Deployment and History
As well as the USSR/Russia, there are many export customers for this system, including Cuba, Greece (from the former East Germany), Poland, Syria, Ecuador and Iraq. In late 80's Cuba deployed several SA-8 units in southern Angola and posed a significant threat to South African air superiority at shorter ranges. Iraq used Osa systems during the 1991 Gulf War. South African 61 Mechanised Battalion Group captured a complete SA-8 anti-aircraft missile system on 3 October 1987 during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. This was the first time that such a system had ever fallen into non-Warsaw Pact forces hands, giving Western intelligence agencies an opportunity to examine an important Soviet-bloc weapon system. The system was also seen used in the 2008 South Ossetia War by both Georgians and Russians. Libyan SA-8s were used and some destroyed during the 2011 Libyan war.
Read more about this topic: 9K33 Osa
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)