Believe it or not but in conflict unintented targets suffer a lot more damage and casualties because they are simply not that well defended as military targets are.
And yes, debris cause much wider damage because they are numerous. This has been seen since world war 2.
If it failed to hit target and exploded, it is not really a problem. Thats what SAM missiles are supposed to do. And 1.5 mil$ is chump change compared to military budget of India.
Heck if this entire enagement costed 10-15 billion dollars (which surely it did not), it is still extremely small amount in terms of budget of India.
Point remains, we have no evidence of HQ-9 hitting that missile, or rather anything. We do have a lot of evidence of things going past HQ-9 and HQ-16 line of defence.
More pertinent point is what is more important. Aircrafts can not operate without ground support. If India is able to hit ALL the ground bases of PAF, that is a major vulnerability for PAF because it puts PAF out of commission.
There is a massive crater in a runway, two hangers were blown up, the PAF personnel killed was a sqadron leader operating Pakistan's AWACS. I will not say this is a minor damage.
To be honest, this is the opinion of Tom Cooper, one of the Europe's leading military analyst and historian...
(…continued from Part 1…)
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