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An advanced imaging infrared seeker from a U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile interceptor looks to have been recovered largely intact in Syria. This could be a major intelligence loss that may allow adversaries to gain valuable insights into the capabilities of THAAD, which is being very heavily employed in the current conflict with Iran. THAAD has also been an important player in blunting previous Iranian missile barrages against Israel, and is a key component of the U.S. military’s global missile defense architecture.

A video, seen below, began circulating on social media earlier today showing the THAAD seeker, as well as other portions of the interceptor, on the ground. The clip is said to have been shot in the vicinity of the Syrian city of Suwayda in the southwestern corner of the country, though TWZ cannot immediately verify this independently. However, Suwayda is some 25 miles north of the border with Jordan and around 55 miles to the east of Israel’s internationally recognized boundaries. The U.S. military is currently reported to have THAAD batteries in Israel and Jordan.

As its name indicates, THAAD is designed to intercept short, medium, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase of flight. Depending on a variety of factors, including the physical position of the launcher relative to the threat, the system can attempt intercepts against targets just as they begin their descent into Earth’s atmosphere.

THAAD cues its interceptors before their launch, either using its own powerful AN/TPY-2 radar or via data from offboard sensors through the Command, Control, Battle Management and Communication (C2BMC) network.

After launch, the so-called “kill vehicle” at the front end detaches from the rocket booster at the rear. A shroud at the front, which covers the seeker and the rest of the kill vehicle, also breaks away. That shroud is also seen on the ground in the newly emerged video.

Freed from the shroud, the kill vehicle uses its conformal infrared seeker to find and home in on the target missile. In general, imaging infrared has the benefit of being a passive guidance method that is immune to radiofrequency countermeasures, such as jamming or decoys designed to mimic the radar signature of a real threat.

THAAD’s interceptors are hit-to-kill types that are designed to destroy their targets through sheer force of impact. As such, the kill vehicles do not contain any kind of explosive warhead. Each one does have several small rocket motors that help it precisely maneuver into position to slam into the incoming missile. These are collectively known as the Divert and Attitude Control System (DACS).

“The unique DACS provides two kinds of propulsion: one for attitude control and another for kill-vehicle maneuvering. The DACS uses six thrusters to provide roll, pitch, and yaw control for the interceptor,” according to L3Harris, which supplies this component of the interceptor. “These thrusters work together to precisely stabilize the interceptor-seeker field of view for proper target visibility. The seeker’s target data are then converted into maneuvering or divert commands that actuate the other four DACS thrusters as required. The four divert thrusters provide short, forceful pulses to quickly and accurately position the THAAD kill vehicle for target intercept.”

In the video, the entire kill vehicle is intact enough that the ports for some of these rockets are plainly visible.

The fact that the kill vehicle and shroud were recovered on the ground so close together and in relatively good condition points to a failure of some kind, but the exact circumstances remain unknown. What has since happened to the debris is also not known.

Gaining access to a THAAD interceptor seeker, as well as the rest of the kill vehicle, would give an adversary new insights into its performance envelope and other capabilities. That information could then be used in the development of new countermeasures, as well as tactics, techniques, and procedures to reduce the interceptor’s effectiveness. This would be on top of what Iran, as well as countries like Russia and China, have already been gleaning just from observing THAAD’s performance in the current conflict, as well as prior engagements.

Deep intelligence exploitation of the physical design of the seeker and the kill vehicle, as well as the materials used to make them, could be beneficial for supporting other developments, as well. The kill vehicle and the systems within have to survive the stresses of traveling at hypersonic speeds, typically defined as anything above Mach 5, as it screams toward its target. Adversaries like China could leverage this information to improve their own anti-ballistic missile capabilities or attempt to clone THAAD more directly.

Employing highly advanced weaponry of any kind always carries at least a degree of risk of intelligence loss. Even just in the course of normal operations, the most reliable systems can still fail and fall into the wrong hands. This is not the first time TWZ has called attention to this reality, including in regard to the recovery of sensitive components of surface-to-air interceptors. The U.S. government, as well as China, Russia, and many other countries, have extensive foreign materiel exploitation programs poised to seize on any opportunity to acquire weapon systems and other equipment for extensive analysis, testing, and even reverse engineering.

Though we do not know what happened to the THAAD seeker and the rest of the kill vehicle seen in the video, this may not be the last time we see such debris in Syria or elsewhere in the region, given how extensively these interceptors are being used as Iranian ballistic missile attacks continue.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

BROOKLYN Beckham cut a stern figure as he took a long phone call outside of a hotel in Los Angeles.

