From: Rusty�Bullethole, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Times 22.9.00
Tank-buster too feeble to do much damage
BY MICHAEL EVANS, CHRISTOPHER WALKER AND IAN COBAIN
THE shoulder-launched Soviet-made RPG weapon fired
at the headquarters of MI6 caused little damage but
created maximum impact at what is one of the most
security-conscious buildings in London.
The rocket-propelled grenade system, which could
have been fired by a single terrorist up to 500 yards
from the building at 85 Vauxhall Cross, was not designed
to blast a huge hole in a building but was primarily to
penetrate the armour of a light tank or an armoured
personnel carrier and kill the occupants.
Launching a missile at a building as large as MI6's
headquarters was never going to do more than damage a
small area of masonry and shatter some windows. The RPG7,
and subsequent versions such as the RPG18, have been used
by terrorists around the world but have never before been
fired by Irish terrorists in mainland Britain. The
Provisional IRA acquired RPG7s from Libya in the 1970s.
The weapon, about 13lb and 4ft long, is fired like a
recoil-less gun, with the rocket activated by a timedelay
mechanism in order to safeguard the operator from being
knocked back by the force of the blast.
The warhead leaves the muzzle of the launcher at a
speed of 360ft a second, according to Ian Hogg, the
recently retired editor of Jane's Infantry Weapons. When
the rocket is activated the speed accelerates to almost
1,000ft a second. A "cone" inside the outer casing of the
warhead which is packed with explosive becomes a molten
projectile when it hits the target.
Although it was designed to cause a small hole in
the side of a tank it is also capable of penetrating
reinforced concrete up to 4ft thick. It was made clear
yesterday that the warhead had failed to penetrate the
outer wall of the MI6 HQ sufficiently to damage the room
beyond.
Senior British and Irish security experts, who
suspect the dissident Real IRA may have been behind the
attack, were investigating the possibility that the RPG
had been bought from arms dealers in Croatia.
The Real IRA had already succeeded in smuggling a
number of the weapons into the Irish Republic. Ten others
were seized near the Croatian port of Split in July when
a joint Irish and Croatian anti-terror operation
uncovered a multimillion-pound cache of weapons shortly
before they were to be shipped to the IRA dissidents.
The attack on MI6 was thought to have been timed
to coincide with yesterday's South Antrim by-election,
which is crucial for the future of the Northern Ireland
peace process.
The experts believe that the MI6 attack displayed
disturbing evidence of the growing sophistication of the
Real IRA terror squads. They are thought to be a mixture
of young volunteers and veteran former Provisional IRA
weapons handlers who have defected, disillusioned by the
1997 IRA ceasefire.
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, the political
organisation said to be linked to the Real IRA, was
formed in December 1997, almost simultaneously with the
creation of the dissident terrorist group.
This year the 32 County Sovereignty Movement opened
offices in Britain, one in West London and another in
Manchester. It even has its own Internet website.
Prominent among the members of the Real IRA is a
man nicknamed the Engineer, who is thought to have built
the timer and power unit for the Omagh bomb. He almost
certainly made identical devices that were used to
detonate the Docklands bomb in London and the device that
exploded under Hammersmith Bridge earlier this year.
-------------------------------------------------
I never realised that an RPG could get up to that
sort of velocity (1000fps) - thought it was more like
650fps? - Nick?
Its always struck me what a versatile weapon the
RPG is. The west of course has a number of shoulder
launched anti-tank weapons which seem to comprise of
either hugely expensive/overly sophisticated ones or
throw-away tubes, there doesn't seem to be anything in
our inventory that is equivalent to the RPG for repeated
use and choice of warheads.
Given the large choice of warheads and iffy supply
routes I dare bet the one fired at MI6 was just a plain
old HE and not one of the more specialised anti-armour
ones.
Rusty
--
But the RPG-7 is not a very effective anti-tank weapon,
it's quite good for bunker busting but on an Abrams tank,
forget it.
The Yugoslavians made a copy of the RPG and the 66mm LAW,
the muzzle velocity of the LAW is listed in Jane's as
190 m/s.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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