Don’t SAMs usually have a very small explosive payload? It doesn’t take much to take down a plane, if you can hit it.
You don’t even need to hit the plane. If you can get the missile to explode reasonably close enough, the shrapnel alone will bring it down.
The S-200 system (NATO nomenclature SA-5 Gamon) is a no-kidding strategic SAM system , contemporary with and roughly equivalent to the US Nike Zeus system.
The S-200’s eight-ton missile is a potent munition. Its 500-pound warhead accounts for just a fraction of its destructive potential. Any fuel still in its tanks at the moment of impact would add an incendiary effect to its blast effect.
“Fuel left in the tank” is a viable consideration, since the demonstrated ground targets so far have been shorter range than the missile’s 300 km range.
8 me orcses, 8 putin, luv me gamons, simple as.
OK, what the heck kind of anti-air use is a 500 pound warhead intended for? Even against a large formation of many aircraft, I’d expect a number of smaller munitions to be more effective.
Ukraine has a long reach.
This type of attack has always been a concern for US personnel that fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A lot of that warhead weight is fragmentation, so we’re talking about the ability to down a target even if you don’t get very close to it.
But it works out moderately well for ground attack too.
Accuracy in that age was far less than current. Also the older missile weren’t very agile so the designers had to make, “close counts”.
The US Nike Hercules, a contemporary, had a similar warhead. “T-45 HE warhead weighing 1,106 pounds (502 kg) and containing 600 pounds (270 kg) of HBX-6 M17 blast-fragmentation”.
I would note that at this time we don’t know that this was a Ukrainian assassination op. This naval officer reportedly had the position of deputy head of mobilization in Krasnodar, and mobilization offices and personnel have seen numerous arsons and at least one murder in the past.
Last I heard, Sweden was dialling back its vocal support for the Kurds as one quid pro quo. The extent to which Kurds in Sweden will be thrown under a bus remains to be seen. And of course Sweden will support Turkey’s admission to the EU.
But shoring up NATO is an entertaining consequence of Russia’s actions.
This is the most explicit quid pro quo. I would assume backing down on the support of the Kurds would be much less defensible so much less explicit, but I can’t fathom Erdogan settling for anything less.
Reminder, we have a thread for Sweden joining NATO.
Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote "The Duna (Dune) hotel in Berdiansk was on fire last night. Dozens of Russian soldiers were killed in the fire, including at least one general. Russian media have confirmed the death of Oleg Tsokov who oversaw missile strikes on Ukraine.
And that’s the “kinder, gentler” warhead. Most Nike-Hercules missiles were armed with a W31 nuclear warhead of up to 20 kton yield.
But Ukrainians don’t have nukes, so this is neither here nor there.
The point is that the old high altitude long range SAMs had pretty serious warloads.
I would guess that there was some verifiable intel that Tsokov was in the hotel when it was targeted. Hopefully this sends a message to the next general who oversees missile strikes on Ukraine civilians.
Maybe not established fact, but Ukrainian intel seemed to know a whole lot of details about it.
Maybe Russians Against Putin with Ukrainian acknowledgment. “Who will rid me of this turbulent sub captain?”
I do hope the Ukrainians are targeting the competent generals and other high commanders, and leaving the incompetent bumblers untouched.
Macron has announced that France will supply long range missiles to Ukraine:
SCALP missiles are basically the same as Storm Shadows - having been developed jointly with the UK. So the change here is that Ukraine is being resupplied with more of the same sort of long range weapons they’ve been using recently. Russia has little to stop these weapons and they are very accurate.
I’m frustrated that a plan for Nato membership can’t be promised after the war ends. It seems unnecessarily cruel to leave Ukraine with this uncertainty.
The article offers the explanation that there’s uncertainty about how the war will end. Will Russia still control some Ukrainian territory? That seems unlikely but no one knows how this conflict will end.