Photos of the Syria strike show missile interceptors firing blindly, failing to stop attack

[timmy_area51]

Same with your state of the Art THAAD missiles over skies of saudi arabia , haha , against of course the persian scuds from the 60's

Here are your THAAD 21st century intercepts over saudi arabia

missile interceptors are a blind shot. just like the britain only managed to shoor down some german V1 missiles and non of their V2 's @

 

[Shamsher1990]

missile interceptors are a blind shot. just like the britain only managed to shoor down some german V1 missiles and non of their V2 's @

As much as I know, they are guided by the radars. Either on ground or on board.

 

[gambit]

Its not as much the question of diameter of the missile but that of guidance. Tomahawks have indeed really good guidance system, question is why will you want to deploy 8-10 times of needed. I think US wanted to saturate the air defence systems. They were expecting some interception, might have happened. Just not as much Russia is claiming.

Damages you can repair, destruction you have to rebuild, but before you can rebuild, you must clean. Essentially, this facility, whatever it was for, is effectively destroyed permanently.

In battle, it is more important to achieve a 'mission kill' or a 'soft kill' rather than complete destruction of the target. A 'mission kill' is when the target is sort of 'alive' but can no longer contribute to the battle. Like a tank with broken tread or damaged enough that it cannot rotate its turret. Either way, the tank is no longer an effective combatant.

But a factory is more a political/strategic target than a battlefield tactical one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt

Without ball bearings, machines will not run. So for this target, it had to be a 'hard kill'. The factory must be rendered a non-contributor to the war -- not battle -- effort.

 

[Rukarl]

Not surprised.

Syrian (and Russian) are established liars by now and baseless propaganda is their only recourse for face-saving. They mistakenly assume that people will not figure out the truth eventually.

I have seen every clip and I get the impression that much of the action was over by the time people woke up and started recording events. We can see Syrian SAM wondering around aimlessly; some exploded in the air and some fell to the ground.

Russians should not be even boasting about anything. They are an utterly unreliable partner when it comes to shielding their allies from the acts of aggression by NATO and Israel.

To be honest, there is no shame in admitting inferiority and/or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds. However, Asian states have none in current times. This isn't to say that there aren't reasonable Syrians, Iranians and Russians out there.

I think Russia is able but it decided not to engage the US. Syria was left alone to deal with the attacks. If the Russians got involved (s300 and s400) that would be a different story.

 

[Falcon29]

Don't know what to do with this.. it looks like an intercept, but some say it is just a Syrian SAM exploding on its own!!?

The strike happened before dawn, that did explode on it's own too, you can tell by observing the explosion its the intercepter missile.