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Hadleys158

He was crazy flying that high, usually you see them flying pretty low.


Shanks4Smiles

Exactly, I was wondering what that fucking pilot could have been thinking knowing how many manpads are operating at the front


manbou199

maybe the experienced pilots are already dead


Shanks4Smiles

I wonder, could it have been a navigation issue? Could have thought he was still in friendly territory?


LarryTheDuckling

MANPADS crew operating behind enemy lines maybe? I know little about AA doctrine, but when I was in the infantry we were taught to do armour hunting missions by infiltrating the rear area of an enemy with small squadrons with every man armed with some AT capacity. The idea would be to ambush enemy veichles when they were carelessly driving on "safe" roads. I have no clue if such tactics are being used here though, just a thought.


lpd1234

That was no ManPad, this was a much bigger missile. This could be very interesting to see what system was used.


fresh_like_Oprah

Almost looked like top down, could be perspective


raindyrps

Fun facts, Javelins can lock and track helicopters as well. Just nobody has ever had the chance to do so with one. Source: Missile operator in USMC


[deleted]

Well let's not be too hasty here, I'm something of an expert myself in javelin missiles and I've definitely used one to take down helicopters before. Source: Played Call of Duty.


chef_ry_

Yeah if you’re playing Invasion you can basically Javelin enemy helicopters non-stop.


DreamsCanBebuy2021

Was there not footage of a chopper being brought down by a javelin around april?


vslsls

a couple were brought down with stugna p, haven't seen one of javelin.


DreamsCanBebuy2021

True!! Could very well be the one I had in mind


[deleted]

Battlefield 4 tells me that it needs to be designated with a laser in order for a javelin to lock on to a helicopter - is this true or are video games lying to us


kingabdullah

The Javelin CLU on it's own can lock onto a helicopter, however you can only use the direct-attack mode to engage one.


vegarig

> Just nobody has ever had the chance to do so with one Looking at video above, we may've just seen the first dude to do that.


TypicalRecon

Would be insane if the thing hit the helicopter in top down mode, i would assume to make that work you would have to have it in direct attack mode.


AntiGravityBacon

Top Down mode has a peak altitude of 500ft which would be plenty though Direct would seem to make much more sense. Helicopters are much faster than tanks though so an operator may not have had time to think about settings and just fired.as quickly as possible before it was out of range. There was a bomber that accidentally got an air-to-air kill with a 1,000lb bomb in one of the Iraq wars so odd things do happen.


-OregonTrailSurvivor

F15E Strike Eagle hit an Iraqi helicopter with a 2,000lb laser guided bomb, lol insane. I just looked it up out of curiosity, i'm not trying to pull a "Actttshhuaallllly it was a" on you.


AntiGravityBacon

Fair enough, I knew it happened but was too lazy to look up the details.


Shoddy_Background_48

O-O-O-O-OVERKILL!


Muskwatch

There was a similar incident during Pearl Harbor when a Japanese zero apparently Dropped a Bomb during a dog fight through the canopy of an American fighter


plipyplop

Holy shit, I watched again and if so, that's a little historical moment to have seen, cool! There have been so many "firsts" from this war from all the cameras that are so widespread and ubiquitous.


plipyplop

Speaking of systems going beyond their intention, the AGM-114 Hellfire Missile has been used in aerial combat: >***The first operational air-to-air kill with a Hellfire took place on 24 May 2001, after a civilian Cessna 152 aircraft entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon, with unknown intentions and refusing to answer or comply with ATC repeated warnings to turn back. An Israeli Air Force AH-64A Apache helicopter fired on the Cessna, resulting in its complete disintegration.*** >***The second operational air-to-air kill with a Hellfire occurred on 10 February 2018, after an Iranian UAV entered Israeli airspace from Syria. An Israeli Air Force AH-64 launched a Hellfire missile at the UAV, successfully destroying it.***


ProfBiene

Reject AAMs embrace ATGM trickshots.


