Surprising revelation: S-200 may have shot down Tomahawk
The S-200 system is not as useless as announced and it may be the weapon that shot down the Tomahawk in the US and its allies' airstrike on Syria on April 14.
This surprising information was released by Al-Masdar News after examining the missile debris released by Russia.
Specifically, along with many details inside the captured series of missiles, there were also many fragments of the missile shell that were riddled with holes.
Based on this image, Al-Masdar News believes that it is very likely that these missiles were shot down by fragmentation warheads of Syrian air defense. If this information is confirmed, the weapon used is almost certainly the fragmentation warhead of the S-200 high-altitude defense system.
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Image of missile debris with many holes released by Russia. |
And so, this weapon is not useless as the data announced by Russia immediately after the attack by the US, UK and France on Syria. According to the published data, the S-200 missile system is equipped with standard 5V21 ammunition and variants 5V28, 5V28N, 25V28MN...
The version used by the Syrian Army is said to be the S-200VE Vega E, equipped with 5V28E missiles with a maximum range of 240km. The S-200 missile weighs a huge 7.1 tons and is 10.8m long. It is mounted on a 5P72 launcher, each supported by a rail for movement.
The standard 5V21 missile or the 5V28E version are both equipped with 4 solid-fuel booster engines mounted along the missile body and a main engine located in the center of the body using liquid fuel.
When fired, the 4 auxiliary rocket engines will start first to take the missile off the launch pad, burn out the fuel (from 3-5.1 seconds) it will automatically separate from the missile body. Then, the main engine is activated to send the missile flying to the target (burn time 51-150 seconds).
The 5V28E missile of the Syrian S-200 has a range of up to 240km, can destroy small-sized targets, and has a target speed of 1,200m/s. The missile uses a mid-phase radio projection system to correct its flight path.
In the final phase, a semi-active radar homing head is used to attack the target (in the photo is the 5G24 guidance radar at the warhead). Each bullet is equipped with a 217kg fragmentation warhead (containing 16,000 2g fragments and 21,000 3.5g fragments) for a very large radius of damage.
With its heavy fragmentation warhead, the S-200 does not need to detonate too close to be powerful enough to shoot down any nearby target. And so, the possibility of the S-200 successfully shooting down the Tomahawk is very high, contrary to Russia's previous statement.
According to data from the Russian Ministry of Defense, the US-led coalition launched a total of 103 cruise missiles at targets in Syria on April 14.
Meanwhile, the Syrian air defense force mobilized a series of air defense systems such as Pantsir-S1, Buk-M2, Kub, Strela-10, Osa, S-125 and S-200. The Syrian army launched 112 surface-to-air missiles (SAM) in more than 1 hour of combat, forming a dense air defense fire network.
The successful interception data announced by Russia are as follows: Syria launched 25 Pantsir-S1 missiles, 23 of which hit the target; launched 29 Buk-M2 missiles, shooting down 24 targets; 21 Kub missiles, 11 of which hit the target; Syria fired 5 Strela missiles, 3 of which hit the target; 11 Osa missiles, 5 of which hit the target; 13 S-125 missiles, 5 of which hit the target.
And in particular, Syrian air defense launched 8 S-200 missiles, but none of them hit the attacking missiles of the US and its allies.
