# Super Rapid Blooming Overhead Chaff **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 13, 2021, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-rapid-blooming-overhead-chaff/944169 "2021-06-13T13:18:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2021, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-rapid-blooming-overhead-chaff/944169/21 "2021-06-16T18:44:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@Dissonance](#): > > > > During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War [Israeli vessels were “targeted by as many as 52 Soviet-made anti-ship missiles”, but none hit their targets.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War#Naval_War) How much of that was due to chaff/flares and how much was due to ECM is anyone’s guess. > > Also don’t forget to account for how much was due to the missiles just sucking. Remember all those stories from the 1990s Gulf War, about Patriot missiles shooting down Scuds? It turns out that almost all of those were just the Scuds failing on their own. That isn’t the case here. The missiles in question were [SS-N-2 Styx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-15_Termit), which left to their own devices are rather accurate. It’s first combat use, and also the first ever sinking of a ship by anti-ship missiles, was in 1967 when the Israeli destroyer [_Eilat_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Zealous_(R39)#Service_as_Eilat) sank after being hit by 3 out of 4 Styx’s fired at it by a pair of Egyptian Komar class missile boats. The IDF took this lesson to heart in developing the countermeasures that were so successful in the 1973 war, though as I said how much of the success was due to chaff/flares and how much was due to jamming is anyone’s guess, as far as I know the IDF has never given specifics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-rapid-blooming-overhead-chaff/944169.md?page=1)