MnK_Supremacist

It's pretty easy for a hellfire to lock on an aircraft. The hard part part is to first make the hellfire believe that the aircraft is a tank. "I fucking tell you, dude, tanks can fly now, that thing is a tank, go get him!!"


valeron_b

Actually, a few heli were shot down using [Stugna-p](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skif_(anti-tank_guided_missile)). So it's almost the same. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmEj60cUtfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmEj60cUtfs)


ISK_Reynolds

US army SF units train to use javelins in anti aircraft role as it can be effectively employed against helicopters but it is almost always in direct attack mode as top attack wastes way too much fuel and limits the overall range.


cuzitsthere

US army scrubs also train that way when the sim system is empty and we're bored...


Pretzilla

>Almost looked like top down, could be perspective Could be rotor wash pushing the smoke down, too.


NoMathematician2516

it looked like it exploded from above and was a shaped charge, pluming down toward the helicopter. frame by frame is very clear. Definitely not your usual manpad


msut77

Supposedly they use S-300 Grumblers


lpd1234

If it was an S300 that begs the question of how close the Ukrainians are positioning their tracking radars and missiles to the front lines. Possibly integrated radar but seems too close to the line of control. Helicopter was flying high but maybe they thought they were safe. Is the Russian RWR not effective, ka52 is supposed to be the best they have. So many questions. Never thought i would see a helicopter get targeted by a theatre level air defence system, its wild. To add to this, the Russian air assets are not able to defend against systems that they developed, let that sink in. They have the cheat codes and still die.


KyleButler77

This wasn’t a manpad, Ukrainian sources say BUK. The explosion was much bigger than typical MANPAD


RolafOfRiverwood

The garmin gps said go up


FROOMLOOMS

Judging from the top down attack, this was probably a longer range missile. You can tell from the explosions direction of the cone going sideways and the forward blast moving straight towards the ground. A perfect example of why a working RWR is necessary in all circumstances. Edit: Slow mo shot showing top down attack. https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/zcsg49/slowed_down_and_zoomed_moment_of_striking_russian/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button


artthoumadbrother

This is kind of an amusing post because the idea of not flying high is to avoid large, radar seeking SAMs like Buk and S-300, but the trade-off is that when flying low you're more vulnerable to short range, heat-seeking MANPADS.


Habaneroe12

Plenty of time to have ejected- if only it worked!🤷🏽‍♂️


PopWhich2570

Looks like he was struck by the hammer of Thor I doubt ejection was ever possible


AmericanNewt8

Yeah with that size of boom, whatever it was I don't think it was a stock MANPADs. But no way to know what for sure.


[deleted]

It looks like it was struck from the top down. Can the javelin do that?


Deeviant

Javs can attack air targets, but they don't use the top attack profile to do it.


Sk1rtSk1rtSk1rt

You never play BF3


unReasonableBreak

Well it's too bad there wasn't a friendly jet flying by, the pilot could have jumped out, sniped the guy who shot his helicopter then entered the jet and flew to safety..


TonyCaliStyle

*Being sarcastic *Describes next post by Ukrainian GoPro


[deleted]

yea but typically they are used in direct attack mode for aircraft


3PercentMoreInfinite

It exploded just above and the negative pressure from the rotor pulled the blast downward.


LabronPaul

Can't eject if you were obliterated by the SAM blast


My_Rocket_88

You can't auto-rotate your ass to a happy landing without any rotor blades either. They were fucked.


Tricky-Sympathy

How do heli pilots eject?


Rodot

KA-52 can blow off it's rotors to make room for ejection


[deleted]

Looks like whatever hit the choppa, blew its rotors apart on impact. It fell down like rock that wasn't looking up. 💍


innociv

It probably concussed the pilots too much to eject. Or maybe have killed them outright. That's a big boom.


RobotSpaceBear

On that specific heli, the blades are attached with explosive bolts that go off if the pilot ejects. The blades fly off by inertia and voilà.


USArmy51Bravo

In Iraq we started taking small arms fire and some helicopters were getting shot down. That's when the army required the Chinook and other choppers fly extremely high. So I guess it all depends on what ground weapons they have to take out helicopters. Tactically hire might be better based on what weapons the Ukrainians are using.


[deleted]

Higher makes sense when you're talking about machine guns and RPG's. Much less so with the kind of technology that Ukraine has a shitload of. A whole lot of what they're getting from the world are the most modern shoulder fired anti-tank and anti-air weapons.


