EXCLUSIVE: Libyan missiles looted

[bvar22]

Source: CNN

TRIPOLI, Libya (CNN) - A potent stash of Russian-made surface-to-air missiles is missing from a huge Tripoli weapons warehouse amid reports of weapons looting across war-torn Libya.

They are Grinch SA-24 shoulder-launched missiles, also known as Igla-S missiles, the equivalent of U.S.-made Stinger missiles.

<snip>

Grinch SA-24s are designed to target front-line aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones. They can shoot down a plane flying as high as 11,000 feet and can travel 19,000 feet straight out.



Read more: http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/07/exclusive-libyan-missiles-looted/

---

On the CNN broadcast, they are reporting that over 20,000 of these Shoulder Fired Heat Seeking Missals have "disappeared" in Libya.

According to Wikipedia,
the SA-24 is "The newest variant, which is a substantially improved variant with longer range, more sensitive seeker, improved resistance to latest countermeasures, and a heavier warhead."

Very Bad News for American Occupation forces if these show up in the wrong hands.
Very Bad news for Commercial Aviation if these wind up on the Black market and fall into Terrorist's hands.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Should at least remove the need

for a no fly zone to be maintained. :sarcasm:

[bvar22]

3. That was one of the first questions that came to my mind.

If Libyan Troops had 20,000 of these,
why didn't they use them?

[dipsydoodle]

6. The rebels didn't have any planes

and the coalition of the stupid were probably firing from long range. As such the Libyan Army had nothing to use them against.

[stockholmer]

15. The 'Grinch SA-24 shoulder-launched missile' that stole X-mas and gave it to al-Qaeda

:argh:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

19. If some countries didn't create the "need" for these missiles in peoples' minds, then

some countries wouldn't find a market for them, perhaps, every action produces a reaction.

[TheWraith]

2. "American occupation forces"? You mean the ones that don't exist?

In any event, these were most likely cached for the use of Ghaddafi's remaining loyalists in guerrilla warfare. They're not really much of a threat to commercial aviation, since their effective range is very short, intended for use against ground attack and close-air-support aircraft.

[bvar22]

8. There ARE other American Occupation Forces in the Middle East,

...and there ARE reports of AlQaeda ties to the Libyan "Rebels".

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html


Libya: al-Qaeda acquires weapons
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8743276/Libya-al-Qaeda-acquires-weapons.html


..but I'm glad you're not concerned.

[TheWraith]

20. So they're going to smuggle missiles halfway around the planet to Afghanistan?

Missiles that have already been used there?

And the Telegraph is just doing it's job, repeating the same right-wing talking points about how Obama is supporting Al Qaeda. It is, after all, a conservative newspaper.

[bvar22]

23. Halfway around the planet?

You really need to brush up on your Geography.
Seen any maps lately?

[applegrove]

4. Saw someone talking about this on the news 2 days into the fall of Tripoli. He said those

shoulder launched missiles would be the big thing that needs to be secured and he was right.

[elleng]

5. Very Bad News for the world.

Damn.

[Auntie Bush]

11. Maybe some rebels factions stole them and not Gaddafi's soldiers

[elleng]

13. Whomever; I don't think it matters.

Gaddafi's guys would be better for us all, imo. 'Rebels' could be anyone,from anywhere. As post #12 says, AlQ.

[bvar22]

17. The "Rebel Factions" DID take them.

Gaddafi got them from Russia.

The "Rebels" also have documented ties to AlQaeda.

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=102&topic_id=4987527&mesg_id=4987558

Libya: al-Qaeda acquires weapons
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8743276/Libya-al-Qaeda-acquires-weapons.html

[Amonester]

7. If so, I dunno (just asking) why didn't gawdafi forces use them against...

NATO bombers?

Or did they?

And if they did, what did they 'gain' from using them?

Again, just asking, because it doesn't make much sense, In.My.Always.Wondering.Humble.Opinion.

[SkyDaddy7]

9. I agree...They could have easily used them...

against NATO helicopters & low flying jets yet I have not heard of any being used...Who knows?

Plus, I wonder what the shelf life is for those type of weapons...They have to be kinda old you would think.

