Rafael ROCKS and Blue Sparrow

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yahya

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According to sm these remains were found in Iraq two days ago. Whether they belong to ROCKS or its derivatives is unattested as for now.

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I guess the reason they have been using Blue Sparrow for the past two retaliatory strikes at Iran is because they don't need Silver Sparrow? Since they use common RVs when used as target missile, I wonder if they could possibly fit heavier warhead on Silver Sparrow when striking from the same distance.
 
There are indications that the ROCKS and Sparrow could have been used in the 2025 IAF attacks in Yemen and Qatar.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-ea...ike-left-trump-little-time-to-object-c2369608
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/i...s-fresh-volatility-to-already-unstable-region
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5jl77ygv4o
The missiles were launched above the Red Sea and continued over Saudi Arabia eventually to Qatar.

Wiki's elaboration:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_airstrike_on_Hamas_leadership_in_Qatar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_August_2025_Israeli_attacks_on_Yemen
 
I know that reads sort of semi official, with WSJ citing unnamed us military officials, but it still reads fishy.
Israel launched several large ballistic missiles from the red sea, those flew almost 1000 km over Saudi Arabia and struck a small target size of a room? Images of the target don't seem to show nearly as much damage as one would expect from a 1000 km ranged ballistic missile.
Even if Israel was using some special low explosive warhead variant, the size of the warhead bus stage should have been so large that multiple impacts should have left more destruction.

Due to range inolved, ROCKS missile doesn't seem like a likely weapon choice.
 
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totoro said:
I know that reads sort of semi official, with WSJ citing unnamed us military officials, but it still reads fishy.
Israel launched several large ballistic missiles from the red sea, those flew almost 1000 km over Saudi Arabia and struck a small target size of a room? Images of the target don't seem to show nearly as much damage as one would expect from a 1000 km ranged ballistic missile.
Even if Israel was using some special low explosive warhead variant, the size of the warhead bus stage should have been so large that multiple impacts should have left more destruction.

Due to range inolved, ROCKS missile doesn't seem like a likely weapon choice.
Click to expand...
I am also skeptical of the use of ALBMs. But why are you surprised at an ALBM having pinpoint accuracy?
It is possible, especially when using terminal guidance.
 
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totoro said:
I know that reads sort of semi official, with WSJ citing unnamed us military officials, but it still reads fishy.
Israel launched several large ballistic missiles from the red sea, those flew almost 1000 km over Saudi Arabia and struck a small target size of a room? Images of the target don't seem to show nearly as much damage as one would expect from a 1000 km ranged ballistic missile.
Even if Israel was using some special low explosive warhead variant, the size of the warhead bus stage should have been so large that multiple impacts should have left more destruction.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. Minuteman III ICBM warhead strike (inert obviously):

 
Big_Zukini said:
I am also skeptical of the use of ALBMs. But why are you surprised at an ALBM having pinpoint accuracy?
It is possible, especially when using terminal guidance.
Click to expand...
I am not surprised at accuracy at all. My comment was - why use a large weapon (a ballistic missile flying 1300 km is gonna be large any way you cut it) which is inherently more dangerous to nearby civilians, when your target is so small, basically just one room. For something like that, given the senstivity of the strike, I would have expected some light, not too fast (cruise missile type) very small warhead weapons to be used.

A ballistic missile used over SA is also likely gonna leave stages dropped on SA soil. Which is tricky, to say the least.
 
They may have used ALBLM’s, but I think it’s extremely unlikely they would have used them to overfly Saudi Arabia. The Saudi’s and Israeli’s have had a secret love affair for decades now, although it has been under strain since the war in Gaza.

Using Saudi airspace could be concieved as an act of war. Why would they do that if they can just as easily use Syrian, Iraqi or even Iranian airspace to fire of their missiles? It doesn’t make sense from a political and military perspective.

Which is why I find it unlikely.
 
Q-nimbus said:
They may have used ALBLM’s, but I think it’s extremely unlikely they would have used them to overfly Saudi Arabia. The Saudi’s and Israeli’s have had a secret love affair for decades now, although it has been under strain since the war in Gaza.

Using Saudi airspace could be concieved as an act of war. Why would they do that if they can just as easily use Syrian, Iraqi or even Iranian airspace to fire of their missiles? It doesn’t make sense from a political and military perspective.

Which is why I find it unlikely.
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well, again, I concur that claim is strange. I wouldn't even entertain it if it didn't come from wall street journal which said unnamed US officials said that israeli jets fired ballistic missiles from the Red sea, and over Saudi Arabia. (link in discussion above)
 
totoro said:
I am not surprised at accuracy at all. My comment was - why use a large weapon (a ballistic missile flying 1300 km is gonna be large any way you cut it) which is inherently more dangerous to nearby civilians, when your target is so small, basically just one room. For something like that, given the senstivity of the strike, I would have expected some light, not too fast (cruise missile type) very small warhead weapons to be used.

A ballistic missile used over SA is also likely gonna leave stages dropped on SA soil. Which is tricky, to say the least.
Click to expand...
Why do you assume the target is a room? If they're in a compound and you don't know at exact room they will be at that moment, you can strike the whole compound.

Civilians are not assured to be nearby, nor were such reported. Warhead size can also be selected per mission parameters.

Some of these ALBMs are single stage.
 
Images of the target post strike show a fairly small part of a small building hit. Equal to a large room or a small hall. Basically a meeting place for the individuals that were targeted.
The strike was by all accounts very precise. Israel knew when to strike and which Individual room to strike, during a meeting. What they apparently didn't know was who exactly, out of the complete target set, was present at the meeting during the strike.

while rocks may be single stage , the sheer distance traveled doesn't make it sure rocks was used. And those larger BMs that Israel showed seem to have two stages.

