Syria in 2018-2019

[Azor]

Military Movements after the April 2018 Chemical Weapons Attack: http://iswresearch.blogspot.ca/2018/...pril-2018.html

• 2 Russian Su-24M aircraft harassed the USS Donald Cook and the French frigate Aquitaine on April 11. The Russian Navy also conducted a firing drill off the Syrian coast
• Russia reportedly deployed four Tu-95MS and Tu-160M strategic bombers as well as Il-78M tanker aircraft from the Engels Air Base in Russia. Their final destination is unknown although they may be bound for Syria or the Hamedan Air Base in Iran; Russia previously targeted locations in Syria from the Engels Air Base
• Pro-regime forces deployed SAMs, including six Russian Pantsir-S2s, to the Mezzeh Military Air Base and other sites in Damascus
• Pro-regime officials also reportedly issued an alert to the Syrian Arab Army to evacuate personnel and assets from military bases across Syria.
• Regime and Russian aircraft relocated closer to heavily-defended commercial airfields across Syria: from the Seen (Sayqal), Dumayr, Shayrat, and the T-4 (Tiyas) Air Bases, to the Bassel al Assad International Airport in Latakia, the Nayrab Air Base outside Aleppo City, and Damascus International Airport
• Iranian proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah, reportedly began exiting Syria into Lebanon and Iraq
• Unspecified pro-regime elements reportedly evacuated a branch of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Jamraya near Damascus

Coalition Strike Options: https://www.iiss.org/en/militarybala...ia-assets-9a80

• In terms of tactical aviation, only two squadrons remain active over Syria: the 336th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron with F-15E Strike Eagles based at Mowafaq al Salti in Jordan, and a half-strength F-22A Raptor squadron at Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates, believed currently to be the 94th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron
• The US also still has two Expeditionary Attack Squadrons (46th and 361st) equipped with MQ-9A Reaper UAVs in theatre, based in Jordan and Kuwait, but the utility of these assets and their UK Royal Air Force (RAF) counterparts for the kind of missions being contemplated is limited by the contested nature of the airspace
• The bomber detachment at Al Udeid in Qatar is also still in place: the 34th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron’s B-1B Lancers began replacing the previous B-52H Stratofortress rotation at the beginning of April
• Additional bombers, particularly the B-2A Spirit stealth bombers, either flying from their home bases in the continental United States, or staging from forward bases such as Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, are an obvious way of getting combat power into theatre for an initial strike
• Both the UK and France also have squadron-sized tactical combat aircraft deployments in the region as part of the campaign against ISIS
• The RAF has a mixed force of six Typhoon FGR4s and eight Tornado GR4s deployed to Akrotiri in Cyprus, and the French have six Rafales deployed to Al Dhafra in the UAE under Escadron de Chasse 1/7 Provence and a detachment of four additional Rafales stationed at Prince Hassan airbase in Jordan
• The RAF Tornados and the French Rafales are capable of conducting stand-off attacks from outside Syrian airspace using Storm Shadow and Scalp EG cruise missiles, and additional long-range cruise missile missions could be flown direct from France or the UK, as they previously were during operations over Libya in 2011.
• There is no aircraft-carrier group currently assigned to either the US Navy’s 5th or 6th Fleet
• Of the four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are forward based with the 6th Fleet, only one, the USS Donald Cook, was in the Eastern Mediterranean on 7 April
• Two of the others, USS Ross and USS Porter, were conducting port visits in the UK and France, and the fourth, USS Carney, had recently returned to its homeport of Rota in Spain
• Currently deployed alongside the Donald Cook is the French Navy destroyer Aquitaine, equipped with the new Missile De Croisière Naval (MdCN) cruise missile but with a smaller number of total launch cells compared to her US counterparts
• The UK Type-45 destroyer HMS Duncan is currently in the Eastern Mediterranean as the flagship of NATO’s Standing Maritime Group 2: although she is not equipped for land-attack missions, she may still be diverted to the theatre in order to bolster the air-defence capability of any task group (and indeed RAF Akrotiri) against potential reprisals.
• Below the waves the picture is somewhat better: the USS John Warner, a Virginia-class Block III submarine, left Gibraltar last week, and after a brief stop at Toulon on 9th April is now highly likely to be in the Eastern Mediterranean
• The Ohio-class converted guided-missile submarine USS Florida (capable of accommodating up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles) was believed to be in the Indian Ocean in March, but may have subsequently returned through the Suez Canal and re-entered the Mediterranean, and it is possible that additional submarines from the 5th and 6th Fleets have been moved to join them
• Although there is at present no official confirmation from the British government, several media reports have suggested that at least one of the Royal Navy’s submarines, able to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles, may also be en route