[bvar22]

10. I had the same question.

:shrug:

[Amonester]

14. I saw a few rebels using them (or from other stockpiles?) when they

took over the dictator's compound, but I still wonder why his own forces didn't use them against NATO's copters, if any.

Maybe they used them and didn't 'hit' any, or nobody reported any successful 'hit' :shrug:

[TheWraith]

21. These are completely useless against strike aircraft. They have a maximum altitude of 11k feet.

Now in comparison, NATO strike craft could easily accomplish their mission from 15,000 feet, 25,000 feet, more. Also, these have a maximum horizontal range of ~3 miles, and they're not amazingly smart in comparison to modern anti-missile systems.

These are only useful against slow, low flying targets like aircraft running close air support for ground troops.

[happyslug]

24. Actually, these are quite effective, if used in an environment where attack planes must fly LOW

When the Warsaw Pact was still intact, the doctrine on both sides as to Anti Aircraft actions was to use long range missiles against high flying planes. The mere existence of such missiles forced the other sides planes to fly low, below 600 feet, and thus become targets of both hand carried missiles like this and the Stinger, AND 20 and 23mm AA weapons. As the Cold War came to an end, a move was on for 37-40mm weapons with longer ranger, mostly to go after Helicopters flying low but at longer ranges then the 20mm and 23 mm cannons could hit them.

Notice, the advantage to these weapons was in areas where it was unsafe to fly high do to enemy long range AA missiles. The classic situation was during the Yom Kipper War, the Egyptian Army used its AA missiles to force the Israeli Air Force to fly low, this made them easy targets for the 23mm AA Guns the Egyptians had to cover their troop movements as while as the .50 Caliber and 14mm Machine guns the Russians had armed the tanks used by the Egyptian Army (In fact the number loss of Israeli Aircraft was to such low range weapons do to the need of the Israeli Air Force to fly low for it could NOT knock out the Egyptian Long Range AA Missiles). As long as the Egyptian Army stayed under this umbrella, it could move as it pleased and pushed the Israeli Forces back off the Suez Canal. The Israelis were only able to defeat the Egyptian Army as it expanded beyond this AA missile umbrella in a vain attempt to relieve pressure off Syria which was facing defeat.

In Afghanistan both the Soviet Union and now the US do NOT have to worry about long range AA missiles. During the First Gulf War, Saddam's missile defense system was the first thing attacked, by both Apache Helicopters, Sleuth Fighters AND an alleged computer virus entered into the Iraqi Air Defense system by the French, just as the Air War started. This triple attack, knocked out the Iraqi Missile Defense permitting the Allied Forces Air Force to fly high to avoid low level AA guns and Missiles.

A similar thing happened in Libya, the AA missile system was the first target of the Air Attack, once the Long Range Missiles were out of service, then attack Aircraft can fly high and bomb at will. With the Libya Air Force out of the Air within days of the Start of the War, and their Missiles Radars knocked out, Libya became a place where such short range missiles were useless. I suspect Qaddafi knew this (his tribe controlled the Air Force and thus would have been exposed to these concepts in their training) and as such left them in storage, telling their infantry and armor units to avoid exposure to Air Attack NOT to try to fight it off. Given the lack of cover in Libya, any fight would have been in the few places with cover such as the Cities, between the Cities any defensive position would be an easy target for an Air Attack and as such NOT a place to fight.

Notice these weapons, short range man portable weapons (as while as 50 Caliber, 14mm, 20 and 23 mm AA Guns), best work as part of a total AA defense system. That does NOT exist in Afghanistan among the Taliban, and has NOT existed in Iraq since the start of the first US Gulf War. Thus these weapons are of marginal use in either place by people opposing US forces in either place. If smuggled close to an Air Port that Air Craft are operating out of, can be used in a terrorist type attack, but generally NOT useful elsewhere is such a conflict.

[TheWraith]

25. But you're not running against an integrated air defense system with high-alt missiles.

Besides, anti-aircraft strategies in the 80s are woefully out of date today, since advances in anti-missile countermeasures, in stealth tech, and in ECM, have made air defense a much more difficult proposition.

[happyslug]

26. The problem has been the same technology makes air defense even more effective

At least one General in the Air Force opposed the latest series of fighters, on the simple grounds that given the advancement in electronics against a half way modern defense system come about 2020, fighters would have to launch their missiles so far away to overcome such defenses, that it would be about the same distance as if you fired the missile from a ship or air base. i.e. the Manned Fighter is doomed.

