Skip to main content

Israeli strikes on Syria, success on many levels

Israeli F-35I and F-16I


On May 9th the Iranian Quds force that belongs into the Revolutionary Guards Corps launched a rocket salvo against the Israeli forces in the Golan heights. The IDF had anticipated the move and placed several Iron Dome batteries to protect the region, so the attack did very little damage and several rockets were shot down.

There have been conflicting reports on