation is not true. They are an integral part of the air defence command. Just like China has its local militia that operates on 37mm guns. We also have Janbaz force that is raised from the locals and they form one of the many layers of our air defence system. They man our most basic or in a way older guns but they are anything but useless. Think of these unguided (in literal sense) AAK AAK guns as a force multiplier. A cluster of such batteries in an area augments the more sophisticated weapons.
Working of a Standard Air Defence system
Any Airdefence coprs in the world like Pakistan would have its own tactical radars up to corps level. (refer to video in the bottom) AD also has local Observation posts manned by mobile teams that inform about any hostile/ unauthorised air activity. The battery commander sits in the command OPs centre and directs the positioning (and fire) once getting information from the tactical radar operators and our mobile observers. Having a centralised air defence command that includes air force as well means that we can share information about any possible air intrusion (as in Pasbaan the video).
Anti Aircraft Artillery barrage
Once the air raid siren sounds, or any other method is used to sound the alarm. all gun positions (within their area of operations) are directed to move/ point their guns to the designated aerial position that is already rehearsed countless times. Every anti aircraft deployment regardless of its size or range is hooked up with the wireless so they will move themselves to, codded, positions and start the artillery barrage once the target is confirmed to be in their aerial chart (if you like) During night time their barrage is fired in a specific pattern to achieve the kill.
Just to clarify that the alert and fire commands are very short and simple words which carry a full rehearsed meaning about range, position, angle etc and whether to start firing or just point the guns to a certain positions.
The Idea is not only to destroy the intruder within their area of effect but also forcing it to alter its course or even to “drum” it to a position where further air defence assets can shoot it down in case it manages to survive the initial anti aircraft guns fire. Think of this fire as the trenches, barbed wire and ditches in the sky that is meant to slow down or forcing the enemy into a Death trap.
Unless if its dark or heavy overcast the gunners (layers in strict Artillery sense) also make use of the very powerful telescopes on the either sides of the gun barrels while sitting in their chairs and moving the horizontal and vertical lines (in their scopes) to make a crosshair and commence firing.
During night or heavy clouds the advance observation posts and command centre with the help of our own radars (plus air force ones if available/ needed) serve as the eyes and the ears and direct the fire in the well rehearsed pattern that either destroys the target or harasses it away from intruding it into their area of defence. In an other words if you call them area denial weapons with sky as an area instead of the surface. The very definition is a system or device that is used to prevent or traversing an area of land (sky in this case).
Reality of War
some of the discussion is stuck into an argument about usefulness of AAK AAK guns that are not radar guided. Fighting War is a very fluid process that can have unpredictable/ unfavourable situations. if communications are knocked down even temporarily then imagine the horror & frustration of people manning guns that are nonresponsive due to ariel jamming (all those years of training & hardwork gone to waste). So all world armies religiously make backup or contingency plans and learn it. (ask US marines why they still practice hand to hand combat & bayonet charge? (when they have M16s, M4 and .50 cals?). therefore in some situations the manually operated AAK AAK guns are a better choiceif you don’t want to give away your radar positions to the enemy when it sends a "bait" to suss out the defences. Imagine a low flying drone or an airborne artillery OP that comes within range of these guns, so instead of sending the Indian scanners all screaming, these guns will shoot down the target without giving away any radar signature, they are also immune to radar jamming by the SEAD operation. Its worth noting that these guns wont have to face the danger of the anti radiation missiles (AGMs) that home in on the electronic transmissions from the ground based radars & the SAM sites. Because there is nothing to track or seek for such anti radiation missiles. (if still not convinced then have a look at the website in the bottom about the Iraqi AAA kills. I have included a picture for reference, Pakistan uses the same Chinese versions)
Multiple Use of Anti-Aircraft Guns
When talking about the conventional anti air craft guns you got to think 2 dimensional (the first being the air role). These guns provide an excellent choice for the ground based suppression fire and taking out lightly armoured enemy vehicles and defending heavy artillery pieces from sneak attacks. In the current context imagine a TTP terrorist high on Hashish driving his vehicle to ram into a check post or an army forward position in Waziristan. I hope all readers understand what would happen to the vehicle & its driver. to obliterate the vehicle at range without any risk to the base & the gunners no radar guidance will be required. Both German 88mm and British 3.7 inch (90mm) heavy anti aircraft guns were used as a very effect anti tank weapon. like while their smaller cousins were used against lightly armoured vehicles & infantry.
Legend of Iraqi AAA during operation desert storm
Like I mentioned earlier, refer to the link in the end under the “more reading”
regarding Allied aircraft losses to Iraqi ground based fire. Over 43% were result from AAA (anti aircraft artillery), 56% from SAMs and 1% due to unknown reasons. Now this is an outstanding performance for an army whose command & control, early warning systems including radars/ sensor arrays etc were decimated in the first wave of relentless Ariel assaults by allied aircrafts. Allies specifically ran SEAD/ wild weasel operations to knock out the Iraqi early warning systems and pretty much knocked out the eyes of the Iraqi air defence.. Following is an interesting read about the role of our AAK AAK regiment in East Pakistan. Like I mentioned in my earlier post. They were the ones that kept fighting till the end until they were told to lay down their weapons by the Dhaka central command.
Pakistan Army Air Defence
http://www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk/AWPReview/TextContent.aspx?pId=22&rnd=451
For More reading/ Analysing
Chinese Type 90 version of Oerlikon produced under licence
Type 90 Twin-35mm Towed Anti-Aircraft Artillery - SinoDefence.com
Anti Radiation missiles
Anti-radiation missile - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wild Weasel/SEAD
Boeing: News Feature - F-4 Phantoms Phabulous 40th
Orlikon & type 65 37mm firing
Allied Air losses in Gulf War
http://www.rjlee.org/aaloss.html
Dual role of Heavy Anti Aircraft Guns
90 mm Gun M1/M2/M3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Military Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations
Military Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations
Pakistan Air Defence (from 1989 Paasban program bit dated but still relevant)
Iraqi AAA
http://image52.webshots.com/152/8/83/68/2660883680032813764UiCsdL_ph.jpg