What the General wanted was to replace the F-15s with SU-27s (do to the Air Frames of the F-15s being 20-30 years old and suffering from metal fatigue and the SU-27 is as good as the F-15 from a flying point of view). Now the General also wanted the SU-27 equipped with US Electronics, which is the reason why the F-15 is the premier fighter in the world today.

The rationale for the above was that by the time the proposed new fighters actually replace the F-15, the advances in Air Defenses would have made the whole concept of Manned Fighters obsolete (This argument apparently has been accepted, the numbers of F-22 Raptors have been capped). The main reason fighter-bombers are so effective today against ground targets is the greater and greater range such missiles can be launched and controlled from. This is mostly do to the effectiveness of Air Defenses, i.e. to be able to attack a heavy defended AA area, it is better to keep the manned fighter OUT of the area, and just launch missiles into the heavy defended area..

As to stealth concept, the big advance was do to a paper written in the Early 1970s, it was the breakthrough in the concept of stealth the whole concept revolved around the math developed in that paper. The only problem with the Paper is that it was a product of the SOVIET MILITARY MACHINE. The Soviet Union subsequently rejected the concept for the simple reason it was of limited use. The Concepts that made stealth effective also made the plane maneuverable (i.e. easy target for visual weapons and even older Radar Systems). Given that the US dominated Western Air Defenses and had always concentrated on two to three ranges of radar, the Soviet Union decided it was better to attack those radar frequencies then opt for stealth.

On the other hand the US was facing a Soviet Union that had always developed several independent radar systems, all operating on their own frequency. The Soviet Union did this to make sure it was NEVER over powered in regards to any one Radar System. For the US the problem was how to penetrate a system with so many different radar frequencies. Thus Sleuth appear to the US, while dismissed by the Soviet Union.

Before you laugh at the Soviet Union to much, a Sleuth Fighter was shot down during the Serbian Conflict. How it was shot down remains uncleared by it appears to have been shot down by a AA Cannon whose fire was directed by SOUND. Sound was quite popular as an AA defense in the 1930s, but Radar was quickly found to be better so sound was abandoned by 1940. With Modern Computers able to be able to interconnect the sound and make calculations on the Sound, you could develop an effective PASSIVE air defense system. Such a system seems to have been how the Sleuth Fighter was shot down.

Some of the 1960s era Soviet Missile were capable of being fired WITHOUT access to Radar. Fired by SIGHT alone. The US Lost a F-16 in Serbia to such a firing. The missile came through a heavy cloud bank and exploded knocking out the F-16. No radar was used, just a large missile with a large payload. The Missile was hidden by the Cloud Bank and by the time the Pilot saw it, it was to late.

Both of the above two example show that even while the US is advancing its Military Technology, so is the rest of the world. No one is using the electronics of the 1980s anymore, even in the oldest ex Soviet missiles that are still in use. My computer has been electronics then the Missiles of the 1980s, and most of the electronics were made in CHINA. The US has avoided facing anyone with enough military capability to fight it to a draw, but that is most cases when one side has the option to attack (i.e. you do NOT attack anyone who can fight back UNLESS you really have to). Modern AA weapons when used property can be effective, so effective no one attacks them. This was the reason the US opposed the Russian selling Iran its latest AA missiles, those missiles could make an attack on Iran more difficult.

[bvar22]

12. Libya: al-Qaeda acquires weapons

"Al-Qaeda's north African branch has acquired a stockpile of weapons in Libya, including surface-to-air missiles that are threatening air travel, the EU's counter-terrorism coordinator said on Monday.

Due to the turmoil in Libya, members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have "gained access to weapons, either small arms or machine-guns, or certain surface-to-air missiles which are extremely dangerous because they pose a risk to flights over the territory," said Gilles de Kerchove."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8743276/Libya-al-Qaeda-acquires-weapons.html

[tcaudilllg]

16. Hmm I wonder how Obama intends to explain this...

[Shining Jack]

18. +1

[Amonester]

22. Hmmm... 'overtime' work for Interpol agents (I can only wish...) n t