A very embarrassing incident has happened for Russia.
A Buk air defense system of the Russian armed forces struck its own system and crew members.
The Buk anti-aircraft missile system was carrying out a strike on an unknown airborne
target, but somehow the missile failed to reach the target and struck its own system.
Footage of the system has gone viral on various social media platforms.
According to preliminary data, the incident occurred in Alchevsk in the Luhansk Oblast region.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how Russian Buk air defense system hit its own battery and
troops with a missile? Let's get started.
The videos seem to show four missiles launched in pretty quick succession.
While the first three shots seem to have gone off as expected,
the fourth missile appears to malfunction a few seconds after launch.
After flying several hundred meters, it suddenly turned around and hit its own position.
This led to the destruction of the mobile launcher of the Buk air defense system,
as well as other assets in the vicinity. It is unclear exactly on which date
this incident happened and how many casualties were sustained because of this.
This is not the first such malfunctioning of the system.
Some experts have compared this incident to a
previous incident involving a Ukrainian-operated Buk system.
The Buk air defense missile system was developed to replace the previous Kub.
Its industrial designation is 9K37.
Development of this system commenced in 1972 and was meant to be a successor to the Kub-M3.
It entered service with the Soviet Army in 1980.
The Buk has been exported to a number of countries.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of air defense systems were
passed on to successor states. Currently, Russia operates around 350 of these systems.
This air defense system can defeat maneuvering aircraft and helicopters
flying at low or high altitudes. Buk-M1 is an improved version of the original Buk.
It has better resistance to electronic countermeasures and anti-radiation missiles.
A standard Buk battalion consists of a command vehicle, target acquisition radar (TAR) vehicle,
six transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) vehicles and three transporter
erector launcher (TEL) vehicles. A Buk missile battery consists of two TELAR and one TEL vehicle.
The main sensor is 9S18M1 Kupol-M Snow Drift target acquisition radar
which has a range of 160 km or 100 miles and is supplemented by 9S35M1 Fire Dome target
tracking radar which operates in H/I band and has a range of 85 km or around 52 miles.
A Buk TELAR vehicle is fitted with radar, digital computer, missile erector and launcher, friend
or foe identification system. It is operated by a crew of four and carries four missiles.
Radar of the Buk TELAR vehicle searches for targets, tracks them and guides missiles on them.
So, if required each TELAR vehicle can operate autonomously.
The radar detects aircraft flying at altitude over 3 km or 1.8 miles at a range of 80 km or 50 miles.
The detection range is reduced to 40 km or 25 miles
when aircraft fly at 30-100 m above the ground. The Buk fires 9M38 missiles. It is a single-stage
and solid-fuel missile. It resembles US Tartar and Standard naval air defense missiles.
Each missile has a length of 5.5m, a wingspan of 860mm and a weight of 710 kg or 1565 lbs.
It can carry up to 70 kg or 155 lbs high-explosive fragmentation
warheads with radar proximity and a contact fusing system.
It can engage targets at a range of 20 km or 1.25 miles at altitudes over 3 km or 1.8 miles
The 9M38 missile has a hit probability of 70-93%.
The reaction time of the system is 22 seconds from track to launch.
It takes 5 minutes to set up after arrival on-site;
5 minutes to depart in 'shoot and scoot' mode.
The system can engage six targets simultaneously, and guide 12 missiles
According to some Russian sources, the missiles were suppressed by a powerful
electronic warfare complex, as a result of which a strong blow was dealt with its own positions.
But currently, Ukraine doesn’t possess any powerful electronic warfare complex that can
strike a missile defense system that also from a long distance.
Some other reports indicate that the missile may be faulty or may have been damaged during loading.
There is also some speculation that there is an inherent stability issue in the Buk system.
Buk air defense is a 40 years old system and technically these systems have many shortcomings.
It has come to light that Russia has been using chips and many other components that are outdated.
Russia is still using USSR tech and chips in their latest equipment
because of their inability to design and manufacture new and improved ones.
Three US officials with knowledge of this matter have told Reuters that
Russian precision-guided missiles are failing up to 60% of the time in Ukraine.
This is a massive number, the failure rate of 20% is considered high.
For example, it was reported that on 20 May, Russian troops launched a Kalibre missile strike
on the Odesa region using aircraft. The missile costing $6.5 million failed to hit any important
Ukrainian asset, instead, it destroyed a beach toilet in the south of the region.
So it is not a surprise that so many Russian weapons have failed to work as intended
and in some cases they have simply backfired.