Range of a Scud Missile
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Bibliographic Entry | Result (w/surrounding text) |
Standardized Result |
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"Guided Missiles." World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book, 1994. | "A short range ballistic missile (SRBM) can reach up to approximately 700 miles (1,100 km)." | < 1,100 km | |||||||||||||||
Pike, John, Charles Vick, Mirko Jacubowski, and Patrick Garrett. R-11/SS-1B SCUD-A R-300 9K72 Elbrus/SS-1C SCUD-B. 9 September 2000. |
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130-700 km | |||||||||||||||
Keaney, Thomas A, Cohen, Eliot A. Frontline: the gulf war: weapons: ss-1 scud. 2001. From: "Desert Victory - The War for Kuwait" by Norman Friedman, Naval Institute Press, 1991. | "The missile was originally designed to carry a 100-kiloton nuclear warhead or a 2,000 pound conventional warhead, with ranges from 100 to 180 miles…. | 62-112 km (original) |
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"The Iraqis had four versions: Scud itself (180-km range), longer-range Scud (half warhead weight, extra range attained by burning all propellant immediately rather than steadily through the flight of the missile), Al Hussein (650-km, attained by reducing warhead weight to 250 kg and increasing the fuel load by 15 percent), and Al Abbas (800-km, achieved by reducing warhead weight to 125 kg, with 30 percent more fuel)." | 180-800 km (modified) |
Scud missiles are Russian-made version of German's WWII V-2 rocket. There are four types of Scud missiles: Scud A (SS-1b), Scud B (SS-1c), Scud C (SS-1d), Scud D (SS-1e), (SS stands for surface-to-surface). These missiles are considered to be short range ballistic missiles. They are capable of traveling up to 1,100km (700 miles). The engine on a short range ballistic missile will automatically shut down after about 80 seconds. Within these 80 seconds, 4,300 kg of fuel and oxidizer (out of a total of 4,500 kg) will be used up. With only a few kg of substances left, it is very difficult for the missile to reach it target precisely.
The Scud missiles were developed by the Soviet Union in the 1950s as a weapon of the Cold War. But it wasn't used until 1978 in the Yom Kippur War. It was made famous in the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein used it in the Iran-Iraq War and later launched them towards Israel during the first Persian Gulf war.
Yuen Wong -- 2003