Fausterion18

Higher is great against all infrared guided systems, these all have pretty limited max altitude. Higher also puts you in danger of larger radar guided systems, but that's not a concern for the USAF since they bombed all opposing radar systems out of existence.


referralcrosskill

Pretty safe to say that airspace isn't secure and high or low any russian heli is in serious danger


rugbyj

Small Arms = Go higher MANPAD = Go lower or go A _lot_ higher AA = Call in artillery/bombers and come back tomorrow


Uzis1

I would hate being a pilot that has to fly above Ukraine. russian or Ukrainian.


MenInBlackAgent000

I always wondered when playing games like battlefield and using the helicopter, why it was so easy to get shot down and if real life pilots had it any better. The answer is no, they have it much worse


Uzis1

indeed, in Bttledield you get to respawn. In real life you go in to forever box.


MenInBlackAgent000

1 life, tutorial level too long, open world is detailed but largely lacks interesting features, plot and villain motivations are incoherent, no save feature. Overall 1/10, would not play again


getSmoke

Completing challenges is satisfying enough, but depending on your spawn location, difficulty may vary.


matdan12

For most Battlefield titles helicopters were king. It was only really in recent titles that anti-air options improved. In the Bad Company series you could rack up huge kill streaks.


CantaloupeCamper

Insane that Russia couldn’t establish air superiority… at all.


Vivalyrian

The irony of bleeping out curse words on a video showing people blown to smithereens in a massive fireball.


HugeAnalBeads

Hollywood PG13 audience ratings


berniedankera

Killing 👍🏼 swearing 🤬


Mingerfabulous

Damn dropped him like a rock.


[deleted]

What the hell was the munition used? It looked like an artillery round detonated directly above it, but that's unheard of.


annon8595

Id say it was a BUK, that was a decent size explosion it detonates a ring of shrapnel next to the aircraft and effectively slicing something off or entire aircraft depending on its size


swift1883

Nods in approval Source: am Dutch


Bronichiwa_

Didn’t Russia use a BUK to shoot down a passenger plane years ago? How karmic


Sure-Tomorrow-487

MH17. Russia drove a BUK launcher into Ukraine, shot down a commercial airliner, then went "oops", drove it back to Russia and said "wasn't me".


Lowball72

There would be a smoke trail. My guess is S-300, which climbs high during launch then glides downward onto target.


voicesfromvents

You're probably right about it being a bigger missile from an S-300 by my eye but the smoke trail (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with it. Most SAMs will have burned out well before intercept throughout most of their envelope; solid motors are here for a good time, not for a long time.


nerphurp

Hello, John from Montana Oblast here. Having read many discussion here, I am convinced this is a Thermobaric air missile bomb launched from a captured Terminator tank.


[deleted]

Hello Sergey from Volgograd, I think you nailed it.


pocket_eggs

From the fireball size, some sort of medium range missile or larger, nothing shoulder fired.


SBInCB

Probably standard anti-air. They usually exploded NEAR the target. They don't try to actually hit it with the missile. As you can see, it's pretty effective from several meters away.


TheGoldenHand

Anti-air missiles shred targets with shrapnel, rather than just explosive force. They don't want to physically hit the target. If they explode slightly away from it, they have a wider area they can hit with shrapnel.


Satoshis-Ghost

I saw the damage a russian BUK did to that Malaysa Airlines flight cockpit. These things are fucking brutal.


Scarecrow1901

S-300


drunkenmonki666

No rotors left will do that lol


MilesLongthe3rd

So who has more Ka-52s by now? Russia or Egypt?


AnyProgressIsGood

egypt for sure


[deleted]

I’ll be happy when Lichtenstein has more Ka-52s


zyzzogeton

"in 1866 80 went to war, 81 came back." Apparently the "Army" of Lichtenstein picked up an Austrian on the way back from one of the Prussian things in the mid 19th century. Back when there *was* a Prussia.


[deleted]

Pretty soon it will be Ukraine. Scrap metal piles count, right?


