Syria - civil war incoming?

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Isgrimnur
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

So given that, in 1988, a submarine is putting Tomahawks on target with a 5s spacing, that means you could conceivably put 59 tomahawks on target within a five-minute window. And seeing as airfields are rather long (3km runway in this case), I'm going to go ahead and state that they could have had the entire strike completed in well under a five-minute window.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Enough »

Isgrimnur wrote:So given that, in 1988, a submarine is putting Tomahawks on target with a 5s spacing, that means you could conceivably put 59 tomahawks on target within a five-minute window. And seeing as airfields are rather long (3km runway in this case), I'm going to go ahead and state that they could have had the entire strike completed in well under a five-minute window.
On the news they continue to suggest they all came in within minutes. This may be propaganda and I appreciate the unique perspective Rip offers here. I have no idea what is correct personally.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Moliere »

There's that pesky Rand Paul again, asking yet another President to follow the law.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Nor do I, but I know enough to be dangerous.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Skinypupy »

Hopefully nothing, but now there's this.
A Russian warship entered the eastern Mediterranean Friday and was heading toward the area where two U.S. Navy destroyers launched missile strikes into Syria, Fox News has learned.

The Russian frigate, Admiral Grigorovich RFS-494, crossed through the Bosphorus Strait “a few hours ago” from the Black Sea, according to a U.S. defense official.

The Russian warship is now in the eastern Mediterranean steaming in the direction of the U.S. warships.

The Admiral Grigorovich is armed with advanced Kalibr cruise missiles.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Isgrimnur wrote:So given that, in 1988, a submarine is putting Tomahawks on target with a 5s spacing, that means you could conceivably put 59 tomahawks on target within a five-minute window. And seeing as airfields are rather long (3km runway in this case), I'm going to go ahead and state that they could have had the entire strike completed in well under a five-minute window.
The put multiple on different targets not the same one. You can put a half dozen on the same or near targets within five seconds of each other. You cannot put 59 of them that way on the same target. You could put 59 of them in a 5 sec window on different targets, even targets separated by hundreds or thousands of miles.

The problem is having 59 auto guided missiles in the same small airspace. It would be cramped to fly 59 aircraft over that airfield without running into each other. Operational guidelines limit how close you have Tomahawks fly to each other.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Defiant »

Moliere wrote: There's that pesky Rand Paul again, asking yet another President to follow the law.
Eh, the constitution is kind of vague when it comes to it - it gives congress the power to declare war, and states that the executive is "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States".

The War Powers Act is more explicit about seeking congressional authorization when it comes to military action:
The War Powers Resolution requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without a Congressional authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war by the United States.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Grifman »

Rip wrote:
Grifman wrote:
Rip wrote:I applauded the chemical weapons agreement as a way to avoid doing something stupid to not make Obama's "red line" comment bait us into a quagmire.
But that made Obama "look weak", your favorite canard. So he does nothing on Syrian chem weapons other than obtain an agreement that was flawed, and that's ok, it avoids a quagmire . He places pretty heavy sanctions on Russia for the Crimea/Ukraine, and also starts to move more US forces into Eastern Europe and that's weak. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Which is it, Rip? You've flip flopped so much I don't know whether you are your back or your belly.
It wasn't the deal that made him look weak, it was drawing a red line and then walking it back.
Rip, you are really all over the place on this, you really need to get a consistent story and stick with it. You say Obama drawing a line and not following through made him look weak (which I happen to agree with) but then above you say are glad that Obama didn't strike Syria because it avoided a quagmire. You've constantly castigated Obama for appearing weak, but now you're glad that he did nothing on Syria. Are you on your back or on your belly?
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by RunningMn9 »

Isgrimnur wrote:Yeah, it's not like time on target is a thing.
Tomahawk cruise missiles aren't an artillery weapon. ;)

Coordinating the simultaneous impact of artillery units is a relatively easy task, certainly for modern ballistic computers.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

You're right. There's no way a missile that can be retargeted in-flight and has real-time targeting to strike fleeing targets could possibly do something as complicated as arrive at a particular time.

:P
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by RunningMn9 »

Enough wrote:On the news they continue to suggest they all came in within minutes. This may be propaganda and I appreciate the unique perspective Rip offers here. I have no idea what is correct personally.
Of that I have no doubt (that they all landed within minutes).

If I can coordinate the impact time of a couple of hundred dumb artillery rounds to a window of just a few seconds, I have to believe that the sophisticated targeting capability of a cruise missile can achieve substantially similar results. Given that you can re-target Tomahawk's in-flight, it wouldn't shock me to find out that they have at least limited control over their airspeed, which is all that would be required to coordinate impact time to a fairly narrow range.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by RunningMn9 »

Isgrimnur wrote:You're right. There's no way a missile that can be retargeted in-flight and has real-time targeting to strike fleeing targets could possibly do something as complicated as arrive at a particular time.