The estranged son of Victoria and David Beckham paced outside of the steps of the hotel while on the 30-minute call during a day out with wife Nicola Peltz.

Brooklyn was dressed casually in a black t-shirt and Nike baseball cap outside the Sunset Plaza Hotel in West Hollywood on Friday. 

He completed the look with black Doc Martens and black jeans.

Brooklyn and Nicola married in 2022 and live in a £12million home in Los Angeles.

They have been at war with Posh and Becks since last year when they skipped David’s 50th birthday in May.

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Brooklyn confirmed he had severed all ties in January in an explosive six-page statement.

His tense phone call comes after it was reported that the couple has been approached by an US streamer for a tell-all series to rival his estranged parents’ Netflix deal.

His American management teams are said to be in early talks with production heads at Hulu.

An insider said: “Brooklyn is keen. Alongside documenting his culinary business venture, Hulu bosses will hope he will open up about the bombshell rift with his parents.

“This isn’t just any platform. Hulu which is owned by Disney is home to global smash hits like The Kardashians.

“They’d be instantly propelled firmly into the big leagues and in direct competition with Netflix, which, of course, has its own Beckham ties having run authored documentaries by both of his parents.

“Brooklyn and Nicola have been offered big money interviews before but turned them all down.

“When they do decide to speak, it will be on their own terms.

“They also want to make it clear they are not being controlled by the Peltz family and that they make their own decisions.”

Actress Nicola, 31, has appeared in several Hulu productions including The Beauty and When The Streetlights Go On.

Her billionaire dad, Nelson, once controlled a huge stake in Disney.

Nicola ramped up the war with David and Victoria last week by claiming her parents treat Brooklyn, 27, “like another son”.

Spotters in Greece have caught an especially good look at what very much appears to be a stealthy, long-range, high-altitude (HALE) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drone commonly referred to as the RQ-180, or an evolution of that design.

Pictures of the dark-colored, flying-wing type aircraft landing at Larissa National Airport, also known as Larissa Air Base, situated in the Greek city of the same name, were published earlier today by local news outlet onlarissa.gr.

“Those who were in the area near the 110th Fighter Wing [technically the 110th Combat Wing] in Larissa at the end of last week were left speechless when they saw an impressive plane in the sky, completely different in shape and appearance from everything we see daily in politics and the military air force,” according to a machine translation of onlarissa.gr’s piece, which misidentifies the aircraft as a B-2 bomber. “According to more recent information from military sources, this [aircraft] … reportedly parked at the Larissa military airport due to a breakdown and will remain there until it is repaired.”

TWZ cannot immediately confirm any of these latter details, but we have reached out to U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and the Pentagon for more information.

What is clear is that this is not a B-2, which has a very distinctive saw-tooth trailing edge that is not visible here, among other features. In fact, the overall planform is highly reminiscent of the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber from Northrop Grumman, as well as past sightings of aircraft believed to be RQ-180s or progenitors of that design. The RQ-180 is widely understood to be a Northrop Grumman product, as well, and very likely played a significant role in risk reduction efforts as part of the development of the B-21, as we have posited for years.

There are also some very rough similarities to sightings of what is believed to be an Israeli drone called the RA-01, but with some distinct differences. The RA-01 shares a similar planform, but is a more svelte design that would be significantly smaller than what we are seeing here. Furthermore, it makes very little sense that an Israeli drone would be flying that far west for any reason. The American aircraft in question is likely quite large, sitting below the size of a B-21, but maybe by 25 percent, as a guess. It would be designed for extremely long-endurance, high altitude strategic reconnaissance missions.

B-21 Takeoff and Landing

The pictures from Larissa also offer a good look at the aircraft’s landing gear, which is very widely positioned. A gear configuration of that kind allows for the maximization of volume in between and underscores the sheer wingspan of the aircraft.

Whether the aircraft in question has been operating from Larissa, or simply diverted there due to an issue, is unknown. It is possible that it has been forward-deployed to the base, but still had to return to base unexpectedly, leading to it being spotted during the day rather than coming in discreetly at night.

