Tomahawk cruise missiles gone missing in Iran

I just found this while googling Tomahawk cruise missiles. it dates back to mid-03 but yet worths reading it.

IN SEARCH OF A LOST CRUISE MISSILE

A Tomahawk cruise missile is not easy to lose. The very reason the U.S. military is willing to spend $750,000 a piece on the precision-guided munitions is precisely that they go exactly where they?re told. But in the past week, three U.S. Tomahawks have gone missing in the rocky plains of southeastern Turkey en route to Iraq, several hundred miles from the war zone. Five more went astray in Saudi Arabia, and a handful of others have broken up in Iran and, reportedly, Syria.
www.time.com...

Iranians are pretty good at reverse-engineering (they always have chinese who could do the job for them ), I would be surprised if they have not made a copy of it yet. Tomahawks are quite accurate and I guess if used properly, they are a great risk to us military in iraq.

btw, why so many gone off the course? and why are they launched from ships, as stated in the text? I mean, they could launch it from ground bases that are closer to their targets ==> more precision.

Iran already has a handful of Kh-55 cruise missiles with an awesome long range exceeding 2000 miles, though expired. According to several claims by iranian opposition groups,they are very close to build a copy of the missile under the project Ghadir.

Once kh-55 is launched from Su-24 long-range strike aircraft in the Iranian air force, it can put Japan, all of Russia and Israel within range, and I have no doubts, once upgraded, loaded with more fuel, the missile could hit anywhere on US soil.

Also have a look at this. IRAN SEEKS CRUISE MISSILE TO SUPPORT SHIHAB (www.iranfocus.com...), one might be able to explain this to me.

RESPECT

[edit on 25-2-2006 by proprog]

I highly doubt there is any reason to worry about reverse-engineering tomahawks from those missiles. Do you know what a armed Tomahawk looks like after it hits something.

heres a picture
link
Those missiles would be in a million little pieces. Even if they were also duds which is highly unlikley they would hit with such force their wouldnt be much left.

Even smart weapons are not 100% perfect some miss either due to malfunction or human error.

Well, if those missiles did really end up in iran than mabey it was because of malfuctioning and would probably be set for re-engineering or making another missile just like it or close to it, those KH-55's we got which are NUCLEAR CAPABLE are also for re-engineering which unfortunatley won't be used incase of war . We also got a handfull of US UAV's that always fly over Iran and with those it helpes us alot with the UAV's were making. I myself have no fimiliriaty with the cause of seeking cruise missiles to support Shahab but the 4th one will be launched this year or next, expect a couple new cruise missiles to show up for our army day this year as we are one of the country's in the world to have the capability to make Missiles on all category.

[edit on 25-2-2006 by Mehran]

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I highly doubt there is any reason to worry about reverse-engineering tomahawks from those missiles. Do you know what a armed Tomahawk looks like after it hits something.

It goes off the course but it doesn't explode. Here is a picture


RESPECT

Thats a bit big for a tomahawk, I mean it looks shorter and thicker. I smell foul play.

You know, when I read the title of this thread, I was instantly reminded of the inceident during the an older war, in which a dud missile got lodged in the tail pipe of an enemy mig, and it was reverse engineered by Russia.


I don't see it impossible that atleast one was a dud, and was'nt destroyed on impact.

Originally posted by proprog


It goes off the course but it doesn't explode. Here is a picture

RESPECT

Its a little hard to tell whats in that picture without a link. That could be a oil drum for all we know. If it was a Tomahawk was it a armed test?

Not only would these tomahawks have to go off course but these same missiles would also have to be duds and land in a relatively soft landing area as well. rocky plains and a grass field arent exactly the same thing.

Highly unlikley that all these factors would happen on these few missiles.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

Its a little hard to tell whats in that picture without a link. That could be a oil drum for all we know. If it was a Tomahawk was it a armed test?

Not only would these tomahawks have to go off course but these same missiles would also have to be duds and land in a relatively soft landing area as well. rocky plains and a grass field arent exactly the same thing.

Highly unlikley that all these factors would happen on these few missiles.

not really mate,

look at pakistan they recovered many tomahawks(about 3 ish) from the war in afghanistan and few landed near pakistan border. they have had them also other countries have also recovered some like china and iran becuase you have to look at it this way america fired hundreds of missiles infact i think the figure was close to a thousand(i might be wrong) anyway some where going to fail its only natural also facter in the use of GPS-jammers and communication-jammers used in iraq/afghanistan and its not surprising some went of course.


this is just an example of some stuf fthat has crashed :

news.bbc.co.uk...

