S-400 Threat

a reply to: mightmight

They supposedly used 8 tankers to get them to Syria, but needed 13 to get them back? Even if some of the first 8 were KC-10s it wouldn't take 5 more to replace them on the second round.

Maybe they just moved more refueling capacity into the AO after the air strike began to be prepared for escalation. Imagine a scenario in which Russia intervenes and you not only have to get the inital strike package home in good order, but US naval and air forces and up in direct contact with the Russian.
Suddenly you'd need a hell of a lot more refueling capacity to generate enough sortie to at the very least keep a sufficient CAP up and maintian air superority. Might very well take too long to deploy tankers from somwhere in Europe. Better safe than sorry.
In any case, there was alot more going on and sitting on the tarmac ready to go that night than what was released to the media.

a reply to: mightmight

That still doesn't explain 5 extra tankers. They still had 3 KC-10s capable of offloading, because I watched them after the strike. So they ended up with almost double the capacity they went down with. That only makes sense if you have heavies in the area that are going to take a lot of fuel.

a reply to: Zaphod58

What informs your reasoning on flying a squirrely friend from CONUS, aside from the tanker patterns?

I think the risk vs. reward and the fact that we had adequate capabilities in theater to do the job would indicate we would not put what you're alluding to in that messy airspace.

You always burn more gas than pencilled.
Plus you don't really know what the response is going to be. If Syrian or Russian MiG's come out to play, that's even more gas. If someone strikes Cyprus, then all those guys probably divert, and the CAP probably stays on station indefinitely until they are out of things that go woosh or brrt. Same for a Russian naval response against ships. Everybody up, stays up to give the commanders on scene assets to use. By the time that all gets sorted, the KC-10's might need tankers themselves.
So it doesn't really surprise me that they tasked more tankers to egress than ingress. Ingress you just waltz into position over the Med. Who knows what happens post-strike? Maybe it's a quiet, leisurely return home or maybe all hell breaks loose.

a reply to: mightmight

Sorta makes me wonder about the confidence in those systems if that many weapons are used on three targets.

a reply to: RadioRobert

Of course you do, and one or two extra tankers on the way out makes sense. But at least five KC-135s and at least one KC-10 were still in the area several hours after they said the strikes ended. You could see when the French tanker met up with the French aircraft on the way out, as well as when the F-15s met up with their extra tankers over France on the way back to the UK.

Yes, you might have forces sitting in the area waiting, but not enough to require that much offload, that long afterwards.

a reply to: The one?

I didn't say it necessarily was. They might have sent a couple of bombers from CONUS. There were tanker movements in all the right places, at all the right times, in the right numbers to have met up with something needing a fairly significant amount of fuel.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Very interesting!

originally posted by: spy66
a reply to: Whoisjohngalt

It is true. Syria have given the number and location.

It isn't true. It is typical Russian propaganda. They did the same for the 2017 Tomahawk strike on Shayrat airbase where they claimed that only 23 Tomahawks out of 59 got through to the airbase. It must be embarrassing for these Russian top brass to be paraded and have to create a propaganda story. For the Russians it needs to be done and it is a deeply ingrained mindset that goes back to to Soviet times. It was the same for US air raid on Libya back in 1986. Soviet Generals were paraded to give glowing assessments for Russian supplied Libyan air defences.

The question arises with this type of propaganda is why do they never think that they will be found out? The "23 only hits" is utterly ridiculous.

You can see from satellite imagery that there was more than 23 hits. US General Joseph Votel briefed that 57 out of the 59 struck their targets.

April 7, 2017 ISI FIRST TO ANALYZE SHAYRAT AIRFIELD MISSILE ATTACK Based on very high resolution imagery captured less than 10 hours after the attack, ISI presents in depth battle damage assessment ISI very high resolution satellite imagery was able to reveal the results of the Tomahawk cruise missiles attack on the Al-Shayrat Air Base. According to ISI experts, the total of 44 targets hit. Several targets may have hit twice. An in-depth examination of the damage to the objectives shows that 13 double hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) got 23 hits. 5 workshops got hit. The workshops are not necessarily related to WMD, but to aircraft and their ability to do maintenance and fly. Ten ammunition storages got hit. Seven fuel reservoirs of the AFB got hit at two sites with eight hits total. Two locations remain untouched. One SA6 Battery utterly destroyed along with its radars and control systems. In total, five SA6 Battery elements hit. The results show that the target hits were accurate and that the Tomahawks have been used effectively against quality targets. Although 58 missiles hit the base, it seems that the overall damage to the base is limited because the warhead of the Tomahawk is not considered large and weighs about 450 kg.

ISI Imagery Analysis Link

In reality the Syrians were completely overwhelmed by the airstrike. It was all over within minutes. The US only registered SAM launches after the missiles had struck their respective targets. You can see this with the various video footage where you see the SAM launches going ballistic and some of them command detonating.

Both the Syrians and Russians have to play this game for their populace. The Russians also have to think of their arms industry and how that looks for existing and prospective clients.

