Proof that US cruise missile hit Iraqi marketplace

[DarthVeda]

This is what happens when you use GPS jammers...

This sort of thing happens. It happened in 1991 too. Get over it.

[Ned]

Maybe THIS one was shot down and crashed in the market.

[spiritof1202]

Actually, the GPS jammers haven't been effective against aerial targets, since their signal generation capability is too weak to effect targets at any range: they are hand held units... and you'd need more than 3 of them to actually work simultaneously, to have any effect.

Their main use is misleading close by infantry units, especially misguiding their artillery spotting.

Also TLAMs now have both in-flight and terminal INS (inertial navigation systems) and improved DSMAC IIA (Digital Scene Matching Area Correlation) which can still aim in the event of GPS guidance failure, like GPS jamming efforts.

[spiritof1202]

Originally posted by Ned
Maybe THIS one was shot down and crashed in the market.

Whatever hit the market, denonated. If it was a BGM-109 it wouldn't have left any of the outdoor market standing, or too much of the houses that were 15 yards away from the impact.

[MichaeltheGreat]

A lot of damage in Baghdad and Basra in the last war was from Iraqi 85mm and 100mm AAA.

As Siro pointed out, the fact that a piece of metal with a Raytheon ID on it was conveniently found there days later means less than nothing.

Over the last 12 years, the Iraqis have no doubt amassed quite a collection of pieces of US ordnance.

[Freeze]

Tim Blair thinks it's a HARM.

It's possible there was a radar track parked in the market which the missile hit. That would explain the lack of crater etc. The fragment could be from somewhere else. I don't trust Robert Fisk too much.

[spiritof1202]

The most numerous HARMs in the theatre have relatively small warheads... 146 lbs blast/fragment. They are designed mostly to shread the radar antenna's and delicate electronics, rather than the typically more extensive blast effects of anti-surface weapons.

Could this be a HARM strike? maybe. I'd have expected to see more "swiss cheese damage" though.

[gunkulator]

I am reminded of the supposed baby milk factory hit during GWI. Whether or not it was a baby milk factory, the sign planted in front of the building was an obvious fake hastily erected for the media.

[Sandman]

Other successful cruise missile strikes have caused only a small amount of damage. A missile striking solid tarmac is unlikely to leave much of a crater.

[MichaeltheGreat]

A small amount of externally visible damage.

The TLAM has a 1000 lb warhead, which is designed to detonate after the warhead/missile combo has penetrated the target to some extent.

If it hit a solid surface, like the ground or pavement, it would leave a rather large crater, since a major portion of the blast energy would be directed into the ground.

If you had heavily reinforced concrete, with lots of rebar, it wouldn't do as much damage, but in a typical road surface, there'd be a lot of direct blast damage and quite a bit of secondary damage from ejecta striking other objects weakened by the blast.

[Sandman]

Ok, but what if it didn't strike solid tarmac? What if it hit a crowded marketplace, i.e stalls, vehicles, people that happened to be on tarmac?

More telling is that the 'coalition' claimed that Iraq had placed missile launchers in the market area immediately after the first market bombing. They have since changed their story.

[PLATO]

I find it extremely hard to believe that a western journalist would find evidence of a US attack that had been "overlooked" by the Iraqi's for 4 days. Far from this being "proof" of a US attack, I would submit that it is pretty good cicumstantial evidence that the Iraqi's are trying to cover up their own error.

[spiritof1202]

The BGM-109 uses a FMU-157/B Hard Target Smart Fuze.

It can diferentiate between hard and soft target layers, and wouldn't confuse a market stall with luggage or even a truck bed, with a thick concrete surface, given a velocity of 550mph and a weight of more than 3 tons.

As for the missile launchers... the Iraqis move their equipment around, to avoid its destruction. They may or may not have done so in this case.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Actually I just read that recently the head of Iraqi AA forces was fired because most of the missiles just fell down onto Baghdad.
And in anycase, a journalists who comes to the site, 4 days after the event, and finds a piece of scrap metal that the Iraqis have conviniently "forgotten to pickup" ....

Iraqui military were observed and reported days ago to have been sanitizen the market place of all debris of the missle that landed there. I and sure they have also had time to collect and use fragments of USA missles that have struck elsewhere.

[Jaguar]

Re: Proof that US cruise missile hit Iraqi marketplace

Originally posted by Tingkai
The US government has tried to suggest that the bombing of an Iraqi market, which killed more than 60 civillians, was caused by an Iraqi missile, not an American missile.

The Guardian has a story that provides proof that it was an American missile. According to the story:

"A metal fragment found at the scene by British journalist Robert Fisk carried various markings, including "MFR 96214 09". This, our reader pointed out in an email, is a manufacturer's identification number known as a "cage code".

Cage codes can be looked up on the internet (www.gidm.dlis.dla.mil), and keying in the number 96214 traces the fragment back to a plant in McKinney, Texas, owned by the Raytheon Company.

Raytheon, whose headquarters are in Lexington, Massachusetts, aspires "to be the most admired defence and aerospace systems supplier through world-class people and technology", according to its website (www.raytheon.com). It makes a vast array of military equipment, including the AGM-129 cruise missile which is launched from B-52 bombers."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/dailybriefing/story/0,12965,927233,00.html

The truth is out there.

I don't think a wink smiley is appropriate. If you expressed condolences, it would have been ok, but you didn't.

This is sad. We're supposed to be able to keep better control of our weapons.