The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine detailed the combat operations of one of the S-125 air defense system crews. The publication itself draws attention as it highlights the urgent need for Ukraine to acquire more modern air defense systems.
The crew of this S-125 achieved an outstanding combat result by shooting down approximately fifty long-range enemy missiles and UAVs, using an anti-aircraft missile system that literally dates back to the 1960s and has a corresponding technological level.
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"We don’t have the luxury of working in automatic mode like modern Western systems. We have to manually set the azimuths, monitor the angular coordinates of the targets, and control the antenna settings each time. The algorithm for shooting down enemy targets is multistep and quite complex. Additionally, we must always check the missiles for functionality, as most of them are from the 1970s and 1980s," said Lev, the commander of the S-125 launch battery.
"An ongoing issue is the constant change of positions. The system is stationary, so moving it from place to place is quite a challenging task. Often, something goes wrong due to the age of the SAM system. Therefore, even when there is no combat action, we always have something to do," added the commander.
All of these underscores how challenging the conditions are for Ukrainian sky defenders. It also highlights that modern Western air defense systems are important not only for their specifications, but also for their better ergonomics in facilitating the work of their crews.
Earlier, Defense Express in its publications wrote about how to shoot down a Ka-52 with an S-300 and how often the same S-300 needs repairs.
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