S-400 Threat

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah why not. We sure wont accept Syrias narrative even if it was the truth... You are a military man you know how it works...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah why not. We sure wont accept Syrias narrative even if it was the truth... You are a military man you know how it works...

ThE US went out and lied and said that all missiles hit their target. But that could mean all 30 missiles hit their target. And the other 70 flew back home👍👍

a reply to: spy66

And you think Syria wouldn't lie about how many actually missed? I'm surprised they only claimed 71, and not more.

I know exactly how it works. Both sides lie and the truth is in the middle. Except that some people that claim to know how it works accept one side over the other as gospel no matter what they say.

It's kind of funny that to believe US claims we have to see evidence of every weapon hitting. But Syrian claims don't require any proof because they said it was true.

Propaganda hasnt changed much in warfare..

a reply to: Zaphod58

It is true that the truth is not a public matter. Our governments cant share the real truth or the real facts. Because this is not a public matter. No matter how we tvist and turn it.

The governments objectives when it comes to the public is to be viewed as succsesfull, determined , be the moral partison and be the provider of information. All this is selective in accordance with governments objectives.

We would not mention to the public if Russia activsted their air defences. Because that would be direct information to russia.

There is no way for us at this time to know if we actually had more targets on our hit list then the three we were told about. And the three sites we hit.
If there were more targets on the list and it was made public.. We would start to wonder why they were not hit. And it would also force our government to make public statment. This again would be value info for the russians and Syria .

a reply to: spy66

You are trying to build too many "what ifs" into your analysis. Just roll with it that there were three targets, which were destroyed if you believe the satellite imagery. The fact that Russia did not interfere is telling - either they chose not to, or they could not. The fact that there are not pictures of downed cruise missiles is also telling.

Will this stop the use of chemical weapons by Syria? Probably not.

Ok, not to beat a dead horse and certainly not to provide fuel to the Russia-Strong! crowd - but i really dont see how this facility was hit by 70+ Tomahawks/JASSMs: pbs.twimg.com...
Edit: also pp.userapi.com...

I mean look at the surroundings. US weapons are accurate but with 70+ missiles mere statistics guarantee near misses and only just close enough hits. Yet even the front lawn is barely scorched and there appears to be little to no shrapnel damage on the surrounding buildings.

Also, the mere thought of throwing 70+ missiles on any three buildings should be pretty ludicrous to anyone who every thought about it or played around assembling strike packages one way or another. This is a total waste of ordnance. If a target is so heavily defended that you'd need a saturation strike of 70+ missiles, you go after the AD first. Jam it or take it out kinetically, just dont kick in the front door with the equivalent of an destroyers entire VLS loadout.

But as said before, nothing we have seen from that night indicates a saturation attack. No footage of interceptions over downtown Damascus, no wreckage either. Just a blown up building and numbers on both sides that dont add up at all.
I don't think we have seen this before either. I have never heard of an attack with what, 25 TLAMs aimed at a single building, defended or not.

Also, would the US truely throw 70+ missiles at a target in downtown Damascus? With so many missiles flying, chances are something would go wrong and a couple would get jammed/shot down/crash and impact a residential area. Of course this would be acceptable, but not a smart move if you don’t want to escalate the situation unnecessarily. This target calls for a precision strike with comparatively small guided weapons, not a giant sledgehammer of 70+ TLAMs.

What happened there? Did they US expect the Russian AD to engage (technically difficult as shown in this thread) and set up a saturation strike, only to terminate most missiles after the first wave hit the target? Did they inflate the numbers only to be able to Claim that they shot over 100!!11!! missiles at Syria to appease the warmongers and/or Trump?
I dont want to claim this or that, i'm just puzzeled. Something doesnt add up.

a reply to: mightmight

Well both sides state that over a 100 missiles were used. Russia say that they tracked 103 targets. And that 71 of these were intercepted by the Syrians that is quite a accurate use of numbers....

i doubt the US will support any claimes that have something to do with their missiles being intercepted. And probably wont stress much about showing evidence of that happening.

Russia and Syria probably have a reason to... I dont really see the point why they have to show us anything to satisfy our ego...
Keeping us in the dark is tacktics

People are starting to ask these questions, and they wonder if all 103/112 missiles actually hit their targets. If you dividend 103 missiles per target you have close to 34,3 missiles hitting each of the three target sites. That would leave some major damage at each site.

originally posted by: spy66
a reply to: mightmight

Well both sides state that over a 100 missiles were used. Russia say that they tracked 103 targets. And that 71 of these were intercepted by the Syrians that is quite a accurate use of numbers....

