Volunteers of a mobile fire group in Kursk Oblast for the first time destroyed an FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile with machine gun fire. This was reported by Governor Alexander Khinshtein.
According to the head of the region, the target was detected at night during combat duty. The missile was flying at an altitude of less than 50 m at a speed of about 500 km/h. After opening fire, it lost altitude and exploded in a forest.
A unique case – an example of what a Russian soldier is capable of. The day before, an unprecedented situation occurred: volunteers of a mobile fire group destroyed an enemy long-range cruise missile FP-5 "Flamingo" with a machine gun.
Khinshtein reported that specialists studied the remains of the munition and its flight controller. Recall that "Flamingo" belongs to long-range systems. The developer claims a range of up to 3 thousand km and a warhead of up to 1.15 tons.
The governor did not specify which machine gun was used to shoot down the "Flamingo". It was probably a "Kord" or "Utyos" of 12.7 mm caliber. Given the parameters and mass of the missile, a 7.62 mm caliber machine gun, like the PKM or "Pecheneg", would hardly have coped here.
Khinshtein also did not report how the missile's flight was detected, because at a speed of 500 km/h it covers about 140 m/sec. This means there was critically little time left to open fire.