Posted on 03/27/2022 7:50:19 AM PDT by tlozo
They’re apparently not being shipped with any ammo. What are the Ukranians supposed to do with them, use them as paperweights?
More to the point, small, transportable anti-ship missiles might be of great help against a naval attack on the city of Odessa, the largest Ukrainian port city. Since the Ukrainians have already taken moves to prevent a troop landing there, the Russians may decide to flatten the city from a distance.
They would likely want to use cruise missiles to do so.
Thus, small, fast boats carrying anti-ship missiles might force the Russian warships back. Of course, if they just happened to drop some asub weaponry as well, that would be just peachy.
A nation cannot claim neutrality when it supplies arms to a war.
Empty out stockpiles of old obsolete weapons.
I would not dare use this junk as a primary. Big flash, lots of smoke, narrow engagement field, high probability of being defeated. This is old-old tech. If I'm risking my life, I want a chance to actually hit and take something out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzO-s9PqpeE
***I would ONLY use this as part of a SAMbush.***
Set one/two of them up to make him react, and then send up the more lethal newer Stinger or SA-18/Verba with a good shot once he turns towards the SA-7 to evade.
My opinion, but I'm not an ADA guy. I'm just a has-been ground pounder.
I don’t really think these rockets are high tech enough to worry about micro cracks, these are old tech that wasn’t designed to such a precision that micro-cracks even enter into the consideration.
More likely it is going to be metal fatigue and hydrogen embrittlement.
I think the micro crack stuff is just invented fiction.
The Strelas 1-2M already have a nasty reputation of exploding on launch when old, though - to the point where even the jihadis won’t use them any more. These are among some of the oldest.
Ah, no, this is a solid rocket motor problem - it’s the same reason we had to retire the AIM-54s early. A solid rocket motor that develops microcracks doesn’t burn like it’s supposed to but tends to explode. All solid rocket motors are prone to this problem and the Strelas (from version 1 through 2M) especially are notorious for explode-on-launch when they get old.
If there are micro-cracks, hydrogen embrittlement is the cause and the metal will loose its tensil strength. Try reading about metallurgy and about the ongoing aging processes in metals.
This happens in steel, aluminum, any alloy of nickel
Pipeline, aircraft, fasteners, rockets, engines, etc.
Its common to send the ammo for the weapons.
Not stated as such in any of the articles I’ve seen. Even if they sent them with a couple barrels and basic ammo loads per MG3, the Ukranians have no way to supply more ammo for them.
Meanwhile, Germany has thousands of PK and/or PKM machine guns that would slot neatly into Ukranian logistics. Yet they don’t get sent.
Except the history of the Strela says it’s the motor, not the motor housing, that fails. Strelas can be refurbished, with the motor being replaced, in the original motor casing. The missile then works fine. The problem isn’t the missile hull or the motor casing.
The microcracks are in the solid rocket motor itself, not the casings.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0026080075900130
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.50642?journalCode=apc
Try reading about the aging of solid rocket motors and the effects of microcracks on the burn rate and consistency of same.
Cause and effect, think about it
The motor casing is not developing microcracks or suffering from hydrogen embrittlement. How would those not existing cause the motor to explode? :P
However, just to be the devils advocate.
Are you sure it's the weapon system and not tampering?
For example, and I only heard of such things done and would NEVER claim to have seen this or know anyone who did this.
When you find an enemy weapons cache, you might mess with a fuse of mortar round so that it goes off in the tube... Or you screw with the AT mine to make it go off when someone messes with it... Would really suck if the bad guys show up to do their bad guy stuff, and suddenly a bunch of them get sent to Allah earlier than they thought. Just sayin-
It’s the Strela’s rocket motor itself. The rocket motor is known to age badly, something that is not unique to Russian weapons but is a common problem for many aging solid rocket motors.
Note the article I linked above, noting the Germans spotted the problems for themselves and removed them from service over a decade ago due to the risk of explosions on launch.
Makes sense.
The reputation of exploding old Strelas doesn’t come from just the jihadis (in which case the tampered cache idea does offer a possible explanation for their experience) but from national militaries’ unpleasant experiences and units removed/sent directly from national militaries and that had no chance to be tampered with. For example, the Indians and Hungarians got them directly from Russia for their national militaries and both had older units explode on them - tampering being highly unlikely.
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