Georgia: Russia dropped bomb on village

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
WEll if it is unexploded, and weighs 700kg... it'll be hard for russia to deny.....

Talk about your 800 pound gorilla...
Thanks for the laugh!

Serial numbers should clear out the ownership facts, unless the missile has been stolen from Russian armories (it has happened before)

Actually this is the reason why this incident happened:

News BBC

Moscow is angry about Georgia's plans to join Nato, while Tbilisi accuses Russia of trying to destabilise Georgia.

I wonder what Russkies are going to say about this piece of their missile.

And how did it get there.

hihihi busteeed^^its so nasty of them liyng^^
but seen as how georgia wants to join nato.....
i mean if i was a small country near russia i would join russiaits for survival
nato cant protect them and go to war theyr near russia^^

Originally posted by blablablaxyz
Is this why 35% of Georgians went to live in Russia ? Harvard "educated" Shakashshvili has locked up every opposition party in the country. Try to think beyond the NATO Pact media's interests and their (now familiar) anti Russian spin to every story.

I know! I'm sorry I didn't make it clearer but I'm talking about the general history of the WHOLE region, not just Georgia in particular. When it comes to the Georgians and their push toward NATO, they're obviously going to get some "no-no's" from Russia itself and a decent amount of Georgians.

Now, once they trace the missile back to Russia (which is going to happen, either which way you look at it) it could easily have been purchased from Russia itself or through a black market source. Not to mention it could have been stolen directly from Russia. That would be a nice little bonus for folks that are pro-Russia to rethink their roots. While this is a possibility, I don't hold it very likely.

Originally posted by Souljah
I wonder what Russkies are going to say about this piece of their missile.
And how did it get there.

Just out of curiosity; how did you rule out that it cannot be a Georgian missile? As most of their missiles are of Russian origin and they of course have russian markings on them? As you clearly are claiming that it was Russian owned?

Originally posted by northwolf
Just out of curiosity; how did you rule out that it cannot be a Georgian missile? As most of their missiles are of Russian origin and they of course have russian markings on them? As you clearly are claiming that it was Russian owned?

Well I do not know; who is joining NATO and who does not like that move. And I think it did not happen the first time, since Russia Military has used Georgian territory several times before. It is a well planned provocation if you ask me.

Here are some images from ground zero, if, I can even call it that:





What is there to make of these photos, if anything?

Originally posted by Donoso
What is there to make of these photos, if anything?

They are standing rather close to 'supposedly' live ordinance.

I know it may of been defused ~ but for that to happen someone had to pull it out of the hole.

This whole thing is suss, given the apparent remote location personally I would of expected them to cordon off and have a controlled explosion, if any thing that would look good for the cameras.

Originally posted by Souljah
Well I do not know; who is joining NATO and who does not like that move. And I think it did not happen the first time, since Russia Military has used Georgian territory several times before. It is a well planned provocation if you ask me.

And who is deperately trying to justify joining NATO to it's population while trying to control two majorly Russian districts with military operations.

Russia has nothing to gain from this kind of operation, they don't need to show force or convince anyone. Trust me if Russia wants to create an incident they will shoot to kill as nothing else will gain them anything. (and even that would cause more bad press to shadow any military gains)

[edit on 7-8-2007 by northwolf]

I would imagine that the russians will pass it off as a training flight that got lost, and that the "bomb" was a dummy munition detached by accident.

BTW, the words are Facist. Not fashist, and Ridiculous, not rediculous. Sorry if I sound picky but I come from the country that invented the language

Originally posted by northwolf
Russia has nothing to gain from this kind of operation, they don't need to show force or convince anyone. Trust me if Russia wants to create an incident they will shoot to kill as nothing else will gain them anything. (and wven that would cause more bad press to shadow any military gains)

Sorry mate, but the facts are speaing against you.

Reuters

Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said radar had picked up two Su-34 jets flying from Russia on Monday evening. He said one had fired an air-to-surface missile.

Two Su-34 jets? And Georgian Air Force does not have this kind of jets. So where did they come from then?

Yes, and we are supposed to believe that they can identify Su-34 from a radar picture? Maybe they can i'm not sure.

South ossetians claim that they were Georgian planes. We'll have to wait and see if they release the radar data showing that the planes actually crossed the border...

But if they were Georgian i must admit i'm wondering why Russia hasn't released any information indicating that as they have the entire Georgian airspace under surveillance (They'd be incompetent to not have a AWACS up in the region)

About the Su-34: Wikipedia

The development of the Su-34 has been hampered by the poor state of Russian finances, and to date only a handful of pre-production models have been built. In mid-2004 Sukhoi announced that low-rate production was commencing and that initial aircraft would reach squadron service around 2008. Nevertheless, upgrade programs continue for surviving Russian Su-24 'Fencers', as the Su-34 may still not enter wide service for some years to come.

So, we're pretty much set that Georgia wouldn't own any Su-34's, but, is it really that simple to tell what they're seeing on radars? People in the service can confuse low flying birds for aircraft and it happens frequently.

Then there's:

In March 2006 Russia's minister of defense Sergei Ivanov announced that the government had purchased only two Su-34s for delivery in 2006, and planned to have a complete air regiment of 24 Su-34s operational by the end of 2010 (total 58 aircraft will be purchased by 2015 to replace some of 300+ Su-24 , which are going through modernization upgrades currently to prolong their service life). Ivanov claimed that because the aircraft is "many times more effective on all critical parameters" the Russian Air Force will need far fewer of these newer bombers than the old Su-24 it replaces.

So, the 2 Su-34 story is the easiest one to push I guess.

[edit on 7-8-2007 by Donoso]

BBC

Georgian officials say that two Russian "SU-type" jets launched the missile at 1930 (1530 GMT) on Monday.

Su-Type of jet is pretty vague, so i don't know where you got the Su-34, as far as we know they could be Su-25s (ground attack plane operated by both georgia and russia)

Originally posted by Donoso

What is there to make of these photos, if anything?

I hope Georgians can read English, otherwise they will not know what is written on those yellow plastic bands, putting them upside down does not translate them...

If it was unexploded, that means it was probably not armed when it left the aircraft. Had Russian planes been flying "near" the border, which they may well have, any munition that accidentally detached at 30-40,000 ft or more, could have traveled some way into Georgia and crashed.

Seems like a logical explanation, rather than assuming the Russians would launch a single missile (of the latest type) at a backwater village and not arm it, allowing it's "enemies" a sneak preview of the technology in their latest missile.

Pravda now reports that Georgia is claiming that the jets were Su-24s... South Ossetians say that the type is unidentified.
Pravda

Originally posted by stumason
Seems like a logical explanation, rather than assuming the Russians would launch a single missile (of the latest type) at a backwater village and not arm it, allowing it's "enemies" a sneak preview of the technology in their latest missile.

That's what my initial thought was. The sad thing is, if that's the truth the Georgians can use this to their advantage immensely. It's very convenient for Russia to "drop" a bomb on them in an act of "aggression" when they really want to join NATO. The remainder support for it to be a Russian state would dwindle in the thought that whom they support would bomb them.

The bad thing is, if it's truly an accident then there's no proof to pin against Georgia for setting the whole deal up. Which then leads to Russia even looking worse then it already does.

Oh well, it's just extremely unlikely and not exactly strategical for Russia to have done what Minister Vano Merabishvili claims they've done.

Had this missile been dropped accidentally why did the motor ignite? Is that normal?

Or did it even lit up at all?

That looks like scorched earth around the crater, indicating to me that it was indeed lit up - but then again I don't really know what sort of crater a 1 tonne missile would make if simply dropped from height (depth etc)