This image from The BBC News front page worries me a little. Would a huge Rocket like that simply embed itself in the ground like that? Surely it would disintegrate on contact. And who wanders up for a better look! But I have to admit, the first thing that came into my mind when I saw the Picture was "Why Won't it go Off Mike?"
The missile guidance will have been overridden and it crashed from a great height at high speed, weighted as you would expect -nose heavy. Amazing how fast the scrap metal guys are on the scene!
But surely it would disintegrate with the force of impact, not stay in one piece. Look at the state of aircraft that have nosedived into the ground, they are a compacted tangle that simply concertinas up on impact. That looks like it toppled over at launch.
I searched for images of missiles buried in the ground and there are plenty of them, so it doesn't seem to be a unique occurrence.
perhaps they have to be strong enough to penetrate the intended destination and then explode once within
The warhead itself would be robust enough to withstand the impact, a lot would depend on when the fuse was set to detonate the change. There are plenty of images online of similar fates for ordnance, especially from the Russian/Ukraine conflict. I seem to recall the Russians trying to convince an atomic inspection agency representive at a nuclear power station that the intact missiles inbeded in the ground were fired from the Ukrainian direction.
It was reported that all the Iranian missiles launched at Israel in this strike were intercepted. This is perhaps just the tail section of one having fallen un-powered.
It has become customary for governments to claim that all incoming ordnance has been intercepted. Admitting that it is getting through would be loss of face.
Large sections of missiles do fall to to earth after interception, often fatally. I would say a fusilage or tail section embedded in the ground minus its warhead is more likely to be an intercept than a squib that didn't go off. No missile defence system is 100% effective and Iranian ballistic missiles weigh over 3/4 of a tonne. That's some heavy shrapnel that's got to land somewhere. Protagonists do exaggerate their success rates in missile interception for propaganda purposes but at the same time both sides want to show the world that the threat is real to justify retaliation. What they are less likely to publicise are fatalities caused by debris from interceptions.