[AdamG]

Note: the map with missile ranges is worth socking away for later use.

The Russian military has claimed that the Syrian air defences, whose most modern weapon is a three-decades-old Russian-supplied anti-aircraft system, shot down 71 of 103 missiles fired by the US and its allies, the UK and France.

As further details began to emerge about the sites targeted by the US-led strikes, Col Gen Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military said the strikes had not caused any casualties and that Syrian military facilities suffered only minor damage.

Although it was not possible to verify the claims, the most up-to-date system that Moscow has supplied to the Syrian regime is the short range Pantsir S-1, which has an anti-missile capability.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ority-missiles

Source is the Guardian, so compensate for the usual spin rate.

[davidbfpo]

A public French 'national assessment' of the Douma CW strike; well-written IMHO and some horrible photos on the last page.
Link:https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/p..._cle0c76b5.pdf

[davidbfpo]

I missed this article in May 2016, so yes it is historical. Just why the four were in Syrian custody in 2011, as the civil war began, is not 100% clear (possibly two were rendered there by the USA). What is clear is their release had an impact:

If President Assad’s Sednaya amnesty was indeed a considered plan to subvert the revolution, it worked.

Link:http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/pr...mic/index.html

[AdamG]

As images of sick or dying children flooded global media all week, the U.S. guided-missile destroyer USS Winston Churchill churned toward the Mediterranean to join a flotilla of allied warships, including another U.S. destroyer, the USS Donald Cook.

It was a ruse.

While both vessels carry as many as 90 Tomahawk missiles -- the main weapon used in the Friday evening strike on Syria -- neither ship in the end fired a shot. Instead, according to a person familiar with White House war planning, they were part of a plan to distract Russia and its Syrian ally from an assault Assad’s government could do little to defend itself against.

As the president addressed the nation at 9 p.m. Washington time, on Friday, a barrage of 105 U.S., U.K. and French missiles converged on Syria. They came from the Red Sea, the Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean, homing in from three directions to overwhelm whatever missile defenses Assad’s regime might deploy. Russia’s more advanced air defense system didn’t engage the allied weapons.

According to the Pentagon, the allied weaponry included 19 new “Extended-Range” stealthy Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Attack Munitions launched by two B-1B bombers based out of Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, and six Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the Virginia-class USS John Warner submarine. The bomber-launched missiles, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., had never been used in combat.

The cruiser USS Monterey fired 30 Tomahawks and the destroyer USS Laboon fired seven Tomahawks from the Red Sea. The destroyer USS Higgins fired 23 Tomahawks from the North Arabian Gulf, according to McKenzie.

The weapons also included French SCALP-EG cruise missiles and British Storm Shadow standoff missiles launched by Tornado and Typhoon jets. Nine SCALP missiles were fired at what the Pentagon said was a chemical weapons storage complex at Hims-Shinshar, along with two SCALPS, nine Tomahawks and eight Storm Shadows.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...attacked-syria

[Azor]

The strikes themselves: https://theaviationist.com/2018/04/1...ikes-on-syria/

Claims about successful strikes/missiles lost: https://theaviationist.com/2018/04/1...ing-to-the-us/

[davidbfpo]

A scholarly overview of Russia's place in Syria and nearby - presumably written before the latest allied air attack, as it is not mentioned.
Link:https://defenceindepth.co/2018/04/20...mediterranean/