Seeing a lot being made of the Brimstone missiles and how special they are. But I’m not for one second buying it that the US and Russia dont have something that is at least equivalent to them.

The American equivalent is a marine that hands out a leaflet, pops round after a quick brew to warn that action is about to be taken and then wanders off for a **** before coming round and bludgeoning the poor sod over the head with a soft mallet.

Apparently

Ah – hearts and minds. I’d forgotten about that.

Basically they have a 26 ers and we have 29 ers with boost and dropper posts

Maverick I think is the USA version.

No 650B? To make the airstrike come alive?

[img]http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/top-gun-slice.jpg[/img]

Yup his parents didn’t like him.

I thought the special marketing feature of the Brimstone missile was that it only killed 99.9% of civilians ?

Don’t forget you are listening to uk propaganda, which is different to US.

boom!!!

The Americans have this I believe.

The Russians have this.

being as we are on the same side as the shermans i reckon we’ll find out quite soon, best keep the heid doon .

Chip – I want one of those.

Brimstone was the cutting edge new weapon when I left the MoD, was going to revolutionise warfare. Bearing in mind I worked on spearfish heavyweight underwater torpedo, which hasn’t been called on (or actually worked very well at all) in 20 years of service.

That was in 1998. Canny still be the dogs bollocks, surely?.

The money we’ve chucked at weapons systems over the years is incredible.

I too thought that was wierd so I googled the Brimstone. Been in service for over a decade and the Saudis have it too.

The whole ‘we’ve got better kit’ argument is clearly BS.

The whole ‘we’ve got better kit’ argument is clearly BS.

Government talking BS, surely not…. Just see the doctors thread if in any doubt.

It’s all a matter of scale. UK land mass is small so accuracy of missile is within say 10m with an equivalent blast radius.
US and Russia are huge so their accurate missiles are equivalent to carpet bombing. Same postcode taking out all surrounding postcodes (or target specific equivalent, state, block, country etc)

Economy of scale, or some such nonsense.

nobeer – BUTEC?

Isn’t ‘brimstone’ a bit of a stupid name for a weapon used in a war that some would like to see as the Biblical ‘end of days’?

Just a thought.. 😕

If infrastructure is targeted, there will be less widespread damage, meaning that facilities like oil fields can be repaired more easily when they are recaptured from IS, says Beaver.

Taken from the BBC website page about Brimstone, surely then IS can easily repair the damage too and hence negate the effectiveness of this weapon?

Have they got one called ‘ChildSlaughter’?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-air-strikes-at-least-five-children-killed-in-raqqa-school-as-britain-debates-joining-bombing-a6750591.html

wwaswas – Member

Have they got one called ‘ChildSlaughter’?

You terrorist sympathising lefty scumbag islamist.

Isn’t ‘brimstone’ a bit of a stupid name for a weapon used in a war that some would like to see as the Biblical ‘end of days’?

Do they not have hellfire missiles too?

@Wwaswas – I feel bullied and harrassed by you posting such material on a website that appears in my nice warm house. Please cease and desist from trying to bring home the harsh realities of war to my cozy western life. It’s completely unacceptable for me to have to face the real consequences of airstrikes in a foreign country, when forming my opinions; can we please stick to awesome CGI graphics about ‘surgical’ strikes and COOL pictures of Tornadoes and Typhoons (fap) taking off on full burner into the dawn sky please? I want to feel powerful, not guilty.

I feel bullied and harrassed by you posting such material on a website that appears in my nice warm house.

OP Brimstone has a radar guidance system so it can follow its target “independently” whixh is very useful especially if its moving. Most missiles rely on the pilot / gunner guiding the missile onto the target, note if you watch the anti-tank footage (eg shooting the Russian helicopter on the ground) you’ll see the missile being guided onto the target.

