Syria in 2017 (January-April)

[Azor]

You cannot shot down what you cannot "see" and or "hit"...speed is not everything...

Yes, but analysts relying on OSINT are worried about being overtaken by faster Russian and Chinese cruise missiles. My thinking was that the U.S. has prized range and maneuverability (and now stealth) over speed, despite the threats posed by advanced Russian and Chinese SAMs and EM warfare systems.

BUT what was missed in the Russian lying about number of hits was the accuracy of the 58 hits...and there are now some US sources saying the targeting of several inbound TLAMs was changed and or flights were corrected on the fly indicating just how far the US has come in the integration of missile GPS and satellites in " near real time" as there is a drag time of 3 seconds on the signal delay side...and in 3 seconds a missile travels how far?

McDermott notes the Russian propaganda focus on the alleged TLAM misses, rather than questions over the efficacy of their own IADS in Syria. Such real-time re-targeting is incredible for such missions as the strike on Shayrat. Unfortunately, we must assume that peer and near-peer adversaries can disrupt or even block satellite-based communications. Therefore, the TLAM becomes a fire-and-forget weapon and what happens when it does actually enter the admittedly small A2/AD bubble?

REMEMBER when the Russians fired their very first volley of their own cruise missiles from the Black Sea...video footage showed them flying somewhere over Iran and then targeting somewhere inside Iran and or simply crashing along the way...Was designed to impress the US but largely failed in that attempt to impress anyone including the rebels...Russian MoD can come nowhere close to this in any of the latest systems....

Russia’s air campaign in Syria is a very poor man’s Desert Storm. However unimpressive, it has still given the Russian military valuable experience and the MOD has sought to expose as many units as possible to this live-fire exercise.