US launches Tomahawks on Syrian airbases

a reply to: Vector99

That purty piece of paper sounds better huh...

You forgot in your analogy, the neighbor is running a child abuse ring.

If Russia is willing to tear that paper up because they didn't agree that what Assad did was inhumane and abominable, then that's just more proof of how worthless it was.

TheRedneck

Let's be real. Russia, America, Assad are on the same team. The enemy is jihadists. Those who strap bombs on themselves and detonate themselves to go to jinah in the name of Islam. They are the enemy. This is a warning shot. DO NOT use WMD. End of.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: solargeddon

Because Syria is their ally and gives them basing rights, and they have forces there. You support your allies. That includes some kind of a reaction when something like this happens.

"ally"?...Assad is putins pet. Without putin Assad would already be hiding in some hole somewhere like Saddam was.

a reply to: TheRedneck

It's not great but it's not bad. Most of our missiles have been sitting stored for years, and I'm sure a few were in containers that leaked and may have had corrosion in some of their components.

Ill throw this in here too..

Russia was supposed to take custody of Assads chem weapons. Guess they missed some. So sad too bad for those 70 lives that gurgled foamily into death.

Short memories.

originally posted by: allsee4eye
Let's be real. Russia, America, Assad are on the same team. The enemy is jihadists. Those who strap bombs on themselves and detonate themselves to go to jinah in the name of Islam. They are the enemy.

Yes ...cuz gassing children to death from expensive jet fighters is civilized.

Tell me what looks civilized about this?

www.nytimes.com...

or this..

Survivors of Syrian attack describe chemical bombs falling from sky
www.cnn.com...

A 39% hit rate lol.

I've worked in the defence engineering industry at times and although I've had no specific information on this, I seriously do find it hard to believe that is a natural hit rate. I'm always surprised by our poor hit rates.

The biggest driver of the final hit accuracy will be the function of the physical guidance systems of the missile itself, rather than the internal GPS tracking (which will provide hit accuracy of about a 2-3m diameter circle). These tomahawks use cutting edge mapping guidance systems along with state of the art inertial GPS systems, so when we say we want 100% missiles to hit an airbase, they WILL hit that airbase...

Unless one thing of course; you assume the hardware mechanically or electrically fails. From experience in designing for the defence industry and what type of risk values are assigned to this, I would take a guess that it's at least of the magnitude of x10^-6, when considering the critical failure modes.

Long story short, you'd be hitting astronomical odds if these are miss rates as a result of this type of failure.

Another option is to assume that the initial mapping data input into the missile was wrong to some extent, but this would imply complete incompetence and could warrant legal action.

The final real cause can be argued to be weather conditions, however this is surely accounted for by the inertial guidance system (which can judge wind velocity etc and hence adjust for the aerodynamics involved). The missile doesn't have 'eyes' as such so the rain and snow don't bother it, neither as do any temperature variations that it might endure. Lightning striking the missile could be a problem but that is also extremely unlikely.

You're left with a bunch of ridiculously small probabilities to explain a 61% 'miss rate' of something as relatively large as an airfield, which is somewhat worrying, especially because this very often happens. One's eyebrows must be somewhat raised when you consider how much general infrastructure gets destroyed as a result of these 'misses' and how it often seems to only benefit the construction contractors we send out there?

Edit: for what it is worth, a mate told me that a family member was instructed to purposely hit bridges and claim 'accidents' or failures during the Bosnian war (into which I was coincidentally born). This was due to tax paid construction contracts being won to repair the same destroyed infrastructure. This is arguably the biggest scam of the 20th and 21st century.

a reply to: Indigo5

I don't care what you call it, it's still an alliance.

a reply to: avgguy
No, your refers to a possessive description. You're is the contraction for you are. He got it exactly correct.
a reply to: BlueAjah
well of course our empire's allies are going to support what we did. What has India said? South Africa, Brazil, Norway, Iceland and so on and so on ..
a reply to: Vector99
If one does go down, which I do no believe will be true, it will have suffered some sort of "catastrophic malfunction", and not the result of a shootdown
Although, I feel Israeli aircraft may end up on the menu.
a reply to: BomSquad

When Russia can veto any resolution condemning Syria how is it going to be effective at ending the conflict? Even and abstention on Russia's part could bring some progress.

I know right? This is exactly how the world has felt about America's VETO of EVERY resolution ever on Israel. Mind you, there were times the Russians have actually not used their veto in past years. But the lies, treachery, and broken promises tend to make other parties less cooperative.

a reply to: DazDaKing

Never underestimate the ability of the average soldier to break a weapon system. Or transpose coordinates.

Russia have sent a warship to the US ship that fired the missiles - it's closing in.
oops.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The storage argument isn't strong IMO. The control system simply reads GPS and autocorrects any error within a predefined boundary. Corrosion around the controls themselves would render them inoperative, not inaccurate, so it would either have to be badly corroded control surfaces or so much corrosion as to make the aerodynamics of the missile uncontrollable. Either should be readily apparent at a quick glance.

I'm sticking with poor design. The engineer in me sees nothing else that makes sense.

TheRedneck

TPTB set Trump up to
Look like a fool but now they can't say he's in collusion with Russia
TPTB really want war though

a reply to: UKTruth

Of course it is. It has to to get to their port.

originally posted by: UKTruth
Russia have sent a warship to the US ship that fired the missiles - it's closing in.
oops.

Peacocks just put their tail feathers up..

but its still a peacock.

According to Pentagon. 60 missiles fired. 1 malfunctioned. 59 hit their targets.

originally posted by: Advantage

originally posted by: UKTruth
Russia have sent a warship to the US ship that fired the missiles - it's closing in.
oops.

Peacocks just put their tail feathers up..

but its still a peacock.

Well America is pretty poor any winning wars over the last 50 years. They's be on to a loser fighting Syria never mind Russia.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Corrosion inside the missile wouldn't be apparent, and the vibration of flying low level could cause something to break. I've seen aircraft that looked just fine have so much corrosion they had to be retired.

It's not likely, but possible. And that goes beyond the generic ability to break things the military has.

originally posted by: UKTruth

originally posted by: Advantage

originally posted by: UKTruth
Russia have sent a warship to the US ship that fired the missiles - it's closing in.
oops.

Peacocks just put their tail feathers up..

but its still a peacock.

Well America is pretty poor any winning wars over the last 50 years. They's be on to a loser fighting Syria never mind Russia.

We havent had any wars that were actually fought as a war should be. They know it too.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Perhaps we need better trained and disciplined soldiers operating 1000lb payload cruise missiles that can deliver complete remote destruction?