Malaysian Airlines MH317

[CCIP]

I should say btw that I'm just sort of trying to make sense of the report's logic, NeonSamurai - I'm not enough of an expert to tell if it's right or not, but I agree with you that there's lots of reasons to doubt the veracity of the report. I could still totally see it as a planted leak to advance the Russian side of the argument, now that they've hopelessly had the Su-25 theory shot down (pun maybe intended!)

[Catfish]

... Also check out this link if you want to see what damage looks like from different weapons systems (the 30mm example is not overly accurate as those were DU rounds fired against an armored target). ...

Also?
"Not overly accurate", a 30 mm depleted uranium (lmao b.t.w.) bullet, on an armoured target?

What they talk about is a 'normal' 30mm round on a very thin (dur)aluminium sheet..

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I should say btw that I'm just sort of trying to make sense of the report's logic, NeonSamurai - I'm not enough of an expert to tell if it's right or not, but I agree with you that there's lots of reasons to doubt the veracity of the report. I could still totally see it as a planted leak to advance the Russian side of the argument,

Ya, to me the fundamental problem with the report, is that it makes no sense for a missile to have come from the location claimed, as all the damage is on the side opposite to the claimed launch location. That plus the arc cut into the plane's nose from the fragmentation warhead clearly puts the missile detonating between 10-11 o'clock from the plane's perspective (and probably originating from somewhere along that direction or towards the north). It couldn't be an overshot, or how did the tail and elevators get hit.

I'm pretty sure the Russians are doing what ever they can to deflect the incident away from themselves, hence pointing the launch location to the south, when it probably came from the northeast.

now that they've hopelessly had the Su-25 theory shot down (pun maybe intended!)

Obviously not everyone agrees

Originally Posted by Catfish

Also?
"Not overly accurate", a 30 mm depleted uranium (lmao b.t.w.) bullet, on an armoured target?

What they talk about is a 'normal' 30mm round on a very thin (dur)aluminium sheet..

I posted that to give more an example of what the different weapons systems tend to look like, specifically what the different missile warheads do as far as damage. I looked for an example of damage caused by that specific weapon system (gun+ammo type) on an appropriate target, but came up empty.

The point though is that the size of the holes (entry holes) would not be much different. Unless the ammunition fired is proximity fused, you would expect to see round to oval entry points, and variably shaped exit points.

The damage caused to the plane is not at all consistent with cannon fire from an aircraft. To achieve all the damage caused to all the different points on the aircraft, it would take either multiple aircraft, or multiple passes. Plus like I said before, you would expect most of the damage to be in the main fuselage of the aircraft, towards the tail section. This is because of training (pilots are trained to attack with guns from behind, as head-on snapshots are very difficult and usually miss), and how most modern aircraft gun-sights work.

If you want to know more I suggest you check out 'basic fighter maneuvers', plus stuff on air combat 'snapshots' and 'tracking shots'

[Oberon]

A video of the Dutch Safety Boards investigation into the loss of MH17:


The Dutch investigation into identifying who fired the missile is still ongoing.

[Jimbuna]

I doubt whoever is responsible will admit it.

[XabbaRus]

What gets on my nerves is trading the BBC have your say and other consent sections on other news sites by people who just see it as black and white. I'll find the links but the issue is also the warhead type. The Iranians use an older warhead of the type that hit MH17, Russia users a newer warhead on the older missile. Therefore it could perhaps put to bed the theory that Russia supplied the Buk to the rebels.

I think ask agree it was shot down by a Buk. I'm of the opinion that it was an accidental shoot down by the rebels at what they thought was a Ukrainian air force transport, given that they had shot them down previously using Buks, and this is backed up by the Ukrainians. I do not think, nor dee the logic in the Russians providing a Buk for the rebels to deliberately take out a civilian airliner. Where is the benefit? However a lot of people like to,shout that and accuse Putin himself of pulling the trigger. Buks had been stolen. Ukr admitted that, but as soon as this happened they changed their tune as the screw up suited their agenda. For Yatsenyuk to say Russia setup the whole thing is ridiculous and downright dangerous. It was a *******up. We will never find out who pulled the trigger but this move to,bring Russia to court is nuts. The only "proof" that Russia supplied the Buk seems to be pedalled by bellingcat. I'm still waiting for the USA and NATO to release the images the allegedly have.