:P
See simulpost. :)

Edit to add: I commented because you linked to an article about the artillery doctrine, and because that's specifically what I do. ;)
Last edited by RunningMn9 on Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

:D
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by LordMortis »

LordMortis wrote:
malchior wrote:Honestly that is a legit concern and that could be cleared up by an independent investigation that certain parties do not want to let happen. This is the consequence of operating in the shadows and lying. The President requires credibility - especially on days like this. It is his own damn fault.
I'm not going to pretend to know is this was a good or a bad decision but I do think there is no credibility, no trust.

Image
These are just being mined again and again.

Image

I'm not smart enough or informed enough to have an opinion on the action itself but the authorizer makes the action seem despicable.

Also I fully admit at this point, I haven't done due diligence and these images could be faked, but even then the author would make fake images seem credible.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Grifman wrote:
Rip wrote:
Grifman wrote:
Rip wrote:I applauded the chemical weapons agreement as a way to avoid doing something stupid to not make Obama's "red line" comment bait us into a quagmire.
But that made Obama "look weak", your favorite canard. So he does nothing on Syrian chem weapons other than obtain an agreement that was flawed, and that's ok, it avoids a quagmire . He places pretty heavy sanctions on Russia for the Crimea/Ukraine, and also starts to move more US forces into Eastern Europe and that's weak. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Which is it, Rip? You've flip flopped so much I don't know whether you are your back or your belly.
It wasn't the deal that made him look weak, it was drawing a red line and then walking it back.
Rip, you are really all over the place on this, you really need to get a consistent story and stick with it. You say Obama drawing a line and not following through made him look weak (which I happen to agree with) but then above you say are glad that Obama didn't strike Syria because it avoided a quagmire. You've constantly castigated Obama for appearing weak, but now you're glad that he did nothing on Syria. Are you on your back or on your belly?
The reason I support not doing anything in Syria is because there is no side friendly to the US. We lose no matter who wins in Syria. I castigate Obama of appearing weak because that is bad. Not getting into a fight isn't about strong or weak but about knowing what fights can get you something and return and which ones are fighting just for the sake of fighting. If we get involved militarily in Syria it is fighting just for the sake of fighting.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Blackhawk »

Skinypupy wrote:Hopefully nothing, but now there's this.

The Russian warship is now in the eastern Mediterranean steaming in the direction of the U.S. warships.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Well I hope that there will be some interviews that divulge how long the attack lasted at the airbase itself. I will bet anything it was over 10 minutes in length and likely in the 15-30 minute range.

But I get it you guys are convinced based on nothing but guessing. I will have to rely on the people that were there and lived through it to prove me right or for someone to actually ask one of the military leaders and let you hear their answer. If there were 59 missiles in the air above that airbase at the same moment it would be the first time in history.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Freyland »

I've heard popcorn explode slower than that.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

That wasn't even close to 60 hits, so it was only a portion of the attack.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

I'm so sorry that a shitty Syrian cellphone video, filmed vertically, by a man very close to death from above isn't up to your evidentiary standards.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Isgrimnur wrote:I'm so sorry that a shitty Syrian cellphone video, filmed vertically, by a man very close to death from above isn't up to your evidentiary standards.
Well it is certainly enough to prove that they didn't all go off in a five or ten second window. It shows the length of the attack was measured in minutes not seconds.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Alefroth »

If you don't like his evidentiary standards, just wait an hour.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Another interesting thing from the video is that even through I heard 109E's were used (Which are the large orange explosions) there were also either a lot of unusual secondary explosions or some 109Ds were used as well. The smaller whitish explosions look a lot like dispersal munition explosions, each T109D carries several.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Blackhawk »

I just figured they struck some munitions storage.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Holman »

I trust the Pentagon to know how to arrange a Tomahawk strike. I don't trust Trump to know what's he's doing, or why.

That's the strategic problem we're facing. Assad and Russia are hard; Trump is impossible.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Blackhawk wrote:I just figured they struck some munitions storage.
That could be as well. I would say it was distance but my understanding is all the targets were at one end of the base so there shouldn't have been enough separation to make that much difference in the apparent explosion size.

