5 Tons of Bombs Stolen in Gaza

[Kanastrous]

JERUSALEM - Five tons of unexploded Israeli bombs stored in the Gaza Strip under Hamas police guard have been stolen, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

U.N. spokesman Richard Miron said the explosives were being stored in Gaza until a U.N. team of disposal experts could disarm them, but they disappeared.

The bombs were dropped on Gaza during Israel's offensive there last month, according to another U.N. official. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said three one-ton bombs and eight quarter-ton bombs were taken from the warehouse in northern Gaza.

"It's clearly extremely dangerous and needs to be disposed of in a safe manner," Miron said. The material was under guard by Hamas police between Feb. 4 and 14 when it was stolen, he said.

Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner told The Associated Press that the explosives were probably taken by Hamas. He said Israel had been informed by the U.N. about the missing ordnance.

Hamas officials in Gaza contacted by the AP said they had no knowledge of the matter.

The Israeli Haaretz daily reported that a U.N. bomb disposal team has been working in Gaza for the past three weeks, but it has been hindered by Israeli refusal to allow some of its equipment into Gaza or approve an area for neutralizing the explosives.

The paper said several other warehouses hold unexploded ordnance in Gaza, some close to residential areas. There have been no reports of thefts from other locations.

During the 23-day offensive, Israeli aircraft dropped hundreds of tons of bombs on Gaza and fired artillery and tank shells, aiming at Hamas strongholds but also leveling apartment buildings in areas said to be under Hamas control. About 1,300 Palestinians were killed, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian figures.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29242477/

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Stolen. Riiiiiiight. HAMAS has no idea where they went. Riiiiiiight.

Sure they don't.

If the Israelis are halfway smart - and they are just about halfway smart - they'll hit those remaining warehouses before their contents just "disappear," too.

[Enigma]

Maybe, just maybe, one of those duds isn't really a dud after all and when they try to tinker......

Nevertheless, who would be surprised by this? No one.

[The Grim Squeaker]

If the Israelis are halfway smart - and they are just about halfway smart - they'll hit those remaining warehouses before their contents just "disappear," too.

The warehouses are filled with civilians and UN personnel in many cases and in civilian areas.
Damned if you do, attacked if you don't.

[Sarevok]

So is there any value in reverse engineering said bombs or they basically common knowledge to any decent air force ?

[folti78]

So is there any value in reverse engineering said bombs or they basically common knowledge to any decent air force ?

Depends on the type. The article didn't elaborate the types of ordnance that got stolen. Also Hamas lacks the industrial base to manufacture smart weapons at least for now. My uneducated guess is that the explosives what will get ... ahem "recycled" first.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So is there any value in reverse engineering said bombs or they basically common knowledge to any decent air force ?

There's no point in trying to reverse engineer the said bombs when their guidance sets are likely destroyed by the impact, and Hamas is probably more interested in the free supply of explosive mixtures.

Of course, good luck trying to extract all that stuff. Likely going to be hard and .. quite painful.

[Kanastrous]

If the Israelis are halfway smart - and they are just about halfway smart - they'll hit those remaining warehouses before their contents just "disappear," too.

The warehouses are filled with civilians and UN personnel in many cases and in civilian areas.
Damned if you do, attacked if you don't.

Better to be damned, than attacked.

Thos explosives are going to be used to cause the Israelis trouble, one way or the other. May as well be trouble unattended by friendly casualties.

[Sea Skimmer]

There's no point in trying to reverse engineer the said bombs when their guidance sets are likely destroyed by the impact, and Hamas is probably more interested in the free supply of explosive mixtures.

You’d be amazed what electronics can survive. The guidance kits would be crushed in the case of LGBs, but you can still put the pieces back together and examine the circuitry. It’s just not necessary to do that because the technology is nothing very special now. JDAM has the guidance system on the tail, so in the event of a dud it might not actually be badly damaged, but still that technology is nothing too special now either. It’s been widely exported and Russia now produces a very similar kit. JDAM kind of still seems like its a new thing but really the guidance system comes out of a late 1980s program (for what became the JSOW glide bomb) and technology.

[Solauren]

Could the electronic components be of any interest to say, Iran?

I know they cold get the parts from Russia, but still, save a penny...

[Stormin]

Probably be cheaper for Iran to just buy the stuff from Russia than try to fiddle with Israeli smart bomb guidance systems and make them work with their own equipment.
No, the whole things are probably going to end up as roadside IEDs and carbombs and Israelis are going to be even more pissed off at the UN for helping the terrorists.

[Sarevok]

Probably be cheaper for Iran to just buy the stuff from Russia than try to fiddle with Israeli smart bomb guidance systems and make them work with their own equipment.
No, the whole things are probably going to end up as roadside IEDs and carbombs and Israelis are going to be even more pissed off at the UN for helping the terrorists.

They need not copy the technology. Another use could be coming up with defensive measures. If Iran knew technical details on how an American made laser or satellite guided weapon worked they would stand better chance of surviving an attack by such weaponry. Precise of knowledge of range, speed and limitations and weaknesses of the weapon would be lot more useful than a wikipedia article should US aircraft start bombing them...

[Stormin]

They need not copy the technology. Another use could be coming up with defensive measures. If Iran knew technical details on how an American made laser or satellite guided weapon worked they would stand better chance of surviving an attack by such weaponry. Precise of knowledge of range, speed and limitations and weaknesses of the weapon would be lot more useful than a wikipedia article should US aircraft start bombing them...

These are not guided smart-missiles they are gravity bombs with fins on the back that steer its fall slightly so it's more accurate. The way to survive against them is to do exactly what Iran is doing now; putting important stuff in bunkers, with human shields nearby and or using a lot of duplication so that if one part of a project or command system is lost there's two or more already running to replace it.
GPS guided weapons work the same way my father's $50 hand-held works and probably uses the same satellites. During times of war all non US-military users of the system see the accuracy go way down. Maybe Iran could try to reverse engineer* the US made weapons so that they will have full use of GPS but unless the US military is really stupid they will have learned how to constantly change codes and stuff just like satellite T.V. providers do.


*See the thread about reverse engineering in another part of the forum, it's nowhere as easy as Star Trek makes it seem. If they could do it, they would be better off making their own technology.

[Coalition]

GPS guided weapons work the same way my father's $50 hand-held works and probably uses the same satellites. During times of war all non US-military users of the system see the accuracy go way down. Maybe Iran could try to reverse engineer* the US made weapons so that they will have full use of GPS but unless the US military is really stupid they will have learned how to constantly change codes and stuff just like satellite T.V. providers do.

The US Coast Guard had their own method for dealing with the offset codes used for GPS. They weren't getting the corrections from the military for GPS coordinates, so they had a specific point on Earth that demanded GPS updates daily. That point was well surveyed, so they knew its actual lattitude and longitude.

They compared the coordinates transmitted to the actual coordinates, and figured out the correction from there.

Iran could easily do the same. Survey several points in the country, and constantly demand GPS locations. If the United States sets up the GPS to give bad coordinates to non-authorized people, Iran can easily transmit corrections to their forces.