[Oberon]

I agree, I don't think Russia supplied the Buk to deliberately shoot down civilian airliners, that's just SPECTRE level stupidity. Too many James Bond films there.
No, chances are if they did supply it, it was to protect them against Ukrainian aircraft and/or shoot down Ukrainian transports. Of course, poorly trained recruits plus a sophisticated Surface to Air Missile system, it was only a matter of time before someone screwed up.
Alternatively it could possibly have been one taken from the Ukrainians, but I think that they did account for all their SAM systems in the aftermath of the incident, although I may be wrong. Either which way, it was very likely fired by the pro-Russian separatist factions, not the Ukrainians.
Russia has behaved pretty terribly in the aftermath of this incident, first trying to cover things up, then trying to prevent a UN lead investigation, then inventing various ways that the Ukrainians could have done it which doesn't correlate with the evidence presented. I mean, that Frogfoot in space theory which they floated was even discredited by the guy who designed the Su-25!
Now they state that the missile came from a completely different direction to the evidence, travelling over the cockpit from left to right (as the plane faces us) and detonating next to it, which would have produced a much different debris pattern.
Still...we'll never find the people who fired the missile, chances are that they're dead now, 'casualties of war', and any orders or directives would have been burnt or erased.
Chances are when the report is released next year it will blame the Russian seperatists, Russia will deny this, claim the report is based on false evidence and block any attempt to bring justice.
It's dirty, but that's how it is.

[Skybird]

I stick to my open-at-all-directions-attitude on this issue, which always has been two-fold like this: on the one hand reason and probability seem to indicate that the rebels-Buk-accident-scenario is the most likely one, on the other hand the released information from both the official sources as well as "conspiracy-theorists" are all object to heavy interest-driven manipulation (that is true for the Russian as well as the Western official view on things). The report now seems to include - as expected and predicted - several inconsistencies. These may or may not mean something. We do not know.

So:

The rebel-Buk-accidental-misidentification-scenario still is the most likely one (Occam's razor...), but I would keep an open mind at other directions as well. This report by the Dutch now is not a final word, imo. I doubt the public will ever get any final word, proven beyond doubt. All political sides have too much prestige at stake.

This is no pro-Russian stand by me. I just try to stay as objective as I can and try to make sense of the little we know as best as I can.

I wonder however what has come of the German pilot I quoted last year. He has fallen under my radar.

[Bilge_Rat]

The report won't change much at this point.

Interesting that they also blamed Ukraine for not closing their airspace.

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

What gets on my nerves is trading the BBC have your say and other consent sections on other news sites by people who just see it as black and white. I'll find the links but the issue is also the warhead type. The Iranians use an older warhead of the type that hit MH17, Russia users a newer warhead on the older missile. Therefore it could perhaps put to bed the theory that Russia supplied the Buk to the rebels.

I think ask agree it was shot down by a Buk. I'm of the opinion that it was an accidental shoot down by the rebels at what they thought was a Ukrainian air force transport, given that they had shot them down previously using Buks, and this is backed up by the Ukrainians. I do not think, nor dee the logic in the Russians providing a Buk for the rebels to deliberately take out a civilian airliner. Where is the benefit? However a lot of people like to,shout that and accuse Putin himself of pulling the trigger. Buks had been stolen. Ukr admitted that, but as soon as this happened they changed their tune as the screw up suited their agenda. For Yatsenyuk to say Russia setup the whole thing is ridiculous and downright dangerous. It was a *******up. We will never find out who pulled the trigger but this move to,bring Russia to court is nuts. The only "proof" that Russia supplied the Buk seems to be pedalled by bellingcat. I'm still waiting for the USA and NATO to release the images the allegedly have.

