fascinating observations for “buk” lovers (not directly relevant to anything happening now, just fascinating)

I wanted to lift a comment from the comments to the article by the crazy ex-CIA guy. By vic:

“Before we start, I would like to make it very clear that I am not Russian, I am not paid by Putin, and I don’t like Putin. As a matter of fact, I am Ukrainian by origin. However, I happened to serve my mandatory 2 years in the Soviet army on a “Buk” complex prototype, a long time ago (the first “Buk” systems were available in the early 1990s). And I can state that, in order to guide “Buk” missile to ~10km vertical attitude, you need not only missile launching part of the “Buk” regiment (which rebels had), but also continuous data from 360 degree observation radar and missile guiding radar. Without these data, “Buk” missile is blind until its semi-guided warhead gets close to ~1km to the target. Moreover, “Buk” missile station has its own 360 radar, but that one has only enough power to guide actual missile up to ~6km, not ~10km jet was flying at. Now, that being said, “Buk” missile had ~30km horizontal or ~18km vertical range. Now, let’s solve a simple arithmetic problem. Boeing plane is coming toward you at ~900km/h speed (15 km/min, ~250 m/sec) at ~10km attitude. You are the rebel with radar capable of seeing and guiding the target up to ~6km. So, can you use that radar? No. Well, you can say, in the clear sky human can see with army type binoculars say up to 20 km range. Suppose you are drunk (as proposed) rebel, who cannot differentiate between a very large civilian Boeing jet and a small, very different in silhouette, ground attacker Su-25. Lets assume that although you are completely drunk, you can fire a “Buk” missile in 2 minutes. In 2 minutes, Boeing would cover 30km, this is 10km past your position and at ~10km attitude. Say you fired the missile anyway, just in case. I don’t know exact speed of “Buk” missile, but lets assume that it goes with ~3 Mach speed (60 km/min, 1 km/sec). You are welcome to do the math by yourself, but the bottom line is, the missile will run out of fuel before it can get close to the plane. Needless to say (see above) that you have one out of million chance that non-guided missile gets close to the jet to activate its own semi-auto warhead.

(Actually, he is wrong. The missile travels 17.5 km, diagonally. That means it takes 17.5 secs to reach the target. So we must allow the target to travel for a further 17.5 secs, which gets it to 14.375 km past the firing position, still at ~10 km altitude. The “Buk” has therefore been required to travel 14.375 km horizontally and 10 km vertically, which equals 17.5 km diagonally, which is within its fuel range. But this allows no time for final seek and approach – RB)

“Now, let’s play the different game. You are Ukrainian government “Buk” regiment commander. Four complete “Buk” regiments were detected and proven to be around Donetsk area by satellite photos taken by Russians. Strangely enough Usaia & Euia said nothing about those in mainstream media, despite the fact that the photos were forwarded by Russians to Usaia & Euia for complete analysis. Anyway. You have under your command nine 360 observation stationary (separate from missile station) radars, which are capable to cover ~150 to 200 km each. Again, those data are based on Russian radar monitoring and again those were forwarded to Usaia & Euia for analysis few weeks ago. Next, most likely you have all of those radars on, simply because Ukrainian government believed that the Russian jet fighters are coming (see numerous hysterical statements about this in Ukrainian mass media between Jul 15-17), and you have to do a standard exercise to calibrate systems and make sure that those are ready to face any problems coming from Russians. The standard procedure for radar calibration is to get a fighter jet into the sky and let that jet fly at different attitudes, different speeds, and different distances. In order to make sure that all systems are operational, you have to fire on all of those systems, including “Buk” missile stations. So, your 360 radars are on, your powerful stationary missile guide radars are on, your “Buk” missile stations are on. You have a test target (Su-25) flying ~5km close to the Boeing. Is it possible to fire a missile? If you are well-trained Usaian soldier, then the answer is: highly unlikely. If you are, however, Ukrainian soldier, who had no any experience in actual launching of missile, then the answer is: possible. You can ask me why Ukrainian anti-aircraft regiments had no actual missile launching practice? The answer is simple and available over the internet. In the early 2000s (if I remember correctly, it was 2001), Ukrainian anti-aircraft regiment downed Russian TU-154 over a Black Sea at ~200km distance from the firing site (they used SAM-200 long-range system during that exercise). After that, actual missile launching exercises were banned in Ukrainian army.

“My point is: based on the available data (and I am kind of skeptical about social media data because two key “evidence” data on voice interception and movie on “Buk” crossing Russian border on Jul 18 were proven to be fake), it is more likely that Ukrainian army downed Boeing rather than rebels did it. Of course, we all aware that Usaian government said that they have evidence, but they did not present any. No satellite images were presented so far. This is very strange because according to the open sources, two different Usaian satellites were monitoring that area at that time. One has infra-red detecting system, which is capable of detecting IR signatures of missile with high precision. The second was optical recon system with high resolution camera. If you will check the weather conditions that day, both systems should provide you with clear data on what happened. Why were those data not released? It is also interesting to read Usaian army experts on the possibility to use of “Buk” system by drunk rebels. All of them (and those comments are easily available over internet) mentioned that “Buk” cannot be operated easily by the rebels. Not to the precision to down jet at ~10km attitude. Another interesting question to ask is, why Ukrainian army was using heavy artillery to shell the wreckage site for several days? Again, I am not trying to prove anything, just trying to analyze available data here…”