Ukraine Invasion: Part 35

[MagicFox]

We're still here, on 35 🇺🇦

Thanks for this. Although I'm a bit at the quoted section below. US and Polish intelligence have so far concluded that this was not a direct attack on Poland (and they've been clear that they have no evidence to suggest that it was). Feels a bit fanciful to say that Russia was trying to provoke NATO into war (most signs seem to point to that not being the case e.g. increased diplomacy etc.)

"For now, Poland and the US suggest that this was probably a Ukrainian S300 missile that was set to intercept a Russian missile launched against Ukraine. Yet the key question is “Where is the Russian missile or what remains of it?”. The intrigue is: Was the Russian missile launched against Poland and not Ukraine? For now, the West seems to not escalate the situation or to escalate in the way that Russia wanted (e.g. provoking NATO into war).
Yet, the mystery of the second missile can be solved at an opportune moment or Ukraine can be given all that they need to deal with the Russian menace."

For now, Poland and the US suggest that this was probably a Ukrainian S300 missile that was set to intercept a Russian missile launched against Ukraine. Yet the key question is “Where is the Russian missile or what remains of it?”. The intrigue is: Was the Russian missile launched against Poland and not Ukraine? For now, the West seems to not escalate the situation or to escalate in the way that Russia wanted (e.g. provoking NATO into war).
Yet, the mystery of the second missile can be solved at an opportune moment or Ukraine can be given all that they need to deal with the Russian menace."

I think TBH the need to find a "mystery Russian missile" is a bit of a red herring (see my comments upthread about the possibility of SAMs going nowhere near where they were supposed to go). Either the bits in the hole in the ground in Poland are from an S-300 = > Ukranian, or it's a Russian missile..in which case, err => Russian... No real need to look anywhere else to solve this.

I'll assume for now that a Soviet missile fired by Ukraine failed to intercept an incoming Soviet missile fired from Russia. It malfunctioned. It would not have been fired if the second missile wasn't launched.

I think this is correct.

@MMBaranova absolutely! Either way Russia are to blame!

Absolutely agree..whatever happened Russia are very much to blame.

I thought I had posted this, but must have deleted it accidentally.

This is Professor Michael Clarke talking about the missile strike in Poland which killed the two farmers.

He has apparently, according to the comments, misused the word kilotons when he meant kilograms (?), but what he says seems interesting.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=tmW_7arJVhw

Looking at the comments lots on this potential mix up of coordinates. Any thoughts on whether this is just internet conspiracy or is there potentially something in it?

@ScrollingLeaves thanks for the link to Prof Clarke's video.

His opinion is that the crater that was formed is too big for the Ukrainian SAM and must have been mixed in with a larger Russian missile which it intercepted.

This must be what Desdemona's post below on #Arestovych and #Feygin daily broadcast was alluding to:

🔥Poland
Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Kuleba, and other Ukrainian representatives arrived in Poland and will have access to the Polish investigation. While not just Ukraine but also Belarus and Russia have S300 complexes, every missile is cataloged and can be eventually traced to its owner.
For now, Poland and the US suggest that this was probably a Ukrainian S300 missile that was set to intercept a Russian missile launched against Ukraine. Yet the key question is “Where is the Russian missile or what remains of it?”. The intrigue is: Was the Russian missile launched against Poland and not Ukraine? For now, the West seems to not escalate the situation or to escalate in the way that Russia wanted (e.g. provoking NATO into war).
Yet, the mystery of the second missile can be solved at an opportune moment or Ukraine can be given all that they need to deal with the Russian menace.

Sadly I'm afraid the prof has got it wrong when it comes to the warhead size, and I don't just mean the continued confusion over kilotonnes...

He's goes on about a 25kg warhead. That's the right sort of right for many modern SAM but the S-300 family are an oddity in having (depending on the exact variant) anything up to a 150 kg warhead, in part due to the secondary surface to surface role.