The thing though is as far as I am aware it couldn't have come from the Iranians, as they don't even have the SA-11 (Syria does though), and only Russia has the SA-17. The thing though is that Russia has been doing its damnedest to cloud the issue and point the finger everywhere else, including that report of theirs where they put the missile coming from a direction it couldn't possibly have come from, or the other theory Oberon mentioned. I think it is pretty damn certain Russia was quietly supplying the 'rebels', many of whom were likely Russian troops, which in part was to distract the public from their annexing the Crimea, though they probably hoped they could flip the rest of the Ukraine too via a civil war.

Now did Russia set up the jetliner shoot-down incident on purpose? Not very likely, though not impossible either. Lets be honest here, all of the superpowers have done some pretty awful things in the name of their regimes, be it the USA, Russia, France, etc., including pulling stunts like that with the hopes of framing the other side. But from the evidence available, the rocket was launched from the rebel side, and it would have come from Russia directly, as the rebels would not have started with such equipment (they pretty much materialized out of thin air), and no other country would have been in the position to get it into the Ukraine.

Otherwise I agree with Oberon's post.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Oberon

A video of the Dutch Safety Boards investigation into the loss of MH17:


The Dutch investigation into identifying who fired the missile is still ongoing.

This video here:

May also be of interest.

Long story cut short, Almaz-Antey claim that:
- the weapon use was the old 9M38 round, no longer in service due to the end of life for the round (25 years, last missile made in 1986), the missiles in Russian inventory were dismantled, the fate of Ukrainian rounds is not known to Almaz-Antey, though the Ukrainian side did initiate negotiations in 2005 to prolongate the life of the 9M38 missiles in it's inventory.
- the missile approach direction was from the side, rather than from the front of the aircraft (due to the way fragments penetrated the internal bulkheads and how the left engine was dammaged), thus the probable launch area was different to the one originally claimed (snezhnoe).
- Almaz-Antey has conducted full sized experiments with both the warhead and the representative missile, to prove that their version (with a different missile approach vector) was correct and that the Dutch version was incorrect.

Originally Posted by ikalugin

This video here:

May also be of interest.

Long story cut short, Almaz-Antey claim that:
- the weapon use was the old 9M38 round, no longer in service due to the end of life for the round (25 years, last missile made in 1986), the missiles in Russian inventory were dismantled, the fate of Ukrainian rounds is not known to Almaz-Antey, though the Ukrainian side did initiate negotiations in 2005 to prolongate the life of the 9M38 missiles in it's inventory.
- the missile approach direction was from the side, rather than from the front of the aircraft (due to the way fragments penetrated the internal bulkheads and how the left engine was dammaged), thus the probable launch area was different to the one originally claimed (snezhnoe).
- Almaz-Antey has conducted full sized experiments with both the warhead and the representative missile, to prove that their version (with a different missile approach vector) was correct and that the Dutch version was incorrect.

Really?
RT?
...
Until now I thought you're simply very..."patriotic".
I had no idea however that you are indeed nothing but a nationalist.

For those who are not so familiar with this propaganda network:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RT
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/30/rt-russia-todays-six-most-memorable-moment

[Oberon]

Bah, RT doesn't hold a candle to Pravda or Izvestia...

But yes, I must add my scepticism to Antays report, given Russias less than straight-forward stance on the matter of the incident.
That being said, the type of missile which detonated is an interesting point to examine, we can conclude in both reports that it is an older model of 9M317 (oddly prophetic when you look a the title of this thread) but honestly I'd be surprised if Russia didn't have some older models knocking around which were off the records, I mean Russia doesn't throw anything away, so it stands to reason that there could well be an older Buk system which was deemed expendable and thus given to the pro-Russian separatists along with minimal training.
Disaster soon followed.