Originally posted by iqonx
this is just an example of some stuf fthat has crashed :

news.bbc.co.uk...

There are some slight differnces between a UAV and a Tomahawk missile with a huge armed warhead on it.

Where is the evidence of these pakistan recovered Tomahawk missiles? Even if one landed pretty much intact they could not have salvaged the embedded systems of the Tomahawks, since they are in classified programming languages.

Even with the Pakistani Babur missile the had to have the Chinese help them develop a guidance system.

But what would really be funny about any reverse engineered Tomahawk missile is that it would use the US GPS system which they have total control over. They could easily once again send out a degraded GPS single from the GPS system and mess up the accuracy of any said missile.

[edit on 26-2-2006 by ShadowXIX]

since they are in classified programming languages.

American Cruise Missiles and aircraft all use volitile memory. AKA: Ram Drives

When the power goes off the software disappears.

The software is half of the tech.

Without that you don't have a whole lot.

I would believe that, even China the masters of reverse engineering have not been able too copy the sophisticated TERCOM guidance of the Tomahawk. They have some comparable TERCOM guidance on some of their more advanced missiles but its not exactly the same. You need a extensive database of accurate topographic for TERCOM guidance to wrok and would be relatively ineffective in areas such as the South China Sea, which present few navigational reference points.

Chinas missiles seem to also still rely on GPS which is liability for them. Perhaps in the future they can use Russian GLONASS, or the European GALILEO systems but niether is fully operational. China really needs to create their own system.

I would say espionage is still the greatest threat too the Tomahawks secrets.

This is fairly old news - as I recall, the Serbs recovered cruise missiles and other US hardware and shipped them off to an assortment of friends.

Reverse engineering is not the big deal here; anyone with a little know-how can build one using GPS these days (as has been shown). And no, the US can't simply turn off selected availability any more. In any case, this wouldn't have much effect if the cruise missile had any form of terminal guidance, or a warhead for which a precision of tens of metres was not needed (chemical, biological, nuclear).

It's not a new problem. Anyone who remembers Vietnam will recall that the VC acquired large amounts of explosive for IEDs from dud US bombs. The technology is just getting more advanced.

Originally posted by Wembley
And no, the US can't simply turn off selected availability any more.

Why not?
Merchant ships can run without them you know.

And no, the US can't simply turn off selected availability any more.

Uh, yes we can, all GPS satellites are owned and operated by the USAF. Any company or business that uses or relies on GPS is fully aware that their accessibility can be terminated at any time by the USAF without their say in the matter.

T-LAMs aren't launched from ground bases, because they CAN'T be. They're designed to be either air launched, or ship/sub launched. Accuracy over any distance isn't a problem for them. The only advantage would be shorter flight time.

Originally posted by Wembley

And no, the US can't simply turn off selected availability any more. In any case, this wouldn't have much effect if the cruise missile had any form of terminal guidance, or a warhead for which a precision of tens of metres was not needed (chemical, biological, nuclear).

The US can indeed degrade the GPS signal that everyone eles uses. GPS sends out two signal one only the US military uses and another civil signal anyone can use. The Civil signal was purposely degraded for many years and the US can easily do so again.

This is very important to any convential warhead since it can be degraded to only be accurate to within 100 meters instead of inches. As for NCB warheads the US still has the power to completly turn off the GPS system in any such event.

Why do you think people are spending billions to create systems like GLONASS, GALILEO which do the same thing.

Originally posted by devilwasp
Thats a bit big for a tomahawk, I mean it looks shorter and thicker. I smell foul play.

It is one chunk of the missile, broken up into pieces after it crashed to the earth but the warhead remains unexploded. the missile is programmed not to explode if it doesn't hit its target to avoid civilian casaualties.

btw, the picture I posted could be found in the same link I provided in my first entry. it's the picture of the U.S. cruise missile fallen on the Turkish territory. no pics available from such missiles broken up in iran.

RESPECT

[edit on 27-2-2006 by proprog]

Unless those guys are midgets, that is not a tomahawk. Tlam's have a diameter of 20 inches(52cm's). Probably a propoganda photo.

People don't seem to be aware that some years back (2000) the decision was taken to abandon SA.

"The United States is turning off a feature known as selective availability, which we'll talk more about. "

See
clinton6.nara.gov...

Now, there is still Selective Deniability, which will degrade GPS in a given area. But because GPS is now a key part of emergency services, FAA etc systems, any attempt to use it on US soil would cause serious problems. It's not the sort of thing you can do easily...