Some more "Never Beens" for the USA

[baggypants]

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[Suhiir]

From what I recall the biggest problem was they got "creative" with the electronics and software (such as it was in those days) and they could never get the system to perform all the tricks they wanted it to.

[baggypants]

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[PlasmaKrab]

What I gathered from available sources is that the F-16-based radar was just behaving too dumb for AAD missions, e.g. not being able to pick out aircrafts and helos against ground clutter, mistaking the raised gunbarrels for trees or targets, in general not being able to track a crop duster along a field...
By the way, are more details available about the radar/FCS suites of the other contenders depicted above? I guess they didn't make it past the selection for cost issues, so maybe they had some interesting solutions? The Sperry radar suite looks a strong bit like that of the Sergent York's.

Still thinking aloud, how come nothing viable could be produced in all that mess? In the late 70s-early 80s, there were already a number of decent SPAAGs with radar FC available. Weren't some Gepards purchased and "evaluated"? Some captured ZSU-23s shadily imported from Israel? Even some other European systems like the Marksman considered for procurement or adaptation?

[MarkSheppard]

Weren't some Gepards purchased and "evaluated"?

One of the proposals -- I think it was Raytheon's -- was basically to take the Gepard turret and put it onto the M48 chassis -- it would have had about 94% commonality with the European version.

[baggypants]

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[MarkSheppard]

T54E1.