I see from some of the BDA that they hit some AA guns as well so it could have been magazines on some of those.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Holman »

https://twitter.com/tgruka/status/850465499389579266
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

Rip wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:I'm so sorry that a shitty Syrian cellphone video, filmed vertically, by a man very close to death from above isn't up to your evidentiary standards.
Well it is certainly enough to prove that they didn't all go off in a five or ten second window. It shows the length of the attack was measured in minutes not seconds.
Which are things that I never claimed. But your 15+minute window means one strike every 15+ seconds. A TOT of 5 seconds means you could string up 60 missiles on the same spot in five minutes. And a distributed target area of 3km length would certainly suggest that a timeframe of under five minutes is well within the realm of possibility.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Max Peck »

Mission accomplished? https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/850425431899680768

Российские военные показали последствия ударов США по базе Шайрат: кадры с воздуха
(The Russian military has shown the consequences of the United States strikes on the base of Shajrat: footage from the air)
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

WaPo
Russia on Friday condemned a U.S. missile strike against Syrian government forces as an attack on its ally and said it was suspending an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft operating over Syria.

Even as Russian officials expressed hope that the strike against Syrian President Bashad al-Assad’s forces would not lead to an irreversible breakdown in U.S. relations with Moscow, the Kremlin’s decision to suspend the 2015 memorandum of understanding on the air operations immediately raised tensions in the skies over Syria.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by RunningMn9 »

Isgrimnur wrote:A TOT of 5 seconds means you could string up 60 missiles on the same spot in five minutes.
We should clarify something here. TOT is a way of coordinating multiple offensive units (artillery pieces, mortar platoons, etc.) so that they all fire at different times such that the many different caliber rounds with wildly different times of flight, will all impact the target area at the same time (within a few seconds). What you are describing isn't TOT (not that it couldn't be done). There are lots of doctrinal things you could do, but none of them would involve dropping a cruise missile on the target every 5 seconds for five minutes.

I don't know the exact answer for what you are looking to prove here. To know the answers would require knowing a good deal about the weapon system involved. Were these launched from a pair of Ticonderoga-class ships with Mk-41s? What is the sustained rate of fire? What is the variation in flight path for the cruise missiles during the flight to target? What kind of capability do they have to slow down or increase velocity in flight?

Would there even be a purpose to trying to get them all arrive at their targets at the same time? Just because they can, doesn't mean they should or would. In other words, you're most likely in an irrelevant rabbit hole. ;)

From an indirect perspective (artillery/mortars), TOT missions are used to achieve specific objectives. You don't always use them, and they may not even be preferred. I would think that TOT missions lend themselves to targets that have a tendency to scatter when things go boom (i.e. infantry). Against an airfield, I imagine it would be less of an issue if you are targeting buildings, runways and chemical stockpiles. Those things can't run when things go boom.

One of the examples I've had described was the artillery barrage that the Allied forces used to break out from Anzio on May 23, 1944. 1500 coordinated artillery pieces sustaining fire for 40 minutes. That's insane.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Why is there an argument about how long the barrage lasted?
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Daehawk »

Isgrimnur wrote:Cellphone video.
Does no one in the entire damn world know how to turn their phone SIDEWAYS??!
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Unagi »

Daehawk wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:Cellphone video.
Does no one in the entire damn world know how to turn their phone SIDEWAYS??!
There are times to cry out on that issue.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Isgrimnur wrote:
Rip wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:I'm so sorry that a shitty Syrian cellphone video, filmed vertically, by a man very close to death from above isn't up to your evidentiary standards.
Well it is certainly enough to prove that they didn't all go off in a five or ten second window. It shows the length of the attack was measured in minutes not seconds.
Which are things that I never claimed. But your 15+minute window means one strike every 15+ seconds. A TOT of 5 seconds means you could string up 60 missiles on the same spot in five minutes. And a distributed target area of 3km length would certainly suggest that a timeframe of under five minutes is well within the realm of possibility.
Squeezing it into 5 minutes may be possible. But that would be packing it as tight as you could. Especially with the 109Es which I have never worked with and are more capable.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Holman »

Carpet_pissr wrote:Why is there an argument about how long the barrage lasted?
Because someone wants to believe that insignificant casualties from a 60-Tomahawk strike don't mean that this was just theater.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Carpet_pissr wrote:Why is there an argument about how long the barrage lasted?
It devolved from my dispelling the talking point that Russia and Syria took a dive to make Trump look good and that is why so few people were killed or planes destroyed. A distraction to keep us from thinking about what a preposterous notion that is.
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Rip »

Oh sure, they killed a bunch of people with Sarin gas just to set-up the WWE like storyline of Trump rushing to the rescue just to take advantage of all the ignorant marks in the US.

:roll:

WHen do we find out how much the pay-per-view will cost?
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Re: Syria - civil war incoming?

Post by Isgrimnur »

I have no opinion on the reasons for the low casualty count. My issue is with a number being thrown out for the duration of the strike being given to us with the backing of, "trust me, I know things."
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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