I think if one was to assign any blame anywhere it would be to the separatists who fired the weapon, but you'll never find them. Russia has covered any tracks there are between it and weaponry that the pro-separatists suddenly materialise with, so there'll be nothing doing there. So chances are the report will point the finger at the pro-Russian separatists and there'll be lots of talk about proceedings at the Hague, but nothing will happen. I mean let's face it, no-one was ever punished for KAL007.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I mean let's face it, no-one was ever punished for KAL007.

...or Iran Air Flight 655. In fact, the crew received medals...

Bottom line, Russia will never accept being treated differently than the USA, so no one will be punished.

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

This video here:

May also be of interest.

Long story cut short, Almaz-Antey claim that:
- the weapon use was the old 9M38 round, no longer in service due to the end of life for the round (25 years, last missile made in 1986), the missiles in Russian inventory were dismantled, the fate of Ukrainian rounds is not known to Almaz-Antey, though the Ukrainian side did initiate negotiations in 2005 to prolongate the life of the 9M38 missiles in it's inventory.
- the missile approach direction was from the side, rather than from the front of the aircraft (due to the way fragments penetrated the internal bulkheads and how the left engine was dammaged), thus the probable launch area was different to the one originally claimed (snezhnoe).
- Almaz-Antey has conducted full sized experiments with both the warhead and the representative missile, to prove that their version (with a different missile approach vector) was correct and that the Dutch version was incorrect.

Not to gang up on you, but...

First of all it doesn't matter a whole lot what missile it was, it matters what warhead it was carrying. The fragmentation pattern matched the 9N314 warhead, not the older 9N310 used in the early version 9M38 Missile. The 9N310's shrapnel was formulation has only cubes, and the damage on the aircraft shows clear butterfly shaped impressions (and they found butterfly shaped fragments in the wreckage), which only could have come from the 9N314 warhead. The 9N314 is used in later productions of the 9M38 missile, and the 9M38M1, and possibly the 9M318 which has an unknown warhead type (it is believed that it too can mount the 9N314 warhead as well). Russia has in service the later 9M38 missiles with the 9N314 warhead, along with the 9M38M1 and the 9M318.

The missile came from the front left from the perspective of the pilots, the damage done to the plane makes it patently clear, even if the estimated angle of impact is off a bit, it still would have had to come from the left hand side of the aircraft, which means the missile was fired from somewhere to the north west, which was territory held by the 'rebels' no matter how the details are massaged.

Ya I'm sure he did, but it doesn't matter, as unless he fired those missiles at a similar aircraft going the same speed and same altitude and hit at about the same angle, his experiments are nothing but worthless propaganda. The shrapnel pattern of the a static warhead will be totally different to one flying at supersonic speeds, due to momentum. If he can't even identify the right warhead, he has no hope at all of properly replicating the blast.

The whole article is absurd and yet another attempt (adding to a pretty long list now) of Russia's (Putin's really) attempts to cloud things. It's a shame, as cold war version 2.0 has started it seems (or perhaps it never quite ended).

Originally Posted by Oberon

That being said, the type of missile which detonated is an interesting point to examine, we can conclude in both reports that it is an older model of 9M317 (oddly prophetic when you look a the title of this thread).

Umm, the 9M317 is Russia's brand spanking new missile type for the Buk-2 launcher, there are no older versions

I think if one was to assign any blame anywhere it would be to the separatists who fired the weapon, but you'll never find them. Russia has covered any tracks there are between it and weaponry that the pro-separatists suddenly materialise with, so there'll be nothing doing there. So chances are the report will point the finger at the pro-Russian separatists and there'll be lots of talk about proceedings at the Hague, but nothing will happen. I mean let's face it, no-one was ever punished for KAL007.

Well other than relations between Russia and the West continuing to deteriorate, unfortunately. Otherwise ya... It is a real shame that Russia has gone back to a fascist/communist like dictatorship. Who knows how long it will take for the people to try to free themselves again.