Gaddafi forces 'fired Scuds at Misrata'

Herald and Weekly Times ^ | August 23, 2011 | Staff Writer

[gandalftb]

"We can confirm reports concerning the firing of three surface-to-surface Scud missiles from the vicinity of Sirte," chief NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said of ongoing resistance despite rebels entering Tripoli on Sunday.

"They landed in the coastal area of Misrata, most likely in the sea or on the shore," she said, adding "we are not aware of damage or casualties."

[gandalftb]

The rest of the story:

The destination of the missiles was obviously not Misrata but a target beyond, as the missiles splashed down to the north in the Mediterranean Sea.

Maybe they were shot down by NATO aircraft after being spotted by our newly deployed Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) satellites, launched September 2009.

The STSS tracks a target missile and feeds data to our Aegis or AWAC systems, generating a fire control solution for an early interceptor launch. We successfully tested this system 16 March, 2011.

What would Qaddafi have been targeting?

Qaddafi has at least 417 Scuds that he offered to us in 2005 for $2 million each, which we declined. He also has 80 mobile launch vehicles.

They have an upgraded range of 400 km that with a reduced payload and N Korean help may now be upwards of 700 km. Looking at the map and likely flight path, that puts NATO base Lampedusa and our NAS Sigonella downrange.

In 1987, Qaddafi fired two SCUD-Bs at our Navy base on Lampedusa.

[Seabeejas]

“They landed in the coastal area of Misrata, most likely in the sea or on the shore,” she said, adding “we are not aware of damage or casualties.”

What other choices were there? They landed in space, we are not aware of any casualities. Oh to be a jounalist and smarter than all the rest.

[gandalftb]

BTW, regarding the location of Qaddafi, there seems to be three likely locations:

His hometown and current stronghold of Sirte.

Ghadames oasis SW of Tripoli then off to Algeria, sheltered by supporters of his old friend Ben Ali.

Thare is a credible report that he escaped to Sabha last Thursday, 18 August, or Friday, 19 August and may have taken up to $5 billion with him. The Sabha Air Base south of the city offers him a flight out, with all the gold, beyond the easy range of NATO. From there he can launch a destabilizing guerrilla campaign himself and control over southern Libya.

[Gaffer]

....What would Qaddafi have been targeting?

Let's hope, the Hajj....

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks gandalftb. If Gaddafy’s forces did indeed fire them, the targets could have been NATO vessels. Launching three seems like a poor thin way of doing it, if he’d been serious about things, he’d have launched ‘em months ago. And not just three. Ships have defensive systems and air support, but there’s no way to stop 417 launches launched 80 at a time.

IOW, sounds like the rebels fired ‘em harmlessly into the sea in order to dogpile on some charges against Gaddafy.

[gandalftb]

We have deployed the launch detection system I referred to. The Scuds were shot down by NATO aircraft. This is the first deployment of this system that hopefully obsoletes all medium range missiles.

Confirmed that the downrange target was "European". Their accuracy is + or - 450 meters so they wouldn't be effective on naval targets.

Not likely rebel-launched as they don't have any of the expertise and we have tracked the launch to the Qaddafi stronghold of Sirte.

BTW it takes about an hour to set up and launch. Once we IR the launch, the launch vehicle would be hidden in 10-15 minutes, so they are tough to counter. We never did find the at least 250 Scuds and 50 launch vehicles that Saddam had.