Originally Posted by
DrCuffe
Re the front end of a missile located at some distance from the crash site: I would think that the damage pattern from a continuous rod warhead, which this would imply, would not be consistent with the "holes" seen. I think the higher resolution image showing that some of the "inward pointing holes" turned out to be stones on the wing is very significant.
From Wikipedia, the TOR M1 is designed for missile intercept, so a rod armament seems unlikely; it's more likely to use the equivalent of buckshot to create a cloud of projectiles rather than a ring. The same article lists the warhead as Frag-HE, though photos in the Wikipedia page show a curve to the guidance head while the photos here seem very conical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_mi...m#9K331_Tor_M1 However the system can also use the 9M330, which looks very much like the photo of the fragment.
https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2...sile_9M330.jpg
The ring-rod system seems more ideal for high-altitude shootdown of aircraft and not useful for a short range defense against missiles.
I make no claim that a missile of any kind was involved, but if the TOR M1 was, it was certainly capable of bringing the plane down and would leave a lot of small holes.