Oct 112022
 

Assuming the video is accurate (these days, who knows), it appears that a Ukrainian soldier swatted a Russian cruise missile on its way to a war crime using a standard shoulder-launched short range missile.

It’s unclear to me what system was used, as the video is pretty potato in quality. Doesn’t look to me like a Stinger; not enough stuff on the front of the launcher. Maybe a Grail, Gremlin or Piorun.

A MANPAD vs a cruise missile makes sense: cruise missiles fly low, generally subsonic, have no countermeasures such as flares and do not try to maneuver to avoid getting hit. On the other hand their engines are small and do not put out nearly as much thermal energy as the turbojets of a fighter; but on the gripping hand, they are also not as IR shielded as the exhausts of a stealthy airplane or a battlefield helicopter. So the trick with using a MANPAD to take out a cruise missile is to be in the right place at the right time, and to be on the ball. It’s impossible to know what apartment building or orphanarium or kitten hospital the Russian cruise missile was targeted to obliterate, but it’s safe to say that the missileer here just saved a fair number of civilians a lot of grief.

 Posted by at 8:53 pm