HJ-8 ATGM in Syria

No I think Iraq invasion of 2003 was the first time we got the real picture of war in that note

Iraqis are pretty crazy in that sense and the ones who are doing the brutal killings in Syria are Iraqi or Iraqi inspired

SteelBird said:

Every time watching the launch of the HJ-8 I always hear some guys shouting something like "Alah Hosba...". I guess it means "Praying to Alah" or something similar. Why should they do that? It sounds silly and unprofessional. You're in battle field, exposing your position would be extremely dangerous. Also, Youtube videos show men street fighting fight like playing games. Tens of men standing behind a building, and once a while one or two of them show up and shoot blindly to other side. They don't even aim at their targets. Some just hold their guns over a fence and shoot. To me, they just expose their position to their enemy and make themselves vulnerable to artillery attack.

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It's Allahuakbar which means praise to Allah or Allah is great.
They believe doing so will increase the effectiveness of the weapon as in asking God to bless it to destroy their enemies.
Quite irritating to hear them chanting in all these videos. Well as to your statement, they are rebels not professional armies, that is how they fight.

duskylim said:

I don't know about others, but the strange fascination with respect to the use of a single type of Chinese anti-tank missile in Syria has long lost it's appeal with me.

We are not a forum on anti-Syrian movements, and the novelty appeal has long worn off.

I for one vote to remove this thread and bury it where the sun don't shine.

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It's getting boring but still the Syrian civil war is a rare occurrence in our history, each HJ-8 hit or other ATGMs hit is a novelty in their own, it's a personal discretion to follow this thread or not.

Look for tank duels between the SAA and rebels if you want something new, a rebel T-55 shot twice at SAA tank and got hit in the turret by a return shot.

paintgun said:

It's Allahuakbar which means praise to Allah or Allah is great.
They believe doing so will increase the effectiveness of the weapon as in asking God to bless it to destroy their enemies.
Quite irritating to hear them chanting in all these videos. Well as to your statement, they are rebels not professional armies, that is how they fight.

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to make my statement visual, I add a few photos:

What can they hit if they shoot like these?






At the end of the day, they going to get themselves hit by this:

SteelBird said:

to make my statement visual, I add a few photos:

At the end of the day, they going to get themselves hit by this:

Click to expand...

I'm not an infantryman but I reckon it is quite hard to perform a good marksmanship when you can't really:
1. visually identify what you are shooting at
2. asses the threat level
3. be sure that your fire response is appropriate to the threat
4. have a coordinated, well trained team to back you up
5. have clear order from your superior corresponding to a certain mission at hand

combined with the lack of training and questionable morale, I would imagine shooting back to make your presence known as a threat, more as a form of suppressing fire is what they are doing, in hope of incurring actual casualties.

paintgun said:

I'm not an infantryman but I reckon it is quite hard to perform a good marksmanship when you can't really:
1. visually identify what you are shooting at
2. asses the threat level
3. be sure that your fire response is appropriate to the threat
4. have a coordinated, well trained team to back you up
5. have clear order from your superior corresponding to a certain mission at hand

combined with the lack of training and questionable morale, I would imagine shooting back to make your presence known as a threat, more as a form of suppressing fire is what they are doing, in hope of incurring actual casualties.

Click to expand...

SteelBird said:

to make my statement visual, I add a few photos:

What can they hit if they shoot like these?

At the end of the day, they going to get themselves hit by this:

Click to expand...

They're just wasting bullets and ammo IMO. Their lack of professional infantry maneuvering and tactics means they didn't train together properly before learning how to shoot, plus they are suffering a lot of casualties therefore more experienced fighters are gone meaning newer one's are creating "bad" habits during combat.

To many Rambo movies! Not enough range time with someone with real training.

Equation said:

They're just wasting bullets and ammo IMO. Their lack of professional infantry maneuvering and tactics means they didn't train together properly before learning how to shoot, plus they are suffering a lot of casualties therefore more experienced fighters are gone meaning newer one's are creating "bad" habits during combat.

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I would think that more casualties in this type of conflict are inflicted by shells and close combat gunfight rather than precision marksmanship.

They don't 'train' as armies would train, hand me down AKs plus chants and you're good to go
The ones who are fighting more effectively are the veterans of Iraqi insurgency, or on the other side, the Hezbollah, that is why the rebel themselves fear Hezbollah so much

I think it's a bit odd to put all the blame on rebels when it's SAA what has done most of the damage when they have bombed cities with artillery and airstrikes. Rebels never had and still have not equipment enough to destroy cities.


HJ-8 knock out moving T-55, at least one of the crew can be seen jumping out.


HJ-8 ATGM attack Daraa 27/03

Broccoli said:

I think it's a bit odd to put all the blame on rebels when it's SAA what has done most of the damage when they have bombed cities with artillery and airstrikes. Rebels never had and still have not equipment enough to destroy cities.

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I think no one blames FSA or SAA, we blame the war in whole. Further, we discuss the way those fighter fight; professional or amateur. Please remember that we do not take side in any conflict. We discuss conflicts in military aspect, tactics and strategy only.

SteelBird said:

Every time watching the launch of the HJ-8 I always hear some guys shouting something like "Alah Hosba...". I guess it means "Praying to Alah" or something similar. Why should they do that? It sounds silly and unprofessional. You're in battle field, exposing your position would be extremely dangerous. Also, Youtube videos show men street fighting fight like playing games. Tens of men standing behind a building, and once a while one or two of them show up and shoot blindly to other side. They don't even aim at their targets. Some just hold their guns over a fence and shoot. To me, they just expose their position to their enemy and make themselves vulnerable to artillery attack.

Click to expand...

I was trained in this area and we were told engage the enemy tanks and retreat before they counter attack. Nowadays with helicopter gunship escorting the tanks convoy, it even more dangerous to engage. Don't think you even have the time to load another round with enemy helicopters hovering above. It basically fire, track, impact and run.