SA-6 Gainful batteries are composed by self-propelled vehicles to give much more tactical capability. This system is often supplemented by self-propelled AA guns such as the ZSU-23-4 Shilka.The missile is subdivided into 5 sections from tip to tail, being: radar, explosive charge, avionics, fuel tank and propulsion device.SA-6 Gainful is operated in batteries made up of 3 launch vehicles, 1 radar vehicle and 1 loader vehicle. Radar and launchers are track vehicles but the loader is usually a wheeled 6×6 truck.They usually deploy about 5 km away from the front line and can detect enemies at about 75 km with their “Straight Flush” radar. The missile’s illumination and guidance is limited to 28 km.The warhead is of the pre-fragmented type and is composed by 40 kg of high explosive and 40 kg of fragmented metal with a lethal radius of about 30m.This missile had a 320 Kp accelerator rocket that boosts it to Mach 1.5 in just three seconds. Afterwards, the ram rocket propeller system accelerates it to a maximum of Mach 2.8.Each radar vehicle has a detection and acquisition radar, a tracking and illuminating radar, a radio transmitter, an IFF interrogator and a computer calculator as main equipment. The TEL, (Transport, Erector Launcher), 1S91, is a derivative of the Soviet PT-76 light tank, but it is not amphibious and lacks armour. It carries three ready to fire missiles.A 6×6 Zil-131 truck is assigned to each battery as a loader vehicle. It carries two missiles and a hydraulic crane to handling them.SA-6 Gainful has been present in all the Wars fought in the Middle East. The Egyptians 2K12 KUBs, (on the image), were released during the 1973 Sinai combats with excellent results.These systems belonged to Egyptian Army, which combined the SA-6 missile with the P.15 “Flat Face” radar. Because the new radar had much more range than the original, this allowed a great improvement of the complete system.In 1967, at the same time that the SA-6 entered service, a more capable version was requested, and in 1973, the 2K12 Kub M.1 model appeared. Subsequent improvements resulted in the Kub M.3 and Kub M.4 variants.Following the experience gained in the Yom Kippur War, in the Kub M.1 model were slightly improved the reponse time, the engagement range, the engagement altitude and the capacity to resist enemy’s ECMs.
