]...Trick Or Treat !!...;0)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
Thanks for the ping!
“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.”
Not really pertinent to this discussion, but I think the Python-5 beats the AIM-9X hands down. Furthermore, the Izzies have given us the SMAW (basically) and the Litening pod (just what comes to mind). Unlike many of my fellow FReepers, I’m not a ardent fan of Israel, but I sure do think they have a top-notch military. Furthermore, I think their combined arms training has to be pretty good, not to mention their pilots have had a lot more experience and training in combating SAMs and other ground-based targets.