Initial Reports...
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Initial reports concerning combat are often wrong.
Yesterday we were treated to a barrage of stories on an Israeli ship being hit with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or an anti-tank missile fired from a UAV.
Some of the usual suspects immediately waded in with statements like, "It's the first time the terrorist group -- any terrorist group -- has used a drone in combat, as far as I know," (Link provided for your entertainment so that you can have the whole schadenfreude experience of watching the pathetic and feverish walk back.)
Read on.
I bring up this for two reasons. First, the people who write that site are supposed to have some defense expertise. AP could just have easily reported the Israeli ship was hit by a Klingon deathray. They may very well do that later today and it would be one of the least remarkable stories AP has run recently. But the sloppiness and ineptness of a wire service that is currently acting as though it was a paid entity of Hezbollah does not excuse someone who purports to have defense expertise willingly suspend disbelief in order to be first out of the gate with a quote.
The second reason is that this insane puffing up of the very modest organizational and technical capabilities of admittedly vicious, resourceful, and brutal terrorist groups is simply dysfunctional and detracts from, rather than adds to, what we know.
Right now the facts appear unremarkable. An Israeli Sa’ar 5 corvette and an Egyptian merchantman were hit by a Chinese-produced C-802 antiship missile.
Don’t be mistaken. It is a serious issue as it demonstrates the laissez faire attitude of China towards weapons proliferation as the internationally required End User Certificate (provided by way of example only) would have required Iran to undertake not to transfer those weapons without Chinese approval and China would have had a responsibility to reasonably believe that undertaking was true. It also demonstrates that Iran has provided Hezbollah with weapons much more sophisticated than it needs for defense. Finally, it implies that Israel may not have anticipated the presence of the C-802 in the theater as the Sa’ar 5 has rudimentary defense against antiship missiles and it is hard to believe the Israelis would have employed it had they known or suspected of the missile.
As the story unfolds over the next few days we will be treated to a lot more stories on the capabilities of the 10-foot tall, titanium and supercomputer equipped Hezbollah who can’t be killed, need no food or water, and run is excess of Mach 3.5 while carrying all their gear and their family. We can’t control these reports. But those of us who try, with varying degrees of success, to explain military affairs to those who are kind enough to read us do have an obligation to read those reports in the context of reality.
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Initial Reports... 24 Comments (0 topical, 24 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
stop at nothing to pimp their favorite freedom fighters capabilities - no they are not terrorists you mean conservative. They orgasm when some random baby killer ventures close to real military and lucks out by getting a kill on one of our soldiers. The same applies to the Israeli conflict, I see.
Don't know where this will lead, but a whiff of the grape from Israel is ordinarily followed by the whole nine yards. Don't touch that dial!
They're called model airplanes.
One major caveat: Anyone downrange with a CB Radio and a linear amplifier can interrupt the controller's signal and scramble the flight controls. I speak from experience.
Fortunately, the Predator and Global Hawk are much more sophisticated.
...getting ripped off by certain defense contractors.
a Predator can't get close enough to a armed ship to hit it and it really can't maneuver well enough to hit it.
Read the specs on the Sa'ar 5 and then come back and tell me that some simplistic aerial platform is going to be able to hit it.
And while the Predator is pretty simple, the data uplinks to allow you to see and fly are not simple at all. That's why they have armed guards outside the comm trailers where they are flown from.
Hah!
Hezbollah doesn't have model airplanes with pipe bombs duct taped to them! They have C-802 antiship missiles:
The weight of the subsonic (0.9 Mach) Yingji-802 is reduced from 815 kilograms to 715 kilograms, but its range is increased from 42 kilometers to 120 kilometers. The 165 kg. (363 lb.) warhead is just as powerful as the earlier version. Since the missile has a small radar reflectivity and is only about five to seven meters above the sea surface when it attacks the target, and since its guidance equipment has strong anti-jamming capability, target ships have a very low success rate in intercepting the missile. The hit probability of the Yingji-802 is estimated to be as high as 98 percent. The Yingji-802 can be launched from airplanes, ships, submarines and land-based vehicles, and is considered along with the US "Harpoon" as among the best anti-ship missiles of the present-day world.
That's a relief.
