No evidence as such, but an interesting theory.
The Iranian suicide drones are quite small – “50kg” and I am not sure that is 50kg of TNT.
MedEwok wrote:
Would be a good time to reconquer Königsberg. The strategic value of robbing the Russians of their only ice-free baltic sea port is enormous.However, the west is much too afraid of
a) Russias nuclear weapons
b) looking like an aggressor
Clearly this would be an act of war and whoever would invade Kaliningrad would correctly be identified as an agressor. And I am fairly sure that if there was a reason which would give Putin the trigger to use nuclear response to any such invasion, Kaliningrad would qualify.
If NATO were pulled into the conflict in an active role however, Kaliningrad would be a target for sure and one which would hurt Russia. If you recall what happened when the transit route was closed for a while, there is not much doubt what would happen if the Oblast was attacked up front.
Graham wrote:
Perhaps I misunderstand, but I always assumed a cruise missile was a big, expensive object with a big, destructive payload. The kind of thing that reduces whole buildings to rubble. Some of the pictures show buildings that look like they’ve been hit by an artillery shell, a small rocket or even a mortar.
Cruise missiles are devices which are capable of “cruising flight” rather than being ballistic missiles which go up, run out of fuel, and crash down to earth again. So they usually are not “missiles” in the real sense (as in having rocket motors) but actually mostly have jet engines and wings. However, what payload they carry can be hugely various. they can carry anything from nuclear war heads to cluster bombs to shell like materials.
If you remember the WW2 missiles used by Germany, the V1 would, with todays definition, be rather a cruise missile type of weapon, whereas the V2 was a ballistic missile.
Currently it is difficult to determine exactly what is used there. It can be anything from the so called “Kamikaze Drones” towards real missiles, hence the damage done can vary hugely.
I completely agree with @Mooney_Driver’s comments in post #818 above.
Peter wrote:
Are you sure that is how a BUK works?
When I was in the army (30+ years ago) we used to operate older version of the same system (KUB). Ground radar was used for initial target lock and steering and then later on rocket’s on-board radar took over. It was susceptible to radar distraction and deception with chaffs.
later on rocket’s on-board radar took over.
It had to be fairly close. The BUK also had other terminal guidance options, depending on model.
Peter wrote:
Are you sure that is how a BUK works?
What was written at the time by people who know the system was, that they did not have the ground radar available yet so they fired the missile into the general direction of the airplane and hoped for the on board radar to take over. Which it did in some cases.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
What was written at the time by people who know the system was, that they did not have the ground radar available yet so they fired the missile into the general direction of the airplane and hoped for the on board radar to take over. Which it did in some cases.
Maybe it can work that way but according to Yugoslav SOP at that time, it wasn’t allowed.
Emir wrote:
Maybe it can work that way but according to Yugoslav SOP at that time, it wasn’t allowed.
For obvious reasons I reckon. And it also shows the recklessness with which it was used.
The “funny” thing about this incident is that Russia could have easily stated yes, it was the Rebells but they did something criminal with equipment they were not supposed to have which Russia condemns. They could have gotten out of this better than they did, but decided to lie about it and look like total idiots.