Self-propelled anti-aircraft weapon
Platforms used include both trucks and heavier combat vehicles such as armoured personnel carriers and tanks, which add protection from aircraft, artillery, and small arms fire for front line deployment.
[1] Between the two World Wars, the United Kingdom developed the Birch gun, a general-purpose artillery piece on an armoured tracked chassis capable of maintaining formation with their current tanks over terrain.
The first modern SPAAG to be produced was most likely the Swedish Landsverk L-62 Anti in 1936, featuring a tracked armoured body with a revolving turret, a so-called anti-aircraft tank.
It was based on a widened chassis of the Landsverk L-60 light tank and was armed with a Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 in an open-top revolving turret.
This was to prevent the weapon from being damaged by long-distance towing across rough, stony deserts, and it was intended only to be a carrying method, with the gun unloaded for firing.
Similar types, based on 3-ton lorries, were produced in Britain, Canada and Australia, and together formed the most numerous self-propelled AA guns in British service.
The U.S. Army brought truck-towed Bofors 40 mm AA guns along with truck-mounted units fitted with mechanized turrets when they sailed, first for Great Britain and then onto France.
The turrets carried four .50 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns, which were designed to be adjusted to converge at the single point where enemy aircraft were expected to appear at low altitude in conduction of strafing runs directed at large infantry and field artillery units.
Interest in mobile AA turned to heavier vehicles with the mass and stability needed to easily train weapons of all sizes.
SPAAG development continued through the early 1950s with ever-larger guns, improving the range and allowing the engagement to take place at longer distances where the crossing angle was smaller and aiming was easier.
The M42 was introduced to the Vietnam War to counter an expected North Vietnamese air offensive, but when this failed to materialize it was used as an effective direct-fire weapon.
This system included search-and-track radars, fire control, and automatic gun-laying, greatly increasing its effectiveness against modern targets.
Examples include the Soviet/Russian Tunguska-M1, which supplanted the ZSU-23 in service, the newer versions of the Gepard, the Chinese Type 95 SPAAA, and the British Marksman turret, which can be used on a wide variety of platforms.
Some forces, like the US Army and USMC have mostly forgone self-propelled guns in favor of systems with short-range infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles in the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger and M6 Linebacker, which do not require radar to be accurate and are generally more reliable and cost-effective to field, though their ability to provide ground support is more limited.
— 4 × QW-2 IR missiles [4] 4 × FN-6 IR missiles [note 1] PGL-XX (Code name 625) 4 to 8 × FN-16 (for PGZ 625E) Thales A3B-T programmed telescoped ammunition (Israeli Aircraft Industries) 4 × FIM-92 Stinger — (Consortium Iveco OTO Melara) "OTO Main Anti-aircraft Tank for Intercept and Combat" "Maneuver Short Range Air Defense" 1 M240 (7.62mm) 4 × FIM-92 Stinger 2 × AGM-114L Hellfire 7.62 × 51 mm — — [16] (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) [note 2] HEI ammunition
