
Italian police raid of neo-fascist militants finds air-to-air missile - Ultramanoid
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/italian-police-raid-of-neo-fascist-militants-finds-air-to-air-missile/
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skrebbel
Anyone with more insight into all of this than me who can explain why they
went to fight on the _Russian_ side? I mean, there surely were neo-nazis
around on both sides of that conflict, right? Just different flavours? I
wonder how you pick who to support if your core ideology is that "people
different from us are bad".

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FDS
They didn‘t fight on the russian side. For some reason english media
mistranslated original press release.

[https://www.poliziadistato.it/articolo/225d2c47fb2c9ef299497...](https://www.poliziadistato.it/articolo/225d2c47fb2c9ef299497390)
It says "avevano combattuto nella regione ucraina del Donbass contro gli
indipendentisti". So they were fighting against separatists.

~~~
AndyMcConachie
Ars Technica needs to issue a correction to the story. Otherwise I'm going to
lose considerable respect for them.

There's a fine line between making a genuine mistake and lying to your
readers.

~~~
klez
I think if you point it out to them with a correct translation from the
Italian police site they will correct it. Also, they're not the only one who
made that mistake. The independent said the same thing. It would be
interesting to know where the original mistranslation originated from.

~~~
Krasnol
I guess it came from the origin of the main suspect Fabio Del Bergiolo. He was
was a candidate for Forza Nuova in 2010. FN is a pro-Kremlin far-right party.

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Force_(Italy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Force_\(Italy\))

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Firerouge
What's the yellow weapon that they showed in the haul?

[https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/Scree...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-15-at-12.57.53-PM.png)

~~~
agurk
That's the receiver and stock group for a Steyr AUG. There are complete
examples in the top right corner.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_AUG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_AUG)

~~~
Firerouge
Ah thanks, I see, it's just missing it's barrel

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toomanybeersies
How dangerous is one of these things without the surrounding targeting system?
And how useful would this be to a foreign government that somehow doesn't have
access to other air-to-air missiles?

It seems to me like a bit of a sensationalist headline, and the more dangerous
weapons are actually the small arms.

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kitteh
The 530 is a SARH missile. It requires a radar system (found in the French
Mirage aircraft for example) to lock and paint it's target the entire time for
the missile to track and eventually detonate. It would be pretty difficult to
do and the acqusition/targeting radar would need to be cooled and energized
for the duration of the flight. Launching A2A missiles from the ground is
pretty rare but it is possible as evidenced recently by Yemen ground launching
a Russian R27T infrared missile successfully at a Saudi F15.

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EForEndeavour
For anyone else not familiar with military hardware: SARH = semi-active radar
homing. The missile itself passively detects a radar signal reflected off a
target by an external source, such as the launching aircraft.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-
active_radar_homing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-active_radar_homing)

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keith_talent
This is being reported elsewhere with other details. Reports that there were
multiple raids across the region on a number of groups who were connected,
although details are scarce. I’ve seen it reported that the weapons belong to
a member of a Juventus Ultras group.

Links:

[https://www.football-italia.net/140792/juve-ultras-neo-
nazi-...](https://www.football-italia.net/140792/juve-ultras-neo-nazi-raid)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/01/nside-talys-
ul...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/01/nside-talys-ultras-the-
dangerous-fans-who-control-the-game)

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anigbrowl
They were only a few steps away from development of a milkshake capability.

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benj111
How useful is this in actuality?

Could I launch it from the ground, or does it need to be launched from the
air? Could i just strap it to a Cessna, or does it need other systems (radar?)
to work? Does it need the original war head, or can you attach any old
explosive device.

In short, if I as a potential terrorist wanted to shoot down a plane, would
this be a reasonable starting point?

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mikeyouse
Not at all useful, needs to be fired from the air, from a specific outdated
French jet weapon system that essentially nobody uses any more. Speculation
was that _maybe_ Libya would have a use for it. And yes, its target needs to
be painted with a radar for the entire flight.

30kg of high explosive could be useful to a generic terrorist but it's
unlikely that the missile itself would have been used.

[https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28976/italian-cops-
rai...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28976/italian-cops-raid-neo-
fascists-and-find-air-to-air-missile-that-france-had-sold-to-qatar)

~~~
benj111
That's kind of what I thought.

But then the asking price seems high, it doesn't seem to have a warhead so
this is just the missile.

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kitteh
I would be much more concerned about the Chinese MANPADs that Qatar acquired
and made their way into Syria and beyond.