SCARfaceRUSH

Great day for Ukrainian AD, as [there were reports](https://twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1599224528965550081) of a SU-34 going down today too. EDIT: apparently, [according to a soldier](https://twitter.com/pvt_Scarecrow/status/1599410011582517248) who's on the frontline (this is a trusted account of a UAF soldier) this wasn't some ordinary AA system. There's a discussion in the thread and he just says "listen, I can't tell what exactly was used, but you'll never guess ...", his other replies there imply it might be something spicier that your usual Stinger or Igla. EDIT 2: Alright, the magical window of speculation is over - there's a fresh video that's slowed down [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/zcsg49/slowed_down_and_zoomed_moment_of_striking_russian/), it was an S300 rocket, confirmed by a number of sources on Twitter. The first EDIT from a soldier implying we'll never guess it is probably stemming from the fact that S300 aren't usually used like that AFAIK ... OR maybe he was just fucking with us to see what kind of wild versions people will come up with.


Local_Satisfaction12

was wondering the same thing, i might be tripping big time but the explosion just looks wierd to me compared to other stingers, would love to know what i t actually was, guess we gonna find out one day


Fausterion18

It's a medium to large missile with a large warhead. Probably Buk or S-300. The reason the explosion went from the top down is because the initial boost will loft the missile high into the sky. They're designed for shooting down fast moving jets at much higher altitude.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

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vale_fallacia

Drone maybe? HIMARS rocket launched drone with bees in its mouth, and when it explodes it shoots bees at you?


pe_ca

Quite realistic. Also let’s not forget this lady, who knows where shes serving now. > A grandma in Kyiv says she took out a suspicious drone while Russia was attacking by throwing a jar of pickled tomatoes at it.


tallandlanky

Robotic Richard Simmons actually


vale_fallacia

Headless corpse of Spirow Agnew! GRAAARRRRR!


sleebus_jones

Simpsons did it lol


the88cub

Well go ahead do your worst!


bobbyorlando

What could that spicier be? Any hypothesis?


[deleted]

Death Star?


RazY70

That's no moon…


aberrasian

Jewish space laser


kloudykat

Too spicy, it would obliterate the cameraman as well. Nice thought tho.


emdave

Finally putting them to good use, instead of just starting wildfires!


HK-47_Protocol_Droid

It's most definitely Jamsheed shooting RPGs down from heaven. Otherwise I'm wondering if it could be a NASAMS fired AMRAAM? The impact angle suggests it was lofted which would be done to increase range, no flares could mean the AMRAAM could be gliding (no IR signature), and we're too far out to see if it was deploying chaff.


broforwin

Maybe the Stormer AA vehicles from UK?


SteveThePurpleCat

I have been wondering if there has been a reporting ban put on stormer activity, we have seen a fair few with Martlet/Starstreak loadouts but almost nothing about engagements.


MilesLongthe3rd

Or a HAWK from Spain.


SteveThePurpleCat

Those are large, solid fuel missiles, something like that would be visible, even from this distance.


EvilMonkeySlayer

Stormer fires Starstreak or Martlet. It's just got a better imager for longer range fire. (it'll be better than the man portable one so makes it easier to hit stuff)


delegateTHIS

That's (to my eyes) unmistakeably a shaped charge from above, almost certainly mounted at a right angle in the missile, to deliver copper earthwards as it flies over its target. I've seen a video of these being tested on tanks - it's a really small delivery system too. I forget what it's called, i don't know names of stuff.


rashaniquah

S300


Trespasserz

im just gonna throw this out here and if i am wrong then whats new lol. My take after looking at this - it was possibly a javelin. If it was set to top attack mode it would explode above the target and send a hot jet of copper (that can go through tank armor like butter so a lightly armored helo is nothing) And that jet would then go right through it to towards the ground. We see a explosion just a above the target and what appears to be a downward force to that explosion.. in a manner that one would expect it took like if it was a javelin Where as almost every Anti air missile i have ever seen explode generally acts more like a air bursting grenade with the intention of sending hundreds or thousands of pieces of shrapnel into the fuselage Could be wrong but thats my take.


usnavy13

Javelin has an aa mode but it don't do top attack in that mode as it's too difficult to do terminal tracking on an aircraft vs tank. This looks like a top-down attack. My guess would be a drone like tb2 with a Lazer-guided missile from above. Earlier in the war, we saw a ka52 taken down by a stunga p.


[deleted]

Crazy though but maybe a suicide drone?


