Originally Posted by
ilesmark
Hi all.
Apols if this has been posted before, but a Kazakh-Russian acquaintance who I've been talking to about this ghastly tragedy has mentioned that a BUK missile is only accurate up to 6000 m if fired from a single launcher, and that to down a plane at 10000 meters needs a whole network of 3-4 stations working.
Is this true?
No. It is all to do with PK - kill probability. To achieve a 95% probability you may need 2 missiles etc. Firing just one against a manoeuvring target may have only 30% and maybe 50% on a large non-'manoeuvring' one.
It is in the nature of statistics that a single missile may get a hit.