Another attack against the US?

[JoeA]

Were the perpetrators just bad shots, or were we lucky?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4165190.stm

[Coastie]

I'm not familiar with the missle used in this attackor its guidance system. It is possible they missed the ship due to poorly trained shooters, weather conditionsor an equipment malfunction, regardless, I'm glad they missed.

After my original post, I did a bit of research and I now wonder if the missle was identified correctly. The Katyusha "Rocket" has been around for a long time, originally developed during WWII and refined over the years. It has a maximum range of 45KM in the current version and is capable of carrying various warheads and several launch modes including shoulder launched portable devices. The photos of the damage done by the missle that struck the pavement is not, in my mind, typical of missle damage from a rocket as large as this one is supposed to be. I am, obviously, not an expert in this area but what little I did find out makes me curious.

[Champlain Islander]

ORIGINAL: JoeA

Were the perpetrators just bad shots, or were we lucky?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4165190.stm

In my opinion both. Looks to me that they used an easy to get low tech weapon and took a pot shot from some distance away to try to luck one in. Since the Cole it is difficult to get close to any of our ships in port due to security limits. If the shooters had been close it probably would have been a different story.

[PAHUNTER21]

That looks more like a mortor crater than a missle.. IMO.

[kevin1]

ORIGINAL: JoeA

Were the perpetrators just bad shots, or were we lucky?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4165190.stm

What I heard on the news was that they set up the launchers to fire with a timing device to allow them time to get away . The ordinance in question is also a very dated and inaccurate weapon to begin with , and nowhere near accurate enough for it's max range . The Soviets specialized in quantity , not quality .