My 2 cents is that the US don’t think its worth the cost/effort of having such a guided missile with a smaller warhead and they focus on manual/gps guidance with a larger warhead. The Apache can launch battlefield weapons many miles away “out of range” of enemy fire and guide them onto the target. So thats my guess as to why the US aiforce hasn’t bothered with Brimstone type missiles.

IS don’t need such weapons as they kill people with suicide bombs, cutting their heads off, throwing them off buildings, executing style with guns etc

I too thought that was wierd so I googled the Brimstone. Been in service for over a decade and the Saudis have it too.

There are different variants. Also I think the Saudi’s are rather occupied with Yemen right now.

The Russians have allegedly been using cluster bombs in Syria.

Even though the OP was clearly a troll, if he really wants then get the info here

Brimstone wiki

£175,000 per missile 😕

Anyone know what the blast radius is for one of these? How far away do you have to be so that the over pressure won’t kill you? Does it throw out much shrapnel? How far can pieces of the missile itself fly?

Russian equivalent? In action in Syria apparently http://youtu.be/CQpxNA-uku4

The nearest equivalent the Americans have to the Brimstone is the Hellfire Longbow – it has active radar homing and can be used against moving targets. But it only has a range of 8km and is only fired from the Apache helicopter – none of which are liekly to be used anytime soon in Syria. Maverick misiles have a similar range to the Brimstone but need to be guided to the target and rely on a larger warhead to make up for lack of pinpoint accuracy.

The Russians just use cluster bombs

Whether any of this actually matters to anyone not trying to win a weapons contract is highly debatable though.

nedrapier – Member

nobeer – BUTEC?

Used to go there for testing, never got to Autec unfortunately!

Was based at RNAD Beith at the time.

@jimjam it would be much more rational if people more widely understood war is a very ugly and messy business. It is not a precison video game. Its my belief the MPs are well aware of this and voted accordingly. Too much of the public debate is about relative precison if weapons.

@piemonster from your same source here is some video of FSA bombs planted in tunnels underneath buildings in the center of cities, civilian casualties certain. People are dying every day and have been doing so for 4 years now.

[video]http://youtu.be/W3h7LZ5pxGc[/video]

[video]http://youtu.be/32x9In4nAFM[/video]

Who is paying for all of this expensive ordinance? If a Tornado can deliver 12 of them in one sortie that is £1,000,000+ a go.

Does it come out of the International Development budget?

jambalaya – Member

@jimjam it would be much more rational if people more widely understood war is a very ugly and messy business. It is not a precison video game. Its my belief the MPs are well aware of this and voted accordingly. Too much of the public debate is about relative precison if weapons.

Riiiiiiight. So it’s not rational to question the accuracy or deadliness of a weapon we’re paying for, the accuracy and collateral damage limiting capacity of which is repeatedly sited as a validation for the use of force; rather we should just assume war is a terrible messy business and people will die?

You know, I actually never thought about it like that. I never for a minute considered that war might be hell and civilians would die. And that in no way has formed my viewpoint that bombing in Syria is a futile exercise in imperialism and international relations which will accomplish nothing other than more death. /sarcasm.

Harry_the_Spider – Member

Who is paying for all of this expensive ordinance?

Mainly the disabled and the poor.

Its all about priorities

Who is paying for all of this expensive ordinance? If a Tornado can deliver 12 of them in one sortie that is £1,000,000+ a go.

Does it come out of the International Development budget?

It’s actually closer to £1.6million, per sortie by the time you’ve filled the plane with jet fuel, paid everyone, maintenance/wear on the plane etc.

surely then IS can easily repair the damage too and hence negate the effectiveness of this weapon?

Possibly true if they have the expertise, they could move stuff from one plant to another to fix it, but you’re unlikely to be able to phone up a company in Aberdeen and ask for a new Christmas tree or BOP, or have the rigs to repair wells.

Mainly the disabled and the poor.

Both in Syria and at home 🙁

All in the name of a just and righteous cause, aka a Tory Vanity project!