Comments elsewhere I've seen from those who have worked with military explosives and have also seen pictures of the hole in the ground in Poland reckon the crater is about the right size for an S-300...there's no need to start theorising about wild ideas such as two missiles getting tangled up.

Well firstly that theory would only come into play if we are still considering a Russian ballistic missile was involved - it's certainly not a factor with a SAM.

In the ballistic missile context there's been a few of these theories knocking around, usually involving Latitude and longitudes either being partially transposed or errors in integer values.

I know from my last day job in civil aviation that a tremendous lot of effort was made to avoid data entry errors with lat/long - in fact we used to avoid manually entering lat/long whenever we could and tried to use other methods/formats/notations to define positions.

Hypothetically if the Russians used lat/long for target position input and not some other format such as a grid reference, and if the data entry was done manually rather than, say being transferred to the missile electronically via some sort of fancy mapping software then I guess such an error could have happened.

TBH this is probably more something for @MissConductUS and ther army types but I have to emphasise it's not going to be an error which is going to cause a SAM to go astray.

Thanks, absolutely fascinating.

I forgot to say that the professor was talking on Times Radio.

Igotjelly · Today 19:52
Looking at the comments lots on this potential mix up of coordinates. Any thoughts on whether this is just internet conspiracy or is there potentially something in it
Igotjelly
I asked MissConduct and notimagain about this last night, and about S300 missiles though I didn’t post the link to the person writing about the conflated coordinates.

MussConduct sent a link to an article about using S300 for ground to ground.

She also said, after I asked, that there is no way of knowing from where Russian missiles aimed at Lviv are coming, and would be kept secret anyway.

notimagain pointed out the greater likelihood of a simpler explanation.

Thanks, no idea how I missed that discussion, will have a look.

Denys Davisov was writing about the coordinates. I happened to see a link in comments to a Telegraph article I posted yesterday. Denys Davidov may be on Telegram (?). Perhaps someone knows if he is a conspiracy theory type.

Igotjelly · Today 20:38

“notimagain · Today 20:24
Well firstly that theory would only come into play if we are still considering a Russian ballistic missile was involved - it's certainly not a factor with a SAM.

In the ballistic missile context there's been a few of these theories knocking around, usually involving Latitude and longitudes either being partially transposed or errors in integer values.

I know from my last day job in civil aviation that a tremendous lot of effort was made to avoid data entry errors with lat/long - in fact we used to avoid manually entering lat/long whenever we could and tried to use other methods/formats/notations to define positions.

Hypothetically if the Russians used lat/long for target position input and not some other format such as a grid reference, and if the data entry was done manually rather than, say being transferred to the missile electronically via some sort of fancy mapping software then I guess such an error could have happened.

TBH this is probably more something for @MissConductUS and ther army types but I have to emphasise it's not going to be an error which is going to cause a SAM to go astray.”

Thanks, absolutely fascinating

It is.

notimagain, I was just reading through the comments on the Denys Davidov site where I saw this. Someone said that modern systems don’t allow for these lat and long mistakes and would not be using the data D D was mentioning - so exactly along the lines of the arguments you are bringing up. Someone else replied that, well, Russians were using hopeless maps at the start of the war, what’s to say they weren’t using manual systems?

nitimagain why do you say it’s not going to be an error which is going to cause a SAM to go astray? I think the idea may be that it was not being used surface to air.

Russians have been known to adapt
them for ground to ground strikes possibly because of too few missiles.

The other question MissConduct answered was when I asked, (as I was wondering about the range for S300 ground to ground reaching Poland)
whether Russians might be striking from south Belarus? She thought not as NATO would know.

If people want the link to the DD theory on you tube I could send it as pm, but it may well all be too conspiracy theorist to be wise to put it here.

nitimagain why do you say it’s not going to be an error which is going to cause a SAM to go astray? I think the idea may be that it was not being used surface to air.

It's OK, I know you'd realise that but I was covering all the bases, so to speak.

