]...Trick Or Treat !!...;0)
Posted on 09/29/2007 8:09:04 AM PDT by John Jorsett
Information coming out of Iran indicates that the military there is very dismayed at how ineffective new Russian anti-aircraft systems were during the Israeli September 6th air strike on a Syrian weapons development facility near the Iraqi border. Syria and Iran have both bought billions of dollars worth of the latest Russian anti-aircraft missile systems. Apparently the Israelis were able to blind these systems electronically. Syria isn't saying anything, nor are the Israelis, but Iranian officers are complaining openly that they have been had by the Russians. The Iranians bought Russian equipment based on assurances that the gear would detect and shoot down Israeli warplanes.
Over the Summer Russia delivered the first dozen or so (of 50) Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft systems to Syria. It is believed that some of these systems are going to Iran, if only because Iran is apparently paying for them. Russia made the sale to Syria, despite $13.4 billion still owned for past purchases. Russia forgave most (73 percent) of the old debt, and is taking some of the balance in goods. In return, Syria is able to buy $400 million worth of anti-aircraft systems, mainly the self-propelled Pantsir-S1. This is a mobile system, each vehicle carries radar, two 30mm cannon and twelve Tunguska missiles. The missiles have a twenty kilometer range, the radar a 30 kilometer range. The missile can hit targets at up to 26,000 feet. The 30mm cannon is effective up to 10,000 feet. The vehicle carrying all this weighs 20 tons and has a crew of three.
By selling to Syria, even via the use of an enormous discount, Russia gets another foreign customer for their new anti-aircraft systems. Previously, fifty of these systems had been sold to the United Arab Emirates. Each foreign sales make it easier to sell these systems to other foreign customers. But the poor performance in Syria makes it much more difficult to sell any Russian air defense systems (which have a spotty track record in any event.)
As a practical matter, Syria is too poor to ever pay back the forgiven debt, so forgiving the debt recognizes that reality. However, because Syria has been a client state of Iran for decades, the assertions that Iran put up the money, and will get many of the systems, carry a lot of weight. Iran would most likely use these systems to protect high value targets, like nuclear weapons research facilities. However, if anyone should get photos of these systems in Iran, there would be quite an uproar.
The Iranians fear an Israeli air strike against their nuclear weapons development facilities. It was thought the new Russian missiles and radars would persuade the Israelis to stay away. But now the raid on Syria looks like a dress rehearsal for one a little further east. Since Iranian leaders have openly called for the destruction of Israel, one can't deny the Israelis a little self-defense. Thus the cries and whispers in Iranian military headquarters. A lot of this is leaking on to Farsi language email and message boards. There is much angst and unhappiness.
No way would Israel risk giving up their secret for beating Iran’s air defense system over a mere trial in Syria.
I don’t know...its a possibility.
I give it a 7.5, it’s got a good beat, you can dance to it but I can’t make out the words.
Perhaps. But it is always wise to keep your eyes open and your powder dry.
The argument that Iran put a defector up to leaking fake target information in Syria, and that the Russians conspired to falsely give the Israelis some sort of weakness in their AA defense systems...breaks down when one considers that the U.S. has assets such as stealth, UCAVs, and ICBMs for which such AA defense systems are meaningless, anyway.
In other words, a grand trap to cost great U.S. and Israeli levels of air asset losses over an “overconfidence” attack on Iran’s WMD programs would still fail to stop at least 3 different U.S. strategic and tactical types of attacks.
Which makes such a grand trap meaningless.
In the meantime, the Russians would have to let every buyer and potential buyer of those AA defense systems know that it was all a trap...otherwise they’d lose business.
And if the U.S. or Israel never attacked Iran (entirely possible considering that Iran is encricled and a blockade strategy is easily instigated) with air assets, then Russia would lose AA defense customers for decades or more.
So people are overthinking Russia’s options when they opine that the Israelis were “Allowed” a free hit deep inside Syria in order to set Israel/U.S. up for a sucker punch over Iran.
