Posted on 04/08/2017 6:23:38 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Trump defends decision not to hit runway on Syrian airbase
By ERIN DOOLEY Apr 8, 2017, 5:14 PM ET
Following reports that two Syrian jets took off from the airfield hit by U.S. missiles Thursday night, President Trump defended his decision not to strike the runway.
"The reason you don't generally hit runways is that they are easy and inexpensive to quickly fix (fill in and top)!" the commander-in-chief tweeted.
According to one U.S. official, initial assessments indicate that up to 20 Syrian aircraft were destroyed after the U.S. hit Syria's al Shayrat airbase with more than 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles Thursday. However, the runway -- as well as storage areas suspected to contain chemical weapons -- remained untouched.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
yep aircraft cost millions concrete runways are repaired in a couple days with concrete and gravel, you only hit them to control launches for a short period of time. while you want to have air superiority.
Yep. Because Syria needs to focus on hitting ISIS first, then other Islamists in country (including McJuans’s buddies).
You don’t hit the runway. You hit the parked airplanes so they don’t need a runway. Runway, easy to fix - airplanes and jets, not so much.
There was film from Russian TV that showed some did hit runways. They made a hole about two feet deep and a few feet across. Looks like it could be fixed in a couple hours with some concrete. Not much of a return for a $1,410,000 missile.
I’m certainly hoping this was a one-off. It served its purpose of telegraphing that Trump was forceful, decisive and willing to act quickly.
Whether Assad’s military conducted a gas attack (fairly doubtful, IMHO) or not, it served its purpose of providing a rationale for decisive military action at a time of high visability.
Now Trump and the American military can get their focus back on supporting the defeat of ISIS.
You seriously believe everything the Russian news media tells you?
Aircraft cost millions concrete runways are repaired in a couple days with concrete and gravel unless Moonbeam’s CalTran bozos are doing the repair.
Then, it would take millions of $’s and years for the repair.
It is very difficult to disable runways and easy to repair them. You have to crater a lot of the concrete. There are special munitions for trying to do this such as the JP233. But these must be delivered at low-level. Very dangerous for the attacking aircraft.
In the first Gulf War, the RAF lost four Tornados trying to disable runways with JP233’s and had to change tactics and drop bombs from medium altitude using many sorties.
I agree. I hope this goes no farther.
With pallets loaded with hundred dollar bills.
So, there ARE chemicals stored there and we didn’t hit them because it would have released them on the people. That’s what Assad claims happened when he dropped some bombs.
Here in DC you give the contract to a friend of Marion Barry's, may he RIP, with a pickup who goes to 7-eleven and finds some road workers who proceed to repair 2 mile stretch of road and under-road services, with picks and shovels. Mostly it involves standing around and supervising the two guys who turn the stop -slow sign because their parked cars have reduced traffic to one lane.
After about two years they are finished with their pot-holed wonder and it is time to start over again. I save my sports car for off-roading in Texas, where the dirt roads are smooth as a baby's...., and use my off-road truck to navigate the roads in D.C. Such are affairs in the capital city of the world's richest and most powerful country.
Oh, and some Obama holdover in the National Park Service just closed the main road down-town, which runs through "her" park for the next two years. Her goal is to shut it permanently.
These are FakeABC's words. I see no mention of "the storage areas being untouched" in Trump's tweet.
Where does FakeABC get the supposed information that the storage areas remain untouched?
We have Tomahawks with cluster munitions to do that too, but it’s only an initial strike to establish air-superiority, as someone else here noted.
I'll answer my own question. The source is unnamed.
“If he concentrates more on stabilizing the situation rather than escalating military actions, that would be a better course of action. “
And just how do you propose that he does that? Right now, the only way to “stabilize” the situation at the moment would be to kill nearly every armed person in the country! And real stabilization would require ground troops (some of whom would dle), billions of our hard-earned bucks, and far too much time that should be devoted to other more fruitful matters both foreign and domestic. We’ve been down that road with both Booshes, no thanks! Never get involved in a religious war if it doesn’t directly affect you.
And now, we’re going to look to “taking care of business” in North Korea, which does directly affect us and a several good allies.
Yep, Urban Assault Vehicle.
Of course not, but I believe the footage I saw. They didn’t show any of the destroyed jets and facilities, and were clearly trying to make it look like the attack was not effective, but that doesn’t mean some runways weren’t hit by a few stray shots. We have bombs that are designed to deeply crater runways, but Tomahawks aren’t.
Runways can be repaired much faster than that. It was one of the tasks my army unit did. Depending on the damage it might take hours. I’m sure things have gotten quicker over the last 35 years.
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