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Old 04-19-2024, 09:22 PM
Vespers War Vespers War is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kato13 View Post
Russian TU-22M Bomber Downed Over Russia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAwIVMfs3GM



Well this is something I never expected to actually see real life video of, even though I have read about, thought about, and even gamed many scenarios where such a thing would happen.

Probably friendly fire, but maybe spec ops working near an airfield?
Allegedly our old friend the Ukrainian S-200. According to Ukrainian Intelligence, they were waiting for a week for the bombers to get close enough to an emplaced launcher, and they got a hit at 308 kilometers. An anonymous Ukrainian defense official told The War Zone that they've received "help from partners" upgrading the S-200's guidance system.

Personal speculation is they may have gotten assistance from Poland, who upgraded their monkey model S-200 missiles between 1999-2002, replacing tubes with transistors. I also suspect they may have slipped in an active radar seeker with the saved space/mass to help improve long-range accuracy over the semi-active radar seeker originally fitted - there was speculation right before the war that they had developed an active seeker for the S-125 and were trying to fit it to the S-200. If that improved accuracy sufficiently, they could also shrink the warhead and program the updated electronics to modify the flight profile to eke out some extra range with a slightly lighter missile. It would also let them shut off the ground radar much earlier if it wasn't having to illuminate the target for SARH, reducing the ground units' vulnerability to SEAD.
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