Larissa is a Hellenic Air Force base, home to the 110th Combat Wing, which operates Block 52+ F-16C/D Viper fighters, as well as various types of drones. Since the late 2010s, the U.S. Air Force has also publicly used the base for MQ-9 Reaper drone operations over areas of Europe and Africa. That, in turn, has led to upgrades to Larissa’s infrastructure, especially along the south side of the base, where there are now hangars that could accommodate larger flying wing aircraft and that do not appear to be used to house MQ-9s.

By what we can surmise about the RQ-180 program, aircraft that are part of its lineage have likely been flying for roughly over a decade and a half. Yet in recent years, just as this platform was thought to be coming online in a grander operational sense, we have not seen the infrastructure that would be indicative of that. It’s even possible its scale has been reduced as the Pentagon looks to push its surveillance capabilities to space, and especially some of the kinds an ‘RQ-180’ could do.

Still, given that this aircraft is now likely a component of the Long Range Strike (LRS) family of systems, and will work in concert with and even possibly have some commonality with the B-21, it could share that same infrastructure and come online fully alongside the Raider in the next couple of years. That is if the program is still intended to be scaled-up as opposed to diverting funds to on-orbit surveillance capabilities.

Regardless, the aircraft has been spotted flying over secretive locales in America’s Southwest for many years now, with sightings over Area 51, and reports of it flying out of Palmdale and Edwards Air Force Base. A conflict with Iran would be a relevant fit for what it was designed to do, so it should be of no surprise that it is flying missions over the country, even if it still remains in something of a late developmental state.

In all of the years of the RQ-180’s rumored existence, multiple stealthy HALE drone designs have emerged in China, at least undergoing testing, and these are just the ones we know about.

We will have more analysis on all this in the near future.

Already, if nothing else, there are very strong signs that we’ve now gotten our best look ever at the drone referred to as the RQ-180 or a directly related design.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

In a surprising development, Serbia has emerged as an operator of the Chinese-made CM-400 air-launched supersonic standoff missile. The weapon has been integrated into Serbia’s Soviet-era MiG-29 Fulcrums, which have undergone various upgrades. As it stands, the Balkan state, which has had a turbulent recent history, likely fields a missile capability otherwise unmatched in Europe (outside of Russia, at least).

A photo recently emerged showing a Serbian Air Force and Air Defense MiG-29 carrying a pair of CM-400 missiles on its inboard underwing hardpoints.

There had also been previous clues that Serbia might be poised to introduce a powerful new weapon of some kind.

According to Belgrade-based defense journalist Petar Vojinović, the chief of the General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces, Gen. Milan Mojsilović, stated last month that “in the air component, we have weapons of a similar maximum range and lethality [to the PULS rocket artillery system].”

Mojsilović was referencing the Israeli-made PULS (Precise and Universal Launching System) since this has been recently introduced by the Serbian Army. You can read more about this ground-launched artillery rocket here.

Furthermore, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić recently alluded to recently introduced military capabilities, stating: “…people couldn’t dream about everything we have, everything we are acquiring, they couldn’t dream.”

As for the CM-400, this weapon was developed and is manufactured by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), apparently primarily for export. So far, it is not known to be in Chinese military service.

Unveiled in 2012, the CM-400 has a length of around 17 feet, a diameter of 16 inches, and weighs roughly 2,000 pounds. This includes one of two types of warheads, either a high-explosive charge weighing 330 pounds or an armor-piercing warhead weighing 440 pounds.

The CM-400 is a supersonic weapon, and CASIC claims it can reach a speed of Mach 4.5 in the terminal phase of flight. It has often been described as a hypersonic missile, but this is likely not the case: Mach 5 is typically considered to be the boundary between high-supersonic and hypersonic speed.

Nevertheless, it is clearly a very fast missile.

The missile’s range remains unclear, with varying accounts of this aspect of its performance.

At the very least, it is reported to have a range of 155 miles, while some sources claim it can hit targets at a range of 186 miles or even 250 miles.

The CM-400 has also been described as a quasi-ballistic missile, though this is also probably not entirely accurate.

Generally speaking, a quasi-ballistic missile is capable of being used on a depressed trajectory. This makes the missile more capable of significant maneuvering in flight, presenting greater challenges even for opponents with more robust missile defense capabilities.

In the case of the CM-400, the missile reportedly flies on a relatively high ballistic trajectory, powered by its solid rocket motor. It then careens toward its target at a steep angle of descent. While it may also be able to maneuver dynamically during its terminal attack phase, to attack moving ships, it doesn’t fly on a depressed trajectory, as far as we know.