Only the leftist peace and love types are ignoring the Islamist. At any rate, it is Russian and Chinese hardware that is helping to make Islam a greater threat. The Russian anti-tank weapons did fairly well last year in stopping the Israeli counter-offensive into Lebanon. The Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles were also a threat in the hands of Hezbollha. Mid range North Korean missile technology are allowing Iran to assert itself within the region. True the equipment is inferior, but in the hands of suicidal maniacs, it can score a few hits.
I’ve got software that plots radar horizons onto Digital Elevation Models, I can assume Israel has more expensive software, custom written, running on much larger processing arrays, and Air Force and other US agencies have systems orders of magnitude yet more powerful.
I don’t see this op being a test of Syrian systems. If you want to do that, you go downtown, a place Israel has been before.
Not that hard to map out a route where you are terrain masked for most of your ingress, especially if you have satellites backing you up, Mossad back up your sats, and US sensor platforms backing up Mossad.
I can’t say this was all that clean of a raid either. It’s possible Syria was totally blind, and fired some dumb SAMs, without guidance, or fired a couple manpads with organic guidance systems, but it’s just as possible those missiles were guided and IAF just out flew them.
One way or another Syria knew something was up there worth firing at, and did exactly that.
All else is speculation at this point.
If I were to speculate, I’d say IAF mapped a viable route through rugged terrain across northern Syria, and possibly southern Turkey, came across the eastern Syrian desert clipping cactus, popped up at the IP to loose their ordnance, where an older but servicable Syrian sensor got some dwell time on them, enough to get a lock, and got some missiles out, a day late and a dollar short.
I wouldn’t rule out a HARM raid or two, removing a critical SAM battery and sensors at a critical time, but I’m sure not ready to call Israel superman, or automatically assume they have first world weaponry. We’ve given them some nice stuff, and they have pieces of some interesting research programs, but IMO, their joint capabilities are not at US standards, so they tend to take a little more risk, and get the job done the hard way.
Fortunately, all the threat knows is that they got hosed. Khameinei doesn’t strike me as the type that differentiates between synthetic aperatures and Boolean probability equations for faint returns, he just knows the system doesn’t work and he’s giving the orders.
If we give them enough time for internal dynamics to play out, we might even see major concessions from them, but only to buy more time.
They aren’t going to quit until we make them quit.
If there’s a trend worth waiting out, I expect we’ll wait it out. I have a feeling we’re further inside the Axis of Evil’s...decision making loop...than the Axis of Evil themselves are.
If you catch my drift, well and fine, it was meant the way it reads. If not, some make-up work on the perception equations that underlie Rapid Dominance is in order.
]...Trick Or Treat !!...;0)
To: darkwing104; jeffers
that is why the Iranians moved all their air assets around in the past 24 hours....
just heard 10 straight EAMs go out in a row from Andrews AFB.
229 posted on 09/04/2007 12:58:59 AM CDT by BurbankKarl
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890271/posts?page=242#242
Iran and Syria love KOS types like Kucinich and Pelosi.
KOS, the bestest useful idiot in the WOT?
Interesting.
Ten am local ME time, the day of the raid.
Call it 30 hours from Missouri to the Gulf, nothing stateside the day of the raid could make it to theater before the raid actually happened...therefore...
It’ll be a treat for you, in the hopes you won’t be capping MY tv’s.
:-)
Yes!
Would I Lie To you? Would I lie to you? Would I lie to you honey? Now would I say something that wasn't true? I'm asking you sugar Would I lie to you?
Syria isn't saying anything, nor are the Israelis, but Iranian officers are complaining openly that they have been had by the Russians. The Iranians bought Russian equipment based on assurances that the gear would detect and shoot down Israeli warplanes.
It isn't every day that both parties in a deal get ripped off.
This “Strike Story” seems to get larger with every news
release,,,last one had the USAF on CAP for the IAF,,,
JMHO : The ECM emitters came in from the west(NVN ‘72) as
well as from the east(IAF),,,ECM from both directions is
the reason moozzi’s radar was “snowed”...
Makes me wonder...;0)
Could be very surgical at 3 miles up.
The Iranians bought Russian equipment based on assurances that the gear would detect and shoot down Israeli warplanes.
HA HA
“I can’t shake this feeling this was a dry run for a takedown of Iran...”
I think that was a secondary benefit, but not the main goal
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