They’re Russian-made SA-24s Grinch missiles. Very portable, used for knocking out aircraft. Aviation Week first noticed them in recent footage of Libyan government army operations. And they’re nasty.
The SA-24 is more accurate, longer-flying, and more lethal than than earlier models of surface-to-air missiles. It also has a dual-band infrared seeker and is more difficult to jam than older systems.
The missiles “reportedly have counter-countermeasures that may be difficult for planes with just flares to counter,” Matthew Schroeder, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Arms Sales Monitoring Project, tells Danger Room. ”Overall it’s just a much more capable system.”
So where did they come from? No one (outside the regime) is sure, but
Russia has sold Venezuela a shoulder-fired version of the SA-24, which is a bit different from the truck-mounted model found by Aviation Week. In classified cables released by WikiLeaks, American diplomats expressed alarm at Russia’s deal with Venezuela, writing that the missile, “considered one of the most lethal portable air defense systems ever made,” was at risk of falling into other hands.
Faced with evidence that Russia’s sales of ammunition to Venezuela had ended up in the hands of Colombian terrorists, Russian diplomats tried to reassure their American counterparts that they had their arms sales under control.
I don’t find reassurances from a KGB police government, about Hugo Chavez, particularly reassuring. Venezuela reportedly bought 1,800 SA-24s from Russia in 2009. At $60k to $80K a pop, Gaddafi can afford to buy an awful lot of them.
My estimate would be Qaddafi just bought them directly from Russia. Moscow has made several arms deals with him over the last few years. Air defense systems were part of the $1.8 billion deal concluded in January 2010, which was shortly after the Russians unveiled the SA-24.
No way of knowing how foresighted Qaddafi has been in the last few weeks, but the SA-24 is, obviously, easy to store just about anywhere. Q has a number of systems that could be stashed all over the place and not subject to elimination in coalition air strikes against his known storage sites.
Here we go again.
America since the 1920′s has been in love with the Douhet fallacy: war can be won, in the final and Clausewitzian sense, because our magic thunder chariots can break the enemy will to resist with air bombardment and air bombardment alone. Strategic bombing is indeed valuable (when the USAAF got serious about bombing Romania’s oil fields, the Nazi war machine took a bad turn for the worse, for instance) but it is not per se all-conquering ( during that same period of air assault, German fighter-plane production actually increased).
So yes, the US/NATO air forces ( mostly US, let’s not kid ourselves) can easily rub out what little air power Qadaffi has, and make life a burden for his armored and logistics units out in the open desert. Ask anybody who served in the Afrika Korps.
Problem is, the Qaddafi forces have wised up. They are getting into the cities and initiating infantry engagements at close range. They have looked around in the cupboard and found Uncle Moammar has lots and lots of land mines.[note: we haven't even BEGUN to discuss IED's or bright eager young lads with Semtex in their underwear.] And these are situations that even A-10′s and AC-130′s can’t easily cope with. So who can? Boots on the ground, fair maid, boots on the ground and nothing else. Get used to the idea- it’s only a matter of time now.
More sadly still, today we read estimates that the Libyan opposition at its best can’t field 10,000 men, while the Qaddafi Army and palace guard is likely four times that strong or better. In addition, the regime troops are more or less trained professionals, while their opponents are the usual Middle East macho b.s. mob. Always ready to dance around and shout bloodthirsty slogans and empty their weapons into the air , and drive their ratty little Datsun pickups( with newly applied mud camouflage) up and down the road honking their horns. And then the mere rumor that the enemy is coming will send them screaming the other way, going like hell for the Egyptian border.
Even Teddy Roosevelt would be taken aback, asking over his shoulder:
” You want me to make a nation from THAT?”
Meantime, of course, the Colonel isn’t gonna just roll over and die, however convenient that would be. He’s still got lots of money and he will get whatever weapons he can, from wherever he can. And sooner or later we’re going to see one of those dreadful aluminum coffins come into Dover AFB, origin Libya.
Will the legacy media insist on broadcasting pictures THOSE caskets? THOSE grieving parents?
I wonder if this was why that F15 crashed and maybe the reason why airstrikes have been scaled back recently?
I’ve been watching footage of Libya and these rebels are no better than Godhaffi because they torture and execute the “mercenaries” that they’ve managed to capture.
They don’t care about human rights only revenge.
The SA-24′s max altitude is a little over 20,000 ft. We simply fly over them when we bomb targets with PGMs.
The F-15 wasn’t shot down by a missile; the pictures I’ve seen show no explosive damage to the engines, which is what the SA-24 would home in on.