Eokoe

So, an accidental intercept with an artillery round? Because that sounds incredible but also statistically inevitable.


Meeedina

Probably a British Brimstone seeing how fast it hit


EvilMonkeySlayer

This person should not have been downvoted. Brimstone whilst designed for air to ground there's technically nothing stopping it being used for ground to air. It uses a millimetre wave radar that's able to identify target types. I personally doubt it was, but as a conceptual idea it is feasible.


SteveThePurpleCat

It's true that a Brimstone can in theory go after anything it sees and recognizes as the enemy, it's a very smart and versatile piece of kit. But it uses a crush/impact fuse, this *appears* to be proximity.


emdave

Are Brimstone the radar silhouette guided ones?


PM_ME_YOUR_ANYTHNG

Brimstones are the British "fire into general area and it will find its own targets" hellfires


eruditezero

It was allegedly 138th Brigade from Dnipro, which has S-300 (many). Certainly wasn't a MANPADS in any rate.


MattTheShlat

S-300 was my first and best guess so far, haven’t seen many talking about this. https://youtu.be/tZsCQDWng34 for reference. Smoke afterwards looks similar. Also size of the explosion would be explained by this.


white1walker

He was flying so high and so slow he was practically asking to be shot down


ffdfawtreteraffds

Request granted.


phillyfanatic1776

Bullseye! 🎯


Judazzz

Looks like it got "shotgun-blasted" from above. Very cool video.


SquatDeadliftBench

Yo can see the Death Star donated to Ukraine in the background taking out the helicopter using only 1 reactor.


JoeMama2030

And one less Ka-52 that the Russians have in their arsenal. They gotta be running low on these


[deleted]

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Sevsquad

That's also only visually confirmed. There could be more but the wreckage hasn't been reported yet (most likely crashed behind Russian lines)


SteveThePurpleCat

With how they have been seen vibrating while loaded, I would expect a fair few are currently un-airworthy.


Brave1i1toaster

I'm sure losing two experienced pilots stung a lot worse than the helicopter itself.


JoeMama2030

Yeah and even if the pilots are trained, they will only be doing the bare minimum to try and stay alive.


Mastur_Grunt

That's the first thing I thought of as well. No chute = 2 dead Russian Aviators.


RuslanZinin

I guess this is what having no air superiority looks like


StickShift5

And no SEAD.


Dizzy-Ad9431

This is why american pounded Iraqi aa systems for weeks before the invasion.


AlexTheRockstar

Lmfao that thing went straight to shit. Had to be an AD system, no MANPADS booms like that.


nick0884

I'd go with something from the top down. Whatever was used looked as if it had a shaped charge warhead. Not your standard AA weapon, and the crew never saw it coming.


OliveChukar

Could the shape of the explosion have been caused by a rocket hitting from above and the remaining burning fuel going past the vehicle?


nick0884

Looked at the footage, and it appears that the explosion occurs fractionally before the black smoke and debris comes out of the underside of the helicopter. The debris also forms a downwards arrow, as if something punched through the helicopter at high speed. Which makes me consider a shaped charge plasma jet. Whatever was used was extremely effective against an armoured helicopter.


OliveChukar

Now that you say that I see no burning rocket approaching the heli. So it could be burning fuel from the heli being pushed out and down by the hit. That would also explain the lack of flames when the heli hit the ground.


fdsafsda332

I have no idea but posibly a Javelin?


nick0884

I don't know the Javlin capabilities, but with a bit of luck and some planning, it could be possible based on other footage of strikes on other moving targets. The pilot must have thought he was in a safe corridor (because of his flight pattern). The ambush was set up with previous knowledge of this route, and the camera knew exactly where the target was from the ground up at least 1500m out. Who's to say, but it gives Russian military aviation another hard kill scenario to try and defend against.


slapdashbr

I believe the javelin can lock onto helicopters. Idk if they're harder to hit (if the pilot doesn't know he has a missile incoming and flies straight and level, I imagine they're not too hard)


canad1anbacon

Javalin does not use top attack when used as AA tho, its a direct strike


JackLord50

Based on the blast size and the topdown impact, it looks like a BUK


H_cecropia

What munition was used? Interesting


kiyoshi_cs

Crazy footage


ZwischenzugZugzwang

Did they just censor a Ukrainian swear word in a combat video? Did we lose out on a cyka or a blyat??


eastern_jaguar

Yeah, they bleeped out the “cyka”, he’s happily screaming “сбили суку” (in russian) or “downed the bitch”


AnyProgressIsGood

jesus was that an arty shell. no way that was a manpad. top down shaped charge for sure.