From the Pentagon briefing.

McKenzie: "Syria fired 40 surface to air missiles into the air after strike on ballistic (unguided trajectory) to no effect....after the 105 US and allied missiles had already landed."

Zerohedge Pentagon Briefing Link

originally posted by: mightmight


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.

I would suggest that the variant of the Tomahawks used for the Damascus Research Centre were TACTOM (Tactical Tomahawks) with penetration warheads. The same with the JASSM-ERs in penetration mode. With close proximity to residential areas I believe that the penetration warheads were used to drop/collapse the buildings rather than use unitary warheads that would cause extensive blast damage to the surrounding areas.

The Israeli's hit their targets days before, proving how inadequate Syrian air defense is. That was nothing compared to the US led total onslaught. Russian arms sales are back to the drawing boards.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

No, they aren't. Their sales are doing just fine still. Using this logic, US sales must be back to the drawing board after the recent Patriot fiasco in Saudi Arabia.

I would suggest that the variant of the Tomahawks used for the Damascus Research Centre were TACTOM (Tactical Tomahawks) with penetration warheads. The same with the JASSM-ERs in penetration mode. With close proximity to residential areas I believe that the penetration warheads were used to drop/collapse the buildings rather than use unitary warheads that would cause extensive blast damage to the surrounding areas.

The target was not a reinforced bunker but simple two story concrete buildings. You'd much rather end up with penetrating through those buildinigs, creating a lovely spillover effect in the surrounding areas than what we've have seen.
Here is another set of pictures, including the front: www.kazan.kp.ru...
If you think that target was hit by more than a handfull of missiles i dont know what to tell you.

originally posted by: tommyjo
Both the Syrians and Russians have to play this game for their populace.

Yet much of what they say is then repeated ad nauseam as fact on ATS and elsewhere, so it works.

originally posted by: mightmight

I would suggest that the variant of the Tomahawks used for the Damascus Research Centre were TACTOM (Tactical Tomahawks) with penetration warheads. The same with the JASSM-ERs in penetration mode. With close proximity to residential areas I believe that the penetration warheads were used to drop/collapse the buildings rather than use unitary warheads that would cause extensive blast damage to the surrounding areas.

The target was not a reinforced bunker but simple two story concrete buildings. You'd much rather end up with penetrating through those buildinigs, creating a lovely spillover effect in the surrounding areas than what we've have seen.
Here is another set of pictures, including the front: www.kazan.kp.ru...
If you think that target was hit by more than a handfull of missiles i dont know what to tell you.

m.youtube.com...

One of these shows a JASSM in penetration mode, most of the blast is underground. I hear they also used high incendiary versions which have little blast power.

That said, watching 70 missiles strike would be awesome and I am gutted there wasn't video of it, if true!

originally posted by: paraphi

originally posted by: tommyjo
Both the Syrians and Russians have to play this game for their populace.

Yet much of what they say is then repeated ad nauseam as fact on ATS and elsewhere, so it works.

Sadly it is a mindset. I just feel sorry for these Russian top brass wheeled out for the military briefings. They know the reality but they have to brief a lie.

Recent circulating EU propaganda has it that, Russia allegedly U-Turned and cancelled delivery of S-300s to the Syrian armed forces. There's no U-turn. The fact is that after the UK-US-French strikes in April, the MoD started evaluations regarding possible future delivery of S-300s to Syria. No final decision has been made and no further info is available about the ongoing evaluation.

About the SA-22 that looks like it was hit by an Israeli missile ... I wonder where else did I see that same video, under what other circumstances!
Maybe it's time for the IDF to upgrade the seeker heads of their missiles to at least 21st century standards. That low-res Thermal tracking camera is a bit disappointing and looks like that of an old AGM-65 from the 90s.

Recent S-400 sales to India and the Trump's upcoming sanctions response are in fact the 2 sides of the same coin which has defeated the EU-NATO attempts at orchestrating an invasion of the Asian continent starting from what they perceived as weak spots.
The NATO-EU Nazi colonialist plan for the invasion and occupation of India during the next 10 years, was actually concocted and pushed through by EU Royal families and governments of major NATO countries, such as the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Spain, Greece, Portugal.

All these countries have been plotting destabilization, terrorism, and finally the invasion of South Asia, starting from Myanmar and India.

originally posted by: Flanker86
Recent S-400 sales to India and the Trump's upcoming sanctions response are in fact the 2 sides of the same coin which has defeated the EU-NATO attempts at orchestrating an invasion of the Asian continent starting from what they perceived as weak spots.
The NATO-EU Nazi colonialist plan for the invasion and occupation of India during the next 10 years, was actually concocted and pushed through by EU Royal families and governments of major NATO countries, such as the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Spain, Greece, Portugal.

All these countries have been plotting destabilization, terrorism, and finally the invasion of South Asia, starting from Myanmar and India.

Well if that’s the case, why is there a safe full of moon rock that has as much security as Fort Knox? Is that just to maintain the myth of the moon landing?