In terms of target sets, the missile has been widely described as an anti-ship missile, specifically even as a ‘carrier-killer’. In fact, the basic weapon can also be configured as an anti-radiation missile, and it is presumed to also have the capability to attack non-emitting ground targets.

Depending on the different targets, the CM-400 can have different seeker heads fitted. All of the versions have an inertial guidance system with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) correction. For the terminal phase, it relies on an infrared/optoelectronic seeker for attacking naval targets, or a passive radar seeker to take out electromagnetic emitters. The circular error probable (CEP) for the anti-radiation version is claimed to be 16-33, reduced to 16 feet or less for the anti-ship version.

Previously, the only confirmed export operator of the CM-400 was Pakistan, which uses it on its JF-17 Thunder multirole fighters. Pakistani officials claimed that the missile saw successful combat use against Indian S-400 air defense systems during the conflict between the countries in May last year. However, this remains unconfirmed.

In Serbian service, the CM-400 is carried by the MiG-29 fighter. These aircraft were first acquired by the then Yugoslavia in the 1980s. Survivors of Operation Allied Force in 1999 were later supplemented by secondhand MiG-29s from Russian and Belarusian stocks. The aircraft have also been moderately upgraded and are now known as MiG-29SM+. Fourteen examples are currently in active Serbian service.

The long-term plan for the Serbian MiG-29s is somewhat unclear, since the country ordered 12 Dassault Rafale multirole fighters, in a deal that you can read more about here.

For the time being, however, in the CM-400, Serbia looks to have secured a capability that is very likely unique in the wider region.

With its combination of very high speed, long range, and ‘fire and forget’ guidance, the missile is ideal for deep standoff strikes. It is optimized for striking hardened strategic targets, day and night, and in all weather.

Thanks to CATIC’s Standalone Weapon Fire Control System (SWFCS), also designated as WZHK-1 by China, the CM-400 (and other Chinese missiles) areis designed to allow foreign models of aircraft to operate Chinese missiles and bombs.

Speaking to Janes during the exhibition, a CATIC official said that the system is designed to equip a range of Chinese air-launched weapons and can be installed on existing weapon hardpoints.

“The system gives air forces around the world the ability to easily integrate Chinese-made weapons with their aircraft without requiring them to make software or hardware changes to the host aircraft,” a CATIC official told Janes about the SWFCS back in 2024.

“The [SWFCS] uses a wireless data system that connects to a tablet in the cockpit that can be worn by the pilot. The tablet acts as a portable wireless controller that the pilot can use to launch the missiles,” the official added. Similar tablet-based soluiions have also been used by Ukraine to rapidly integrate Western weapons on Soviet-era jets, as you can read about here.

Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker Wild Weasel operations, seen here conducting multiple low level standoff strikes against Russian radars with US-supplied AGM-88 HARMs. pic.twitter.com/7CosjXFNkO

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 21, 2024

The same SWFCS interface is also being used to carry another Chinese air-to-ground weapon, the LS-6 precision-guided munition. This is a 1,100-pound-class weapon that combines a general-purpose bomb with a strap-on upgrade package to provide range extension and precision strike capabilities.

Meanwhile, weapons in the CM-400 class are a response to the growing threat posed by ground-based air defense systems, which are pushing combat aircraft ever further from the targets they are assigned to destroy.

With its very high maximum speed, the CM-400 is also well suited to attacking time-sensitive targets, which could also include mobile air defense systems or mobile ballistic missiles, provided their coordinates can be established in the required timeframe.

For Serbia, the new missile would appear to offer a relatively easy way to expand its air-launched, precision standoff strike capability. With a high degree of flexibility, fast reaction time, and the ability to penetrate most enemy air defenses, it is a notably hard-hitting weapon for what is otherwise a fairly modest air force.

It is also interesting that Serbia is looking to China to fulfil its missile needs, rather than Russia.

While Belgrade and Moscow have traditionally had good relations, acquiring Russian arms has become far harder since the West imposed sanctions in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Even before this, however, there were signs that Serbia was looking to move away from Russia as its main arms supplier. As such, it has increasingly moved into a more Western-oriented orbit, with acquisitions from Airbus, for example, but it is also buying weapons from China and Israel.

At the same time, the Serbian military is increasingly switching to more NATO-style doctrine, as well as equipment, including exercises alongside the U.S. Air Force, as you can read about here.

Bearing in mind the fact that it can be integrated on non-Chinese platforms, it will be interesting to see if other nations also adopt the CM-400.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com