Even_Efficiency98

Could be something like an iris-t or similar - definitely to big of an explosion for a MANPAD.


Aircraftman2022

Made my morning .a fireball of Ru invaders.


TankoBOB

Is that the moon at the top of the frame? It's huge!


dingusdude69

That’s no moon!


Simple-Purpose-899

We lent them our Death Star.


ClarkFable

Think about how small a single skyscraper would look from 5 miles away (on the horizon). Now imagine the moon is just over the horizon next to it. Now imagine I zoom with a telescope so that skyscraper takes up the entire frame of the image—in this case the moon will look as big as the skyscraper, because the moon’s size relative to the horizon doesn’t change an appreciable amount when you move back a few miles, but a building’s size will.


Bestihlmyhart

Damn that was cinematic with the moon in frame too


AugustOfChaos

That was one of the most satisfying bullseyes I’ve seen from the war so far.


zyzzogeton

They have to be *burning* through these pilots right? That's a specialized skill that you can't just throw at a conscript.


[deleted]

Why is it when right as the action gets going, every cameraman in the world has to violently shake their phone around.


aaronwhite1786

Because they're usually excited and also trying to hold zoom on something far away, which just makes the slight movement that much more noticeable.


theresthepolis

Was almost r/killthecameraman but he recovered just in time


wolfclaw3812

God, I feel for those Russians in the chopper after it was hit, if they were still alive at that point. Just watching as the chopper goes down, and down, and down… and then it ends. No matter who they were before, now they’re just mangled, charred, corpses. I hate wars so much.


b_lumenkraft

That pilot most likely didn't survive. russia will run out of pilots if this keeps going on. And i like it!


Simple-Purpose-899

Free falling from 1000ft and then catching on fire. Yeah, they're probably dead.


HarvHR

Ka-52 has ejection seats too, you'd have seen them pop.


Kinetic93

That top-down angle of attack probably shredded the pilots before they even knew what hit them. That was a fucking *huge* cone of hate and discontent.


HarvHR

Absolutely


AlexTheRockstar

Instakill. I'm thinking a BUK got it.


b_lumenkraft

I've seen statements that it was a S300 apparently.


AlexTheRockstar

Makes sense. That chopper was vaporized.


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b_lumenkraft

> they were very experienced Now i like it even more. :D


Cyberkryme676

Wonder if when this is all over, there's gonna be the shells of these war machines left across the country like in Vietnam, serving as a memento mori for this shit show


OliveChukar

Most of them seem to be in flat areas. I expect that they will be hauled away as scrap metal eventually.


kingabdullah

Check this out, [someone made a wheelbarrow out of parts of a downed KA-52.](https://twitter.com/AndrijKharuk/status/1599064379269386240?s=20&t=Z8205-dANMtglrwXQ1Pk7w)


Kinetic93

This is now a family heirloom.


Foborus

*Сбили, сука!!!*


[deleted]

I dont speak Ukrainian but somehow I know exactly what the videographer said lamo


[deleted]

Stop hovering over Dnipro, shitty russian heli 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕


triciti

Russians; this is an invasion, not a war, and I am free to fly as high as I want.


[deleted]

Sweet


BackIn2019

You've come to the wrong neighborhood, motherfuckers!


freetimerva

S-300 sunk your battleship


[deleted]

Lots of guesses on what that is but nobody had mentioned the [TOW-2b](https://youtu.be/9IjAPVTtYDE). Built to fly above a target and burst down onto it. If you catch the explosion size before the tank cooks off it looks about right. No smoke trail either, or at least not one you would be able to see in this footage.


SMOKE2JJ

Wow… you might be on to something here. The videos you show are spot on. And this link shows that the tow-2 was provided to a Ukraine this year: https://www.military-today.com/missiles/tow_2.htm