Russia Claims to Have Taken Down Two ATACMS Missiles. Can This Be True? - Technology Org | By The Digital Insider

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has announced that it managed to successfully take down two American-made tactical ballistic missiles ATACMS in Ukraine. This announcement came just two weeks after it was confirmed that the defenders of Ukraine are using ATACMS missiles that they’ve been asking for so long.

Ukraine has a handful of ATACMS missiles and is using them against targets in the occupied territories. Image credit: U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center via Wikimedia

“Over the past 24 hours, two US-made ATACMS operational-tactical missiles, an S-200 anti-aircraft missile designed to hit ground targets, as well as two HARM anti-radar missiles and two US-made HIMARS multiple launch missile systems have been eliminated,” the Russian Ministry of Defence announced on 25th of October. As you may figure, they provided no visual evidence of this achievement.

And it would be quite an achievement, because ATACMS is a ballistic missile. This means that it follows a ballistic trajectory – shoots up to a great height and then, basically, has a controlled fall towards its target. Ballistic missiles can reach an unbelievably speed in their dive and approach in rather a steep trajectory, which doesn’t leave much time for identification and intercept.

Also, Ukraine uses ATACMS with cluster warheads, which spread a lot of smaller charges in the last stage of the flight. This is just to say that there would be a lot of debris if a missile like this was shot down from the sky.

This is not to say that taking down ballistic missiles is impossible. American-made Patriot air defence systems can do that. It is believed that some of the more advanced Russian air defence systems can do that as well.

“S-300V1 systems with certain missiles can cope with ballistics. Maybe the S-400 too, but that also needs to be proven,” said the spokesman of the Air Force of Ukraine Colonel Yuriy Ihnat. Defense Express expert Valery Riabykh emphasised that it is impossible to know if it’s possible because Russia has never had an enemy that could use ATACMS missiles.

At the moment there are many reasons to doubt this Russian claim. First and foremost, there is no evidence. Russian propaganda channels have been sharing pictures of debris, but those could have been taken after a successful strike. Also, if Russia has an ability to take down ballistic missiles, why were two of its major occupied airfields in Berdyansk and Luhansk not protected from ATACMS?

One Russian Telegram channel has an alternative explanation. According to VChK-OGPU, on October 25th ATACMS missiles destroyed 3 Russian S-400 systems in the Luhansk region. According to VChK-OGPU, that is how those ATACMS were destroyed – they simply reached their intended targets.

Written by Povilas M.

Sources: Focus.ua, Focus.ua

#Air, #AirDefence, #AirForce, #Aircraft, #Approach, #ATACMS, #AuthoredPost, #BallisticMissiles, #Ballistics, #Channel, #Cluster, #Debris, #Defense, #Explanation, #Express, #FeaturedMilitaryNews, #Flight, #HIMARS, #How, #ImageOfTheWeek, #It, #Military, #MilitaryTechnology, #Missiles, #One, #Patriot, #Russia, #RussiaUkraineWar, #Sky, #SpecialPost, #Speed, #SpotlightNews, #StandWithUkraine, #Technology, #Time, #Ukraine, #UkraineWar

---

Published on The Digital Insider at https://bit.ly/40jmRdB.