OMG, no it is not.
A ballistic missile is a surface to surface missile. Period. It strikes nothing but a surface target.
And SAM literally stands for "Surface to Air Missile". Air, as in it inly hits targets in the air and nothing else.
Sorry, but you are simply proving yet again that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You are just making it up as you go along, and hoping that others will believe your nonsense.
Let's try to peel through your smokescreen, shall we? No one is saying that the missiles fired at TWA 800 absolutely must have come from any of the submarines that were in the area. The more likely source would have been one or more of the missile-equipped combat ships that were in the area.
Nor is anyone saying that in 1996 the Navy had put anti-air missile systems into operation on submarines. The argument is that this capability was being tested off the coast of Long Island at the time of the TWA 800 incident, that two of the missiles fired in this exercise caused TWA 800's destruction, and that one or both of them
may have been fired from the submarines
or from one or two of the combat ships that were in the area. That's the argument that has been made, the same argument that is made in one of the articles I've linked.
We know for a fact that a missile exercise was being conducted in July 1996 near the Long Island coast and in adjacent areas.
This being said, I say again that I myself am still agnostic about the source of the missiles.
As the following quote shows, the idea of firing anti-air missiles from submarines was around and being tested long before the July 1996 Navy anti-air missile exercise near Long Island:
The concept dates back to the dawn of aerial anti-submarine warfare, when anti-aircraft guns were mounted on the decks of submarines to defend themselves against aerial attack while surfaced. During the Cold War, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) were tested by the Soviets on submarine periscopes. Nothing much came of it as targeting was a troublesome affair. NATO countries also played around with the idea. The UK went maybe the farthest, with a submarine-launched version of the Blowpipe missile.
The concept featured four remotely controlled missiles clustered around a TV camera, mounted atop a telescoping mast on the sub’s sail. The seaborn Blowfish never saw widespread operational use, but there are rumors that the Israelis did purchase the system. (Have Submarine-Launched Anti-Aircraft Missiles Finally Come Of Age?)
Now, as for your polemic about ICBMs not being SAMs, I should have known better than to assume good faith and sincerity on your part. As you surely understood, I was speaking in general, realistic terms.
Of course, I know that in formal military nomenclature, an ICBM is not categorized as a SAM. Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that fact, which is why I drew a distinction between ICBMs and anti-air missiles.
But, in general and generic terms, and realistically speaking, an ICBM most certainly is a type of surface-to-air missile because it is launched from the surface into the air. It is not designated as such in formal military terminology, because that terminology is based on a missile's intended target, but an ICBM is undeniably a missile that is launched from the surface into the air and that spends 99% of its time in the air until it dives to hit its target.
But here is the biggest problem. There would have had to have been hundreds if not thousands of people actually involved in such an event if it was the Navy. Tell me, where are all the eyewitness reports from them? You see, this is where that kind of coprolite falls apart every single time. It is impossible to keep that many people quiet, especially for decades. And it's not like our Navy has not shot down civilian airliners by mistake in the past. So tell me, where are all the eyewitness reports form the Sailors about this?
Here we go again with another one of your straw-man scenarios. First of all, if you knew anything about Navy missile exercises, you would know that very few people are involved in the actual firing of missiles. The vast majority of personnel on a destroyer will have nothing to do with missile operations. Unless they work in the ship's Combat Information Center (CIC), they will not be involved in such actions. What's more, even the few persons who work in the CIC would not necessarily know if a missile hit the wrong target, even if their ship was the ship that fired the missile.
Second, some Navy personnel [/i]have[/i] come forward to researchers about this matter, as I pointed out in an earlier reply. I also provided a link on the primary whistleblower, who has gone public with his account. He is a former Navy NCO who used to be in a missile-related military occupational specialty and who worked in his ship's CIC. Let me guess: You didn't bother to read the link, right? This man is also discussed in the Bailey-Glasser lawsuit filed on behalf of a number of family members of the crash victims. Here's a link to the lawsuit:
LINK
I'm still waiting for you to explain the upward-streaking object that 100-plus eyewitnesses saw heading toward TWA 800
before it blew up. These witnesses saw the event from a wide variety of locations, some on the beach, some out at sea, some in aircraft above/below TWA 800, and some farther inland. Most of them were professional, educated, successful people. Some of them were scientists, ex-military, or active-duty military. One of them was a former Vietnam War chopper pilot who had seen numerous fuel and ordnance explosions and who knew the difference between the two. The witnesses gave their accounts independently. Only a few of the witnesses knew each other.
Now that we know that the alleged "zoom climb" did not happen, since the radar data show it never occurred, how, then, do you explain the 100-plus eyewitness accounts of an object streaking upward toward TWA 800 before it blew up? How?
I hope you won't fall back on the false claim that there was "no physical evidence of a missile." There was plenty of physical evidence of a missile, some of it documented in photographs (such as the fact that a large section of the center fuel tank was bent
inward, which could only have been caused by an external explosion of high velocity--the impact on the ocean surface would not have even come close to causing such damage).
And great, you did a copy and paste.
Uh, yeah, that's what you do when you're quoting a long segment from a source. Any other inane points?
Know what was missing there? Any actual information! It says things like "in the area". Uh, what area? Where where they? Hell, what ships were they?
They fired missiles at drones, what missiles? Once again, I read claims, no actual facts or data.
Then you can't read. If you didn't see any "actual facts or data," then you have a serious reading comprehension problem.
"What ships were they?" We know the identity of some of the ships that were there because the FBI grudgingly identified them, but we don't the ID of all the ships that took part in the missile exercise. That's one of the things researchers have been trying to get the government to divulge for years, but that information remains "classified."
"Where were they"? Sheesh, seriously? Can you read? They were off the coast of Long Island and adjacent areas. We even know the military designations of two of the training areas. The segment I quoted mentioned missile sightings near Long Island and New Jersey. How did you miss that? And I mentioned in a previous reply that the FBI admitted that a number of Navy ships were in the general area where the crash occurred. Do you not process information well?
That is the kind of coprolite conspiracy nuts thrive off of. Give no actual facts, just spin enough *$R(&@ and hope others believe it and fall for it.
As I have said for years, conspiracy theories are the only mental illness that seeks to spread itself to others.
So after you decline to address a single point of fact discussed in the segment quoted from the lawsuit, you resort to more juvenile insults and posturing.
"Conspiracy nuts"??? Really? This is your description of the hundreds of aviation and naval professionals who reject the NTSB's ludicrous theory, including former admirals (one of them a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), former naval officers who specialized in missiles, engineers, physicists, audio experts, military and commercial pilots, former NTSB and airline accident investigators, and aerospace technicians, and aircraft maintenance personnel?
Why don't you read the TWA 800 report submitted by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which rejects the NTSB theory and concludes than an external explosion caused the crash, and then write to them and tell them that they're all just a bunch of "conspiracy nuts," hey?
