Tel Aviv Boasts, Moscow Collects Bonuses: Israeli JDAM-ER Is At The Disposal of Russia’s Specialists

By Evgeny Damantsev
Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard
cross posted with https://www.stalkerzone.org/tel-aviv-boasts-moscow-collects-bonuses-israeli-jdam-er-is-at-the-disposal-of-russias-specialists/
source: https://topwar.ru/153019-izrailskij-jdam-er-uzhe-v-rasporjazhenie-nashih-specialistov-tel-aviv-kichitsja-a-moskva-sobiraet-bonusy.html

Tel Aviv Boasts, Moscow Collects Bonuses: Israeli JDAM-ER Is At The Disposal of Russia’s Specialists

Already 1 week has passed since the moment of the last massive missile attack carried out by the tactical aircraft of Kheil HaAvir and the “SkyStriker” suicide drone against the positions of the Syrian “Pantsir-S1” air defence batteries and the strong points of the elite Iranian special purpose unit “Quds”, which is a part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, but the victorious reports of the Israeli media about destroyed and damaged pieces of equipment belonging to the troops of Syrian air defenses, seemingly, will continue to unreasonably shake Western European, Middle Eastern, and even the Russian media space for many weeks to come.

Thus, for example, the next “defeated” target that was scrupulously propagandised by the ImageSat company (the operating company of the satellite monitoring of the Earth surface optical-electronic “EROS-B” reconnaissance) on January 24th was the Chinese radar JY-27 CETC system that was deployed in close proximity to the destroyed “Pantsir” that was on the territory of Damascus airport and aided the targeting of anti-air batteries. But let’s face the truth…

Firstly, as we already noted in our previous material, hitting the anti-aircraft missile-cannon “Pantsir-S1” system with a hardly noticeable “SkyStriker” suicide drone can’t in any instance be considered as an outstanding event, because the intensity of the blow and the number of precision weapons used by the Israel Defense Forces that were observed in the night of January 21st already initially insinuated the command’s involvement of Syrian anti-air troops belonging to the echeloned anti-missile umbrella, where such long-range anti-aircraft weapons like the “Buk-M2E” and “S-300PMU-2” had to partially reduce the quantity of several dozens of “Delilah” attacking missiles, guided air bombs, and “SkyStrikers”, leaving only 20-30 units of high-precision weapons for three-four “Pantsir” batteries. But in our situation the command of the Syrian anti-air troops, probably, not only didn’t have “S-300” at its disposal in the Southern governorates of Syria, but also refused used the Buk-M2E system for the purpose of concealing their positions and to economise on expensive ZUR 9M317. It is logical that all the weight of the work on intercepting 50-60 Israeli missiles was assigned only to the shoulders of “Pantsirs”.

Secondly, disabling the JY-27A airborne early warning radar station isn’t a critical loss for the defence capability of the southern operational zone of Syrian anti-air defence, because this radar working in a meter-long VHF wave band was designed mainly for the long-range detection of the strategic reconnaissance and tactical aircraft of the Israeli Air Force and the unified air force of the coalition operating at medium and high altitudes over the Mediterranean Sea, Jordan, and Iraq, while the detection of the super-hardly noticeable GBU-39/B guided air weapon and low-altitude tactical “Delilah” missiles wasn’t included in the range of its tasks. Only one conclusion arises from this: laudatory odes to Israeli missile weapons aren’t worth a dime in today’s situation – the destruction of more than 30 attacking drones, “smart bombs”, and missiles serve as confirmation of this.

Much more important information appeared at our disposal in the morning on January 22nd thanks to the operational work of the Syrian military expert and news reporter under the pseudonym Qalaat Al Mudiq [note: this account is notoriously anti-Assad and isn’t confirmed to be Syrian, but does post real photos and videos – ed] who published on his Twitter page rather interesting photos of the casing of a 1000-pound American free-falling Mk 83 air bomb acquired by the defensive department of Israel and also a specialised system of management and increasing the range of application turning unguided bombs into guided air bombs with a radius of action (deviation) of more than 75 km from the dropping point of the carrier’s bomb holder. Some observers, in view of their lack of information, thought that this system was an “Israeli suicide drone”. But in reality it concerns a “Spice-1000” advanced Israeli guided air bomb with a 100-kilometer range, the basic component of which is indeed the Mk 83 bomb. The system that imparts qualities and control to a bomb is represented by a mechanism that has deployable wings and little engines that turn the tail aerodynamic rudders.

But the most interesting tidbit is that during the interception of this product by the “Pantsir-S1” system near the Syrian city of Qatana (during the latest night raid of the Israeli Air Force) the sector of the scattering of shrapnel from the fragmental-rod warhead of a 57E6E anti-aircraft missile “poured” on only the left wing of the system (it is visible in the photo). As a result the reducing gear that opens the wings, the tail module with aerodynamic rudder surfaces, and some element base of the avionics equipment (perhaps, the GPS module, the inertial navigation system, and also the device that synchronises with a MIL-STD-1553B/1760 standard data bus) remained intact.

Concerning this equipment, the directional pattern of the GPS antenna, and also the sensitivity of the receiving device can be of special interest for specialists of the Central Scientific Research Institute of the Aerospace Defense Forces of Russia, on the basis of which it will be possible to facilitate the development of measures to counter the “Spice-1000” during the midcourse phase of its trajectory with the help of L-band radio-electronic counteraction systems. Becoming acquainted with the bands and modes of operation of the wide-angle television and infrared sensors of the optical-electronic homing head of the “Spice-1000” has even greater value, because this guided air bomb doesn’t use telemetric channels to transfer video images aboard the carrier craft; and this means that it isn’t possible to receive similar information by radio-electronic/radio-technical reconnaissance.