Saudi Arabia to begin operations in Yemen

[LoooSeR]

   Thanks to Iran and Houthis for support of Russian economy, haha.

[Beer]

4 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

It is obvious that Iran was behind this attack as it supplied cruise missiles and was involved in planning and execution of operation (and not the first time), but i am not sure why they need to proove that it came from Iran or Iraq so much, probably for political reasons to be able to do things in Iraq with some sort of publicly stated reasons. Those are not the first oil-related structures that Houthis bombed with drones/cruise missiles, BTW. 

 

Was it published where the remnants of the crashed missile were located? Also the bird hunter's video from Kuwait suggest that something came from Iraq. 

 

Either way if it came from Iraq or from Yemen it would still mean a confirmaton that Iran is capable of launching large scale longe range attack from a third country's territory. It's not one or two missiles this time. Twenty missiles or so at once and with a high success rate is a pretty big deal. 

[Beer]

A map of Saudi AD missile network in the area. For this type of attack crucial short-range systems are not on the map. There was some unsuccessful AA gun fire heard in the videos from the attack. 

 

Anyway attack from the west with low flying missiles or drones seems to be a logical way for the attacker. 

 

[LoooSeR]

25 minutes ago, Beer said:

A map of Saudi AD missile network in the area. For this type of attack crucial short-range systems are not on the map. There was some unsuccessful AA gun fire heard in the videos from the attack. 

 

Anyway attack from the west with low flying missiles or drones seems to be a logical way for the attacker. 

 

   At least on Abqaiq oil facility you can see impact holes from cruise missiles on western side of tanks, while second facility was hit on the northen edge. Hard to tell for sure, but i do think that Abqaiq was hit by Houthis (or at least somewhere from Yemen) with cruise missiles, while drones could came from other places, including Iraq or just Iranian ships.

 

32 minutes ago, Beer said:

 

Was it published where the remnants of the crashed missile were located? Also the bird hunter's video from Kuwait suggest that something came from Iraq. 

 

Either way if it came from Iraq or from Yemen it would still mean a confirmaton that Iran is capable of launching large scale longe range attack from a third country's territory. It's not one or two missiles this time. Twenty missiles or so at once and with a high success rate is a pretty big deal. 

   No, didn't saw any information where that failed missile crashed. 

 

   This is far from their first missile attack, Beer. Houthis were launching ballistic missiles at KSA not once, for example. At that stage it was obvious that such attacks against high profile places like palaces or military installations near Riad were not generating much of results, so when Houthis and Iranians switched to drones and CMs they started to score bigger results. This attack is one of many similar one.

[Beer]

I know that it was not the first attack but there is big difference to launch one or two missiles or a salvo of twenty aiming on twenty different targets. That's far more difficult from all points of view. 

[LoooSeR]

7 minutes ago, Beer said:

I know that it was not the first attack but there is big difference to launch one or two missiles or a salvo of twenty aiming on twenty different targets. That's far more difficult from all points of view. 

   And that attack wasn't unique in numbers - Houthis already did attacks using 10+ drones and CMs.

 

   Look at the previous one, for example. 

 

   Another one:

 

[Beer]

That was far smaller attack if we compare what is factually comparable, i.e. the damage visible from satellite pictures. I am not comparing the values given by the speaker because in that case this time Houthi speaker performed pretty badly because he stated they used 10 drones in the attack while there are 15-19 hits in the Saudi facilities. 

 

But ok, in the end it doesn't matter that much where it came from. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Beer
Typo

[LoooSeR]

   Looks like Houthis and Iranians did a "test run" of Yemeni-assembled Ya Ali version against one of Saudi airport.

 

[LoooSeR]

5 minutes ago, Beer said:

That was far smaller attack if we compare what is factually comparable, i.e. the damage visible from satellite pictures. I am not comparing the values given by the speaker becaue in that case this time Houthi speaker performed pretty badly because he stated they used 10 drones in the attack while there are 15-19 hits in the Saudi facilities. 

/.../

   Previous attack had ~comparable level damage to infrastructure to what Abqaiq got. Khurais damage is very small. Difference between previous attack and this one is that several more CMs were used and target was major Saudi refinery, where somewhat similar scaled attack would produce bigger results anyway.

[Ramlaen]

 

[jaehaerys48]

The accuracy seems very high for a cruise missile strike. Even with Tomahawks there are usually a few more misses or failures. One might have gone down in the dunes but the rest seem to have hit their targets - and that series of hits on those tanks, all in almost the same position - is a sort of accuracy that rivals the US & Russia. 

 

Given that the warheads of these missiles are 200kg+, wouldn't there have been more visible damage? It leads me to believe that the hits on the tanks were some other sort of loitering munition/drone, but the Iranians to my knowledge don't have any Harop-style loitering munitions with the range to pull off an attack like that from Yemen or Iraq. In any case, coordinating an attack with dozens of missiles and drones so that they early detection by air defense and impact the target at around the same time - with the aforementioned high degree of accuracy - is not impossible, but that's a level of sophistication I wouldn't normally expect in the region. IMO either Saudi air defense is very incompetent - long-range drones aren't exactly hard to spot and shoot down - or some of the munitions were smuggled in and launched from within the country.

[Ramlaen]

suicide drones and cruise missiles do not fly at 30k feet, they are pretty hard to detect if you don't have a radar near the flight path

[mr.T]

Damage looks like it was made with fairly small munitions , Quasir 1 or 2 would fit the bill , but would also need to be launched from inside Saudi Arabia.

