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:
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)