No its not. 'Tracking' might as well include decoys and/or jamming efforts and is generally not a trivial exercise when it comes to low fliyng / stealthy cruise missiles. An S-400 Radar at Latakia wont do. They probably just went with the numbers the US released and tweaked them a bit.

The interception claims are equally bogus. No fooage, no wreckage, hits in remote areas, whatever. Compare that to the lightshow we got out of Saudi Arabia with the attacks from Yemen or even with What we see from Gaza. There is nothing beside Syria launching some missiles at nothing in particular. This tracks very well with the US explanation of a Launch after the fact (not just official sources at this point mind you)

But even if we entertain the idea of 70 missiles in total intercepted - that doest explain the damage at the target in Damascus either. as this target does not look like it was hit by 20 Tomahawks either.

i doubt the US will support any claimes that have something to do with their missiles being intercepted. And probably wont stress much about showing evidence of that happening.

No, but Syria and Moscow would. Propaganda victory and all.
Intercepting missiles generally doesnt mean they disappear in thin air. They are very much like airplanes in that regard. You can look that up online
At Minimum with 70 missiles intercepted, the outskirts of Damascus should be littered with *made in USA* wreckage and Syrian State TV should be all over it. Yet there is nothing.


Just because the numbers provided by the Pentagon dont add up doesnt mean the other side is right.

a reply to: mightmight

Well there will always be two sides to this event.
If you want to think that the US used jaming decoys to fool russian radars that is your point of view. But you dont have any evidence that your claimes are any more factuall then the russian claim.

Or do you have evidence to challenge the statments given.

You dont even have any evidence that disprove that Syria intercepted 71 of our missiles.

a reply to: spy66

And you don't have any evidence that proves that they did, but since Russia and Syria are saying it you seen to accept it as Fact.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Well it is what is claimed by them. If it is true or not is a something we should disprove. But we dont disprove anything by providing subjektive theories of our own.

a reply to: mightmight

There are usually a number of failures with Tomahawk strikes. Missiles go off course, crash, etc. I'm sure there were at least a few failures, especially since the initial press conference said that 13 missiles were intercepted. They may have blown some up, and Syria probably did intercept some.

They only fired 66 Tomahawks. The rest were Storm Shadow, Scalp, and JASSM, all of which are LO, making the intercept much harder. That makes it extremely doubtful that they got 71.

a reply to: spy66

And yet you've repeatedly posted making it sound like it is a fact that they got 71. Not as if they might have, or that it's possible they didn't.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Did the B1s drop any GBU -38s that you know of. Russia did claim that they did. They were droped from Lebanon airspace according to them.

If russia knew this, they have some very good intel.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I have been very interested in their claim. So i have used it to try and get some factuall replies.

a reply to: spy66

The B-1s only dropped JASSM-ER. They used 19 between the two aircraft. The B-1s never crossed into Lebanese airspace, they came from Qatar and came in from the other direction.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: mightmight

There are usually a number of failures with Tomahawk strikes. Missiles go off course, crash, etc. I'm sure there were at least a few failures, especially since the initial press conference said that 13 missiles were intercepted. They may have blown some up, and Syria probably did intercept some.

They only fired 66 Tomahawks. The rest were Storm Shadow, Scalp, and JASSM, all of which are LO, making the intercept much harder. That makes it extremely doubtful that they got 71.

Yes i dont buy it either. But wether or not they got some - the facility in Damascus was targeted by 57 Tomahawks and 19 JASSM-ER. Both carry a 1000lb warhead (maybe the same, too lazy to look up), they are probably very similar as far as damage goes.
But i just dont see how that R&D Center was hit by more than a couple of warheads. As in less than 10 most likely. There is little no blast damage in the surrouding area, the front lawn is barely scorched. No near misses from 70+ missiles, nothing. I dont claim to be an experct on this, but come on.
Claims from both sides dont add up to reality here.

Those inital reports of GBU-38 use by whatever are very interesting in this regard. Just a thought. F-22s could carry GBU-38s internally... We already know that F-22s played a role that night with the BACN node airborne. We know that Legacy Jets flew the BARCAP in the Med and escorted the B-1Bs. F-22 were not used for that according to the DOD.

a reply to: mightmight

There was no reason for the B-1s to have crossed into Lebanon, but I'm almost certain something came out of CONUS and was involved. The tanker train timing and the amount offloaded by some of the tankers is completely wrong for just the escorts.

a reply to: Zaphod58

dunno havent looked at the timing

twitter.com...

tankers supporting F-15s from Lakenheath, F-16s from Aviano and the French fighter contigent as well? Doesnt have to be just American fighter escorts, the French dont have that many tankers.