 

[Ramlaen]

22 minutes ago, mr.T said:

Damage looks like it was made with fairly small munitions , Quasir 1 or 2 would fit the bill , but would also need to be launched from inside Saudi Arabia.

 

 

Explain the cruise missile debris.

[mr.T]

We do not know how old that pic is ,but who said cruise missile could not be used as well , but on one of the Vids you can hear propeler noise and some gunfire.

Quasir 1 or 2 was used in UAE airport attacks so was obviously launched outside of yemen, I imagine KSA borders to be quite porous and do not see problems geting the gear in.

 

Couple of videos i cant  realy find now had distinct propeler buzz then bang and no more propeler noise.

But this one also records the buzz prior bang.

 

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/RDRcl9Mc/vid_20190914_074704_544_hd.mp4

 

Huthis use many different drones.

 

I dont quite get it why people doubt drone accuracy ,Quasir done was used to assinate military brass on a UAE parade , that requires drone to strike with couple meter accuracy made even more difficoult as it used airburst warhead  so also had to explode at the right spot

 

Even tough this drone did not kill a lot of people it killed the highest ranking brass  ,note it exploded right on top of them very precise. Considerng the latency of radio control.

 

 

[Ramlaen]

Both cruise missiles and drones were used, but that isn't what you were arguing.

[mr.T]

Point is If the drones like Quasr were used range i obviously way too short  ,so were launched from KSA soil , Huthis have proven to be able to stage attacks outside Yemen ,so  launch point inside KSA  would not be unimaginable. 

 

 

 

 

[Belesarius]

Given some of the strikes the Houthis have pulled off with the equipment they have this doesn't look unreasonable, given what LoOoser has posted.

 

Edit: To be clear, I think this strike was directed by Iran...  But I'm pretty convinced that the Houthis were the instrument of that strike.

 

 

 

[kwaitwkski]

The dog and pony show comes.

 

Also a thread on some of the air defenses in the area.

 

 

 

[mr.T]

Last time we have seen > “a very compelling forensic case” that Iran did it

 

We had this and  world laughed at the show.

Standing in front of the remnants of the projectile, permanent representative to the UN Nikki Haley said it bore a close resemblance to an Iranian-made Qiam ballistic missile.

[LoooSeR]

3 hours ago, Belesarius said:

Given some of the strikes the Houthis have pulled off with the equipment they have this doesn't look unreasonable, given what LoOoser has posted.

 

Edit: To be clear, I think this strike was directed by Iran...  But I'm pretty convinced that the Houthis were the instrument of that strike.

   For anybody that was following this thread long enough it is obvious that Iran was behind all of those missile attacks on Saudi Arabia using Yemen, as Saudis failed to crush Houthis they basically created very motivated group of people that was completely ok with getting Iranian help and work as their launch site.

   If KSA and US wanted to "punish" the one responsible for this attack, they don't need to prove (or "prove") where launch site was located as this is secondary thing in big picture.

 

26 minutes ago, mr.T said:

Last time we have seen > “a very compelling forensic case” that Iran did it

 

We had this and  world laughed at the show.

Standing in front of the remnants of the projectile, permanent representative to the UN Nikki Haley said it bore a close resemblance to an Iranian-made Qiam ballistic missile.

 

   This was Iranian missile and parts were very good evidence of that. Although Nikki was saying some dumb shit IIRC.

[LoooSeR]

 

   Pieces of missiles and drones showed.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[mr.T]

Iranian weapons dont equal iran launched the attack ,Huthis take any help the can get but they don't take orders from Tehran., US likes to atrubute proxies as under direct control , but that is simply not the case. 

 

Saudi exhibit , note quite small drones and 2 yemeni Quds1 cruise missiles that differ from Iranian clones of Soviet kh-55 bought in Ukraine . Will be interesting to see radar plots as an Awacs type plane was on orbit bordering Iraq so if drones came from Iran shoudl be on radar , altough anyone can draw their radar plots they way they want.

But small size of the flying wing type drones supprts idea that they were launched inside KSA ,like it was the case with drone atack on UAE airport.

 

Saudi claims

Saudi spokesman says attack was “unquestionably sponsored" by Iran 

sort of like the Saudis sponsored 9/11? or bombs the Saudis Dropped on a school bus full of children are sponsored by the US.?   Sponsored just doesnt sound like Iranians didi it.

 

Chris Hayes added,

• 18 delta winged UAV + 7 cruise missiles fired 
• direction of flight + range indicate attacks did not originate from Yemen, but from the north; (impacts on the gas tanks were from the  west)
• sophistication of weapons included GPS guidance giving high accuracy.(nothing out of Huthi domain)

 

 

 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

   Looks like 3 out of 7 cruise missiles failed while all kamikaze UAV reached their targets

[LoooSeR]

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-09-18/saudi-arabia-parades-drone-and-missile-debris-as-proof-iran-behind-oil-attacks/

Quote

Eighteen drones and seven cruise missiles were launched in the assault, Al-Malki said

Three cruise missiles fell short of their targets - the Abqaiq oil processing plant, the world's largest, and the Khurais oilfield. Two missiles have been recovered, and one is still being made safe.

/.../

The officer told the press conference that the drone could fly 1200km, while the cruise missile 700km - therefore the missile could not have reached its target if fired from Yemen.

   Weird claims about range of cruise missiles.

 

https://imp-navigator.livejournal.com/855115.html

Quote

As for the UAV, it looks like drones with a delta wing that were shown in Iran at the IRGC achievements exhibition in 2014.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

   Saudis got well-deserved smack in the face and now are running around screaming and crying, heh. Fuck them.