They were chinese cruise missiles. See above. Predator is sophisticated in its flight controls and observation capabilities. But a defense contractor overcharging ? I am shocked.
/gruff_brogue "I wrote them down in my diary so I wouldn't have to remember..." Henry Jones, Senior
I'm not sure what the line is between "you guys" and "us", so I honestly can't clear up the confusion about this.
I can tell you that I do find it disconcerting that Hezbollah can deploy weapons that are capable of remotely destroying military naval vessels.
The sarcasm in my initial post was directed at your apparent glee in finding an inaccuracy in the reportage of the incident, and your conclusion that the truth was somehow less dangerous than the early, inaccurate information.
If it helps, I can also assure you that I'm in favor of stability and economic growth in the middle east (as elsewhere), and the advancement of American interests across the globe.
We can probably disagree on some details under that rubric, but I'll leave it to you to decide whether they are significant enough to brand me as "you guys".
Okay, okay, I'll reserve the right to brand myself, as well.
Just in case.
this comment that you are more comfortable with things being reported which are not the truth than with things being reported which are the truth?
To each his own, but I thought you guys were part of the Reality Based Community?
less dangerous than bogus info.
And yes there was glee because a certain group of military and intelligence writers never fail to fall all over themselves puffing up al Qaeda (worst site for this, IMO, http://www.jamestown.org) and other terror groups, and even non terror groups like the DPRK and Iran.
So, continue to post. Sorry about the rocky first encounter.
One simple phrase, two simple phrases, ahh, haa, haa.
Did you count them on your fingers before you posted this, mon? :-)
The prototype maybe, but for production they've gone to a much more sophisticated internal combustion, variable speed, atmospheric pressure responsive, self-adjusting, reciprocating powerplant linked to a variable pitch, remotely controlled, constant speed, dynamically adapatable, multiple-element, rotary, air interfacing, propulsive device.
There is no other way to justify a bazillion dollars a copy :-)
Last I knew, they were pretty simplistic machinery... heck, last I had heard, the Predator drones the US uses are powered by an engine that was based off of a snowmobile engine. Anymore I think it would be highly possible for a terrorist working in their garage to get something that could at least take off the ground and fire a missile...
as a "battleship"....
I kid you not.
What is it about my comment that makes me one of "you guys", as opposed to "us"?
I applaud streiff for correcting the record as to the nature of the weapon used, but I fail to see how it's good news, even if someone on "the Left" (DefenseTech.org) did get the early report wrong.
Thank you for bringing this up. Without all the facts, which will come, stories can run the gamut.
"Kilngon deathray" and "10-foot tall, titanium and supercomputer equipped Hezbollah who can't be killed ..." are so PRICELESS!!! ;)
Keep it coming 'cause I love to laugh!
Hey, did you see the story about the newly equipped U-2 that can actually shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles with a huge pulsating rail gun that is stored in that huge nose on the front of the Dragon Lady? It's gonna be GREAT you just watch!
(ok, the wheaties and coffee are starting to wear off now ... i feel a sugar/caffeine crash comin' on!)
to reinforce a good point. Thanks for both.
10-foot tall, titanium and supercomputer equipped Hezbollah ... I like it.
http://inbrief.threatswatch.org/2006/07/hizballah-fired-iranian-cruise/
Courtessey of threatswatch.
I know this would be difficult for those on the left to grasp but anyone crazy enough to give hizballah a crusie missile shouldn't be running a country. As for a peaceable nuclear program they should be told to go back to their crayons.
All you need to know are three simple phrases, spoken in the correct accent.
"Black Tack"
"Mock Jock"
"Dark Chalk"
But on the disruptor front... Any ray that causes death is a death ray... ;)
portrayed this a good news, your comment leads one to believe you are not one of "us."
FTR, I really don't know the politics over there so I don't know if they are Left or not. I think they support some nutty ideas but that is neither here nor there.
The story is not about good news or bad news. It is about the suspension of disbelief that would assume that Hezbollah had a UAV which could hoist a payload of this class with the associated datalinks and telemetry which would allow the UAV to fly, acquire a target, and strike it. And be able to do all this surreptitiously.
So forgive me if I took your comment wrong, but some things are not about politics or good news. They are just about accuracy.