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Anyone remember those weird strikes, probably by US forces, mostly on cars, where there didn’t seem to have been an explosive payload, but everything inside the car was very dead? Well, here it is, a secret kind of Hellfire:https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-u-s-missile-aims-to-kill-only-terrorists-not-nearby-civilians-11557403411 …
I remember puzzling over these cuts for ages trying to work out what had hit the car of Abu Khayr al-Masri, deputy leader of Al-Qaeda. Turns out it was a Hellfire missle with fucking swords attached to it.pic.twitter.com/aJW524c1Ph
Nick - from a technical perspective, would this be something feasible with technology from the mid-2000s, or only now? I would imagine this thing would be in lawyer hell for a while, but why not develop sooner?
Oh for sure. My best guess is that it's super useful for a very specialised kind of remote warfare that the US has only really been engaging in since the mid 2000's
How much of the relevant assemblies are left over after the hit? Has anyone tried piecing one back together?
Don't think so.
Appears at least one by-stander has grasped the concept....pic.twitter.com/pUPDn5MzGT
Reminds me of the partially concrete filled PGMs (mostly JDAMs iirc) used in Iraq in the mid 2000s for want of an adequately small warhead.
Going back even farther, reminds me of air-dropped flechettes like the Lazy Dog - the opposite in terms of accuracy. Just drop enough sharp darts to blanket an area from a few hundred or thousand feet up - all the anti-infantry effect of cluster bombs, none of the UXO headache.
That’s why old WWI era battle rifles have sights that go out to 2400 metres. Pick a point a given distance away where the enemy is, set your sights to that distance and fire off a few rounds. If you have a Company fire off 5 rounds that’s about 600 bullets being dropped.
These are essentially a larger version of the expandable broadheads I use on my hunting arrows. (Of course these will also move a little faster than 330 FPS I shoot at.)
No this is not a Hellfire missile, a Hellfire missile wld do much more damage.
Did you even read the article??
MAGA supporter....probably reads at a 3rd grade level.
Eventually it will be a just a hyper accurate guided bullet. That or a laser.
From memory the general consensus was something very similar to what the WSJ have just revealed
I had heard rumors about the inert warhead (hitting with blunt force), but this is the first I hear about the blades.
At Mach 1.3 those "swords" would rip the missile a part. Plus there's no way to fire the missle with them in place. What you're seeing is blast effects from the penetrator tearing the thin roof panels.
Read. The. Article. The blades are housed inside the missile body and don't deploy until just before impact.
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