Believe it or not I've seen some discussion of this theory elsewhere during which it became clear somebody thought latitude and longitude might be relevant to targeting in the SAM role 😱.....quite how they thought it could be used to define the position of a fast moving target I don't know...it would certainly need very quick typing.

notimagain · Today 21:32
Believe it or not I've seen some discussion of this theory elsewhere during which it became clear somebody thought latitude and longitude might be relevant to targeting in the SAM role 😱.....quite how they thought it could be used to define the position of a fast moving target I don't know...it would certainly need very quick typing.

🤭😂😝

Blimey, I've popped out to do my shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and get home to see myself being quoted all over the place. 😀

Here's the explanation that makes the most sense to me. I think an American AWACS aircraft was on patrol at the time and tracked both the Russian cruise missile and the S300 that Ukraine launched to intercept it. That's why US intelligence was able to say so quickly that it had been launched from Ukrainian territory.

When used in surface-to-air mode, the S300 uses radar guidance, both from a ground-based radar head and a homing radar in the nose of the missile. The AWACS has a radar sensor that would have detected both. When used in ground attack mode, the S300 missiles use inertial guidance with no radar guidance from the ground or the missile itself. Therefore, a missile used in ground attack mode would have a different signature. That's why I don't find the idea of it being Russian launched very probable. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as they say.

And if you're wondering, I found a lovely 12-pound free range/organic fresh turkey, so we will eat well next week.

quite how they thought it could be used to define the position of a fast moving target I don't know...it would certainly need very quick typing

As the ice hockey legend Wayne Gretsky said, you have to skate to where the puck is going, not where the puck is now. 😂

Absolutely - With Air to air radar guided missiles something is radiating radio energy which is something potentially detectable by external agencies if they have the right kit in the right place with enough sensitivity. As you say surface to surface ordnance using inertial is not detectable by the same means since there are no radio emissions.

I think main the query from me last night was regarding the (slightly left of field) corrupt data theory for a hypothetical ballistic missile. I wondered if you knew whether data entry in things like MLRS etc was done long hand using altitude/longitude or grid or whether it was done in a manner to reduce the opportunity for operator error.

...

Fascinating.

As an aside, I thought a free range 12 pounder was a howitzer. But a turkey you say...

.MissConductUS · Yesterday 22:52
Blimey, I've popped out to do my shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and get home to see myself being quoted all over the place. 😀

Here's the explanation that makes the most sense to me. I think an American AWACS aircraft was on patrol at the time and tracked both the Russian cruise missile and the S300 that Ukraine launched to intercept it. That's why US intelligence was able to say so quickly that it had been launched from Ukrainian territory

When used in surface-to-air mode, the S300 uses radar guidance, both from a ground-based radar head and a homing radar in the nose of the missile. The AWACS has a radar sensor that would have detected both. When used in ground attack mode, the S300 missiles use inertial guidance with no radar guidance from the ground or the missile itself. Therefore, a missile used in ground attack mode would have a different signature. That's why I don't find the idea of it being Russian launched very probable. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as they say.=

And if you're wondering, I found a lovely 12-pound free range/organic fresh turkey, so we will eat well next week

Thank you, that is a very clear explanation about how the missile works in the two different modes - with radar to intercept an in coming missile in the air, without radar when used in the ground to ground mode for attack. It explains that the missile that landed in Poland must have been used as surface to air because its radar was tracked.by the American AWACS plane.

Would the American AWACS plane have a record of every incoming Russian missile and outgoing,intercepting Ukrainian defence missile used in that area that night?

Quoting from your post,
I think an American AWACS aircraft was on patrol at the time and tracked both the Russian cruise missile and the S300 that Ukraine launched to intercept it.

I am not quite sure if this is something you know for sure, or you are surmising that this seems very likely. If the former:

Would they know that this radar tracked S300 was the very same one that landed in Poland? Did the plane’s tracker track it to its landing place in Poland?
There were a huge number of incoming Russian missiles that night (90?). Though not all in that one area obviously, you’d expect quite a lot near Lviv. Would the plane get a record of every one, or was this a chance snapshot of that airspace at that moment?

