I REFER to the report in the New Straits Times on Aug 6 that MH17 may have been taken down by a Sukhoi Su-25, or, more likely by two such fighter jets, with their R-60 missiles and 30mm cannons.
I was also of the opinion from the beginning that this had been an air-to-air shoot-down, although I initially thought an R-27 missile (AA-10 Alamo), fired from an Su-27, was responsible. With its 39kg continuous rod (CR) warhead, the Alamo would have easily sliced the airliner’s fuselage in half, spilling its passengers, some still strapped in their seats, over a 24km radius.
If it was an Su-25, it was more likely that it had fired the R-73 (AA-11 Archer) heatseeker, with a larger 8kg CR warhead, rather than the 3.6kg warhead R-60 (AA-8 Aphid).
The widely quoted 7km service ceiling is just the limitation imposed by the non-pressurisation of the cockpit. In reality, the Frogfoot’s powerful engines with a combined thrust of 9,072kg can easily take it to a peak ceiling of 14km in clean condition. With two lightweight Aphids, it can easily climb to 12.5km. Carrying two heavier 113kg Archers, it would have no problems reaching 11km.
Even if it had only been at 7km, carrying two R-73M Archer with 60-degree wide seeker angle and the pilot wearing a helmet-mounted sight allowing him to lock the missiles to the target by just looking at it, he does not even need to point his plane’s nose upwards at the airliner. Attacking below and to the rear from 3.2km, both Aphids and Archers would have no problem zooming up the extra 3km to take out MH17.
The Su-25’s 30mm cannon is not the GSh-301, as quoted in the NST report, but the twin-barrelled GSh-302. The single-barrel GSh-301 is used in the MiG-29 and Su-27.
The GSh-302’s loadout is typically a mix of four armour-piercing incendiary (API) to one high explosive incendiary (HEI) shells. The smaller, round holes seen in photographs of the cockpit area are from API rounds, while the large, jagged hole below the left window, as well as the smaller, uneven jagged holes in the vicinity would be from an HEI round.
From photos of the left wing section, I would conclude they were from cannon shells fired from the Su-25 at the left rear quarter position, at about 7.30 o’clock.
Tham Wai Keong, defence enthusiast, Kuala Lumpur