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| International |
| Terrorist Missiles Versus Airliners |
| 2003-08-14 |
| From StrategyPage, EFL: An Indian arms dealer was caught trying to illegally import a Russian SA-18 Igla shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile to an FBI agent posing as an Islamic terrorist. Terrorists trying to take down airliners with portable missiles has been a threat for a long time. Actually, over the last thirty years, it’s been a reality. Some 29 commercial aircraft have been shot down by such missiles. However, the downed aircraft have been small, and most of these tragedies have taken place in Africa. The wars in Africa are the worst on the planet, so violent that most journalists avoid them. For three decades, this has kept the use of portable missiles against civilian aircraft off the front page. Larger airliners, like the Airbus’s, and 757s, 767s and 747s, have not been brought down because these missiles were not designed to take on aircraft with such large and powerful engines. While these missiles were originally intended for use against jet fighters operating over the battlefield, the reality turned out to be different. The most likely targets encountered were helicopters, or propeller driven transports. These aircraft proved to be just the sort of thing twenty pound missiles with 2-3 pound warheads could destroy. Against jet fighters with powerful engines, the missiles caused some damage to the tailpipe, but usually failed to bring down the jet. This was first noted during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, where the Egyptians fired hundreds of SA-7s at Israeli A-4 light bombers. Most of the A-4s, with their 11,187 pounds of thrust engines, survived the encounter. Larger jets, like the F-4 and it’s 17,000 pound thrust engines, were even more difficult to bring down. Smaller commercial jets, like the 737 or DC-9 (each using two 14,000 pounds of thrust engines) have proved vulnerable. But a 757 has much larger engines with 43,000 pounds of thrust, and the 747 is 63,000. Moreover, the rear end of jet engines are built to take a lot of punishment from all that hot exhaust spewing out. Put a bird into the front of the engine and you can do some real damage. But these missiles home in on heat, and all of that is at the rear end of the engine. If terrorists target helicopters and smaller turboprop commuter airliners, or business jets, they are likely to take down aircraft better than half the time a missile is used. This takes into account poorly trained missile operators and defective missiles. And a lot of the missile operators will be poorly trained, and, like November, 2002 incident in Mombassa, using missiles built over two decades ago. They won’t be using any of the Stingers the U.S. gave out in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The custom battery packs in those missiles gave out in the 1990s. It’s a lot easier to get Russian missiles, and fresh batteries for them. There are several hundred thousand portable surface-to-air missiles out there, but most of them are older models like the SA-7. Many of these are defective from old age, or rough treatment. This is known because of the consistently poor performance of these older missiles. Also keep in mind that, with all those missiles out there, and so many terrorists (not just Islamic ones) eager to use them against civilians, very few are used. Many of the terrorists know that most of those SA-7s are crap, and that explains why they are looking for the harder to get modern missiles. Interesting article. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #6 That's very evil of you, Paul. But you forgot the GPS locator beacon, track them from place to place before they have a "work acident". |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-8-14 3:20:55 PM |
| #5 I say we let loose a bunch of "Stingers" onto the black market with a couple product enhancements... (1) Propellant ignites if any attempt is made to inspect the motor (2) Warhead detonates when trigger is pulled and the guidance system engages - vaporizing the operator. (3) Entire weapon explodes if any attempt made to diasassemble or otherwise inspect. Paul |
| Posted by: Paul Perkins 2003-8-14 3:06:57 PM |
| #4 11A5S and Mike: Thank you, gentlemen! That's what I love about Rantburg--the diverse backgrounds and expertise! :-) |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-8-14 1:37:55 PM |
| #3 Dar- I was trained (unofficially) on Stinger in the 80s and was responsible for maintaining them in storage. I can give you a bit of info: *AFAIK, all MANPADS are solid fueled with noncorrosive fuel. However, storage conditions need to be fairly stable, otherwise you're risking temperature-induced problems with the motors. In addition, transporting them is something to be careful with because they are heavy, and dropping them or throwing them around - even in their cases - could crack or shatter the motor, which will lead to a very spectacular visual display when you pull the trigger. *On Stinger, batteries were stored separately by the USAF - dont know if that was the same for the other services. The batteries do have a fairly long shelf life, but once the're opened up, it's not long. As Mr Dunnigan points out, the original Stinger batteries in Afghanistan went bad long ago. *My experience has been that the launchers and missiles come in separate cases. The launchers are reusuable, but each one has different standards as to how many times. The cases are fiberglass, but they have been known to crack. *Stinger at least is a sealed round - in THEORY, it's got an infinte shelf life if maintained properly. I don't remember what Stinger's is, but 3-4 years seems to stick in my mind. Then they're sent back to depot, opened up, checked out, and resealed. The point to keep in mind here is that any MANPAD is a fairly delicate piece of equipment, and if its not stored or maintained by the book, you are risking serious problems when it comes time to use them. One other thing - to knock down a modern airliner would require a tail shot - popping up and launching as the plane passes over you. Your problems here are that the missile's warhead may not arm in the fairly short distance between the launch point and the plane. You will have to be in the wide open spaces around the airport - if you're in a built up area with anything except Stinger or the UK's MANPADS, there's too much chance you'll end up engaging another heat source. Airliner engines burn comparitively cool compared to military engines, so that's another problem. The warheads are fairly small frag units - a core of HE wrapped with notched wire that creates an expanding cloud of fragments. On a small military aircraft, where every inch is packed with systems of some sort, you stand an excellent chance of doing serious if not fatal damage. However on a civilian airliner, most of the airplane is - compared to a military aircraft - empty space. That's not to say no damage would be done, but it would take a salvo of 3-4 missiles, all of which would have to hit, to guarantee bringing it down. That complicates the actual attack to the point where getting 4 guys to pop up simultaneously, hit the plane, then get away, could be very problematical. HTH, Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2003-8-14 1:25:52 PM |
| #2 Hi Dar: One of the main issues is calibration. It has to be done every so often. If you don't have a lab to do it, the missile becomes useless after a few years. Witness all the recent attacks in Iraq, Afganistan, Kenya in which the missile didn't go anywhere near the target. Some of the missiles require a coolant bottle for the IR seeker, too. Shelf life varies widely based on storage conditions. There are tables to de-rate the shelf life based on temp, dust exposure, exposure to humidity, etc. I wouldn't want to see those on the web. If the missile is in the packing case (like a giant aluminum briefcase) they'll last a long time. If not, again, derate it. So between batteries, calibration, storage issues, and sometimes coolant bottles, it's a bitch for the terrorists to keep them flying. My experience come from other kinds of missiles, but the general principles are all the same. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-8-14 1:05:18 PM |
| #1 I'm curious if we have any AD types here that could comment on this. I'm curious about how long shoulder-launched SAMs might last on the shelf. |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-8-14 11:25:17 AM |