I wonder why this clear explanation about the American proof hasn’t been explained and the proof shown to Ukraine, and the public?

I was also wondering what you think about the size of the crater in Poland, which Professor Michael Clarke (speaking on Times Radio, I linked to yesterday) said was bigger than one would expect? Would you consider it to be a normal size for one created by an errant defence S300 in radar mode? So sorry if you did say before.

May your Thanksgiving preparations go well, MissConduct. Thank you, and notimagain, for your infinite patience with these military questions.

It explains that the missile that landed in Poland must have been used as surface to air because its radar was tracked.by the American AWACS plane.

Don't want to sound "short" but we need to back this up a bit.

We really need to avoid jumping to conclusions based on general statements about what might be possible./might have happened.

There's no evidence I've seen that there was an AWACS over Poland that night (see previous post) and I've not read a statement to that effect. I am howvere more than happy to be pointed in the direction of statements that says one was there.

Yes, in theory any radar guided missile and/or it's fire control radar emits signals that can be detected but I very deliberately inserted: " something potentially detectable by external agencies if they have the right kit in the right place with enough sensitivity" in my previous post.

There's absolutely no information as far as I know that would lead us to believe with a high degree of certainty that any such equipment was in the area around Lviv.

We also really need to understand that intelligence gathering resources are limited so it's highly unlikely anybody has visibility of what's going on over the whole of Ukraine 24/7/52 in really fine detail, down to all the signals being emitted.. chance are any such resources will be in the main observing the battlefield area and adjacent areas of Russia, there won't be much interest in areas several hundred kilometres back. It's not impossible any SAM firing went completely unnoticed, or pretty much un-noticed.

I wondered if you knew whether data entry in things like MLRS etc was done long hand using altitude/longitude or grid or whether it was done in a manner to reduce the opportunity for operator error.

Normally the target lat/longitude would be downloaded over the satellite comms link, but they can be keyed in directly by the crew. I think that in either case the fire control system displays a map to let the crew see the target location as a check against error.

It explains that the missile that landed in Poland must have been used as surface to air because its radar was tracked.by the American AWACS plane.

I don't have confirmation that it was seen by an AWACS, I am simply surmising it based on the available data. America and other NATO countries have AWACS and signals intelligence gathering aircraft in the area on a very regular basis.

Would the American AWACS plane have a record of every incoming Russian missile and outgoing,intercepting Ukrainian defence missile used in that area that night?

AWACS has a detection range of about 200 miles, so if the Ru missiles or the Ukrainian SAMs were within that radius, the AWACS would have seen and recorded them.

Would they know that this radar tracked S300 was the very same one that landed in Poland? Did the plane’s tracker track it to its landing place in Poland?
There were a huge number of incoming Russian missiles that night (90?). Though not all in that one area obviously, you’d expect quite a lot near Lviv. Would the plane get a record of every one, or was this a chance snapshot of that airspace at that moment?

When an AWACS identifies a target, it's given a number and category based on flight characteristics. It's tracked continuously by that unique number for as long as the AWACS can see it.

I wonder why this clear explanation about the American proof hasn’t been explained and the proof shown to Ukraine, and the public?

There's no controversy over it in the US and military sensor data is never made public and it's normally only shared with allies who have the same capability. That's why military grade satellite photos are never published. I don't know what was shared with Ukraine, but it likely wasn't the raw data.

We really need to avoid jumping to conclusions based on general statements about what might be possible./might have happened.

I agree completely.

There's no evidence I've seen that there was an AWACS over Poland that night (see previous post) and I've not read a statement to that effect. I am howvere more than happy to be pointed in the direction of statements that says one was there.

Neither have I. That's why I said "Here's the explanation that makes the most sense to me. I think an American AWACS aircraft was on patrol at the time"

Apologies if I've missed anything. Coffee. I need more coffee.