It's possible a whole new weapon variant was used, something that was never shown before.
 
totoro said:
Images of the target post strike show a fairly small part of a small building hit. Equal to a large room or a small hall. Basically a meeting place for the individuals that were targeted.
The strike was by all accounts very precise. Israel knew when to strike and which Individual room to strike, during a meeting. What they apparently didn't know was who exactly, out of the complete target set, was present at the meeting during the strike.

while rocks may be single stage , the sheer distance traveled doesn't make it sure rocks was used. And those larger BMs that Israel showed seem to have two stages.

It's possible a whole new weapon variant was used, something that was never shown before.
Click to expand...
Lora has a 430km max range from ground launch. You can probably squeeze out more with an even lighter warhead. Its base warheads I believe are 400kg and 600kg, which might be overkill for this mission.

If we're trying to calculate range from air launch, by how much do we multiply? Can we multiply by 3? Or is that too much?
 
I have actually been doing just that, trying to run rocket calculations. Sadly, I am sure there are more competent people to do that. Still, for a 35k feet launch at near supersonic speed and optimal angle, I get 900 km for the same missile that would otherwise do 430 km launched from the ground. I used weight/dimensions of the regular lora.

Still, I would wager that neither rocks nor air lora could have been used if indeed 1300 km shot over Saudi Arabia was involved.

Maybe some exquisite variant of air lora or something even bigger.

But I still think going to the Persian gulf and launching from there makes more sense.
 
totoro said:
Images of the target don't seem to show nearly as much damage as one would expect from a 1000 km ranged ballistic missile.
Click to expand...
The simple answer is it has light warhead. :)
In conditions of zero jamming, why not?

Big_Zukini said:
I am also skeptical of the use of ALBMs
Click to expand...
If you don't mind, why?
Israeli possession of intermediate range ALBMs, matching this very attack profile, is established for a quite a while.
Simplest, foolproof plan with minimal risks.
 
Ainen said:
The simple answer is it has light warhead. :)
In conditions of zero jamming, why not?


If you don't mind, why?
Israeli possession of intermediate range ALBMs, matching this very attack profile, is established for a quite a while.
Simplest, foolproof plan with minimal risks.
Click to expand...
Sure, light warhead would be desirable but neither rocks nor air lora seem to have a detachable front section to serve, effectively, as a small, second stage warhead section. if they had that, there would be visible steering mechanism and/or control surfaces near the cone end. Those aren't visible.

Which leads me to think that, IF indeed somehow an air lora variant was used, it was not a vanilla variant but a variant with a special second stage warhead with steering fins, small and light enough not to produce a lot of damage when landing on a target. A two stage design, optimized for range and not a big warhead, could/should have been able to cross 1300 km over Saudi Arabia.
As a note, a ton worth of air lora (that's with spent rocket fuel) crashing down a building at several mach would lead to more damage than observed in the target photos. That's why a special detachable small warhead seems more likely to me.
 
Ainen said:
If you don't mind, why?
Israeli possession of intermediate range ALBMs, matching this very attack profile, is established for a quite a while.
Simplest, foolproof plan with minimal risks
Click to expand...
I doubted not the existence, but choice of munitions. I believed that in typical assassination missions, the IAF chooses to make it very personal, using stand-in weapons or alternatively maintain control and visuals of the weapon right up to impact. Which would be possible using something like SPICE-250ER with video feed or Delilah.
This is for last minute adjustments if the situation changes halfway through.

An ALBM has let's say 10 minutes of travel time. It has EO sensors for terminal guidance. But at that speed, assessment and retargeting should be practically impossible, not to mention the issue of maintaining a data link at that vast range if there even was such option.

But that was before. After further assessment I realized this is highly likely NOT a typical assassination, and that it is less relevant if the target was assassinated or not.
This scenario would support the use of such weapon.
 
yahya said:
If not Israeli product, then what? Tomahawks? This morning over Iraq:

https://t.me/intelslava/82586
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Most likely Tomahawks. If over Iraq then probably from the Ford.
Israeli aircraft can employ cruise missiles but none were spotted and nothing in public data suggests the necessary range. All Israeli cruise missiles cut off at the 300km range mark.
 
Defense Updates has a video out about how the Blue Sparrow was used to eliminate an SA-20B Gargoyle SAM battery in Iran:


Unconfirmed reports earlier suggested that three Iranian S-300 air defense batteries were destroyed in Israeli strikes during 2024. Iran is believed to have originally fielded four S-300PMU-2 systems, meaning these losses would have reduced the country’s operational inventory to a single remaining battery.
Click to expand...
Recent reports now indicate that this final system may also have been destroyed, though these claims remain difficult to independently verify.
Click to expand...
The loss represents a significant degradation of Iran’s long-range air defense capability. The S-300 has long been regarded as the most advanced air defense platform in Iranian service, providing extended-range engagement capability against aircraft, cruise missiles, and certain ballistic threats.
Click to expand...
Israeli forces reportedly employed specialized stand-off missile to conduct the strike.
Click to expand...
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes how Israeli Blue Sparrow missile knocked out Iran’s Russian made S-300?
Click to expand...
#defenseupdates #usiranconflict #usiran
Click to expand...
Chapters:
0:00 TITLE
00:11 INTRODUCTION
01:13 SPONSORSHIP - NordVPN
01:47 S-300 AIR DEFENSE SYSTEM
03:01 CRITICAL VULNERABILITY
04:25 ISRAELI BLUE SPARROW ALBM
07:11 ANALYSIS
Click to expand...
 
Blue Sparrow mock-up
 

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