Weapons on Display: Voluntary & Involuntary

In the sky above Moscow, flights of Soviet jets in tight formation spelled out the word Lenin and the arabic numeral 50 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. As Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev and Premier Aleksei Kosygin looked on from an airport on the city's outskirts, the Soviet military last week put on a rare demonstration of new military aircraft; the last such display was six years ago. To Western observers, the Moscow show also spelled out something else: a new direction in Soviet airpower.

In the past, the Russians concentrated on long-range strategic bombers and fast-climbing interceptors. Now they have developed more flexible aircraft that are suited for non-nuclear dustups in such rugged places as Viet Nam and the Middle East. In the process, the Soviets appear to have overtaken the West in building aircraft that can take off and land vertically and adjust their wings for slow or supersonic flight.

On display was a new fighter that rose vertically from the field like a helicopter, for about 150 feet, then darted off in near-supersonic flight; in the West, only the French Mirage III-V and the British P.1127 have a comparable performance. The Russians also showed off a new swing-wing fighter, similar in design to the controversial U.S. F-111 (originally known as the TFX), that was designed to operate from rough, short runways. All the new fighter-bombers in the flyby were equipped with auxiliary engines for quick take-offs from short, unsurfaced fields.

Sinai SAM. The Moscow show provided Western experts with just a glimpse of new Soviet weaponry. A more leisurely look has recently been made possible through the courtesy of the Israelis, who captured tons of the latest Soviet equipment from the fleeing Egyptians. At bases in the Sinai and in Israel, the Israelis have been showing off some of the weaponry to Western technicians and, on at least one occasion, even lending it out. The U.S. sent transport planes to Israel to pick up three captured MIG-21s, the Soviet Union's best fighters. Two MIG-21s, the first ever to fall into U.S. hands, are being test-flown at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The third is being evaluated in laboratories at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Since MIG-21s sometimes challenge U.S. pilots over North Viet Nam, the Air Force hopes to learn things that will be useful in the air war there.

An even more serious loss for the Russians was the half-dozen SAM ground-to-air missiles that, along with their computers, guidance equipment and fueling systems, fell into Israeli hands at an Egyptian base near the Suez Canal. Though the U.S. has already deduced a great deal about SAM's capabilities (it can fly at 2,600 m.p.h. and reach 60,000 feet) and limitations (it cannot execute sharp turns) from intelligence reports and from its performance in North Viet Nam, close study of the Sinai SAMs will give scientists invaluable information. Israel has already passed on to the U.S. some of its data about the captured SAMs.

An examination of the SAMs will reveal a great deal not only about Soviet weaponry but also about the precise state of Soviet electronic engineering and manufacturing techniques, both intimately involved in the Soviet space effort. Moreover, a study of the SAMs should enable U.S. ordnance experts to devise countermeasures to jam the guidance instructions that SAMs receive from ground radar stations. Since the Soviet Union's air-defense system from the Urals to the Pacific is built around SAMs, there is certain to be some brooding among Soviet defense chiefs about what to do now that the equipment has been compromised. Some Western military men believe that the Russians may feel compelled to replace SAMs with other missiles, or at least carry out extensive modifications of them.

Night Eyes. The Israelis also reaped a harvest of more conventional armaments that are particularly interesting to U.S. experts because increasing quantities of new Soviet infantry and artillery weapons are turning up in Viet Nam. One captured artillery piece is so new that it has not yet been shown in a Moscow May Day parade. It is a 130-mm. M63 rifle that can fire six 70-lb. shells per minute on a deadly flat trajectory at targets as distant as 17 miles. This is the gun, the U.S. believes, that is shelling Marine emplacements along the DMZ with such shattering effectiveness.

Also captured were a number of the latest-model Soviet medium tank, the T-55, outfitted with infra-red gun sights for night warfare and an inertial-guidance system for keeping on course in the trackless desert. Another find: an antitank missile called the Shmel (Russian for "bumblebee") that is fired from a Jeep-type vehicle, is guided by a wire umbilical cord for up to 1 1/2 miles, and carries a high-explosive punch so powerful that it can blow up any tank in existence. Only one Israeli tank was destroyed during the war by a Shmel, but the Israelis believe that had the Egyptians been more competent, the missile would have done much more damage.

The Israeli booty and the Moscow show point to one blunt conclusion: while continuing to increase their fleet of nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles and starting the construction of a costly antimissile defense system, the Soviets are also pressing ahead with a broad range of planes and weapons for every aspect of conventional war.

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