NEWSLINK: IHS Jane’s analysis of the capabilities of Ukraine’s missile systems

File Photo of Buk-1 SAM

[“IHS Jane’s analysis of the capabilities of Ukraine’s missile systems” – IHS – press.ihs.com – July 17, 2014]

The IHS Jane’s Missiles & Rockets editor considers the shoot-down of the Malaysian civilian airliner in eastern Ukraine.

An airliner cruising at around 30,000 ft altitude would be well above the coverage of shoulder-fired man-portable missile systems …
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Downing an airliner flying at normal cruise altitude would require a mobile SAM system such as a Kub … or the Buk …

The Kub can cope with targets flying at up to 26,000 ft (8,000 m), so cannot reach the reported cruise height of the airliner. Buk coverage extends up to 72,000 ft (22,000 m). Its maximum range is 32 km.

The firing battery for the Buk ordinarily includes Acquisition Radar, a Command Post and one or more launchers, each major component mobile but ordinarily coordinated with the others.

However, each of the launchers, bearing four radar-guided missiles apiece, can also act autonomously in a stand-alone mode, using its own built-in radar to engage targets.

… a Buk launcher can also operate in stand-alone mode. Its built-in radar is normally used to track the target being engaged, but can be operated in a target-detection mode, allowing it to autonomously engage targets that were present in the radar’s forward field of view.

 

The system’s “friend or foe” safeguard would be limited to picking up whether a target was identifying itself as a “friendly” aircraft, not determining in generalized terms whether a target was a civilian aircraft.  If the system did not receive a responsive signal that it specifically understood, it would not hold fire.

Those operating the Buk system would require training:

Operating Buk hardware would require a trained crew – personnel who are currently trained operators, or who learned how to operate the hardware while serving as conscripts.

Click here for “IHS Jane’s analysis of the capabilities of Ukraine’s missile systems”

File Photo of Buk-1 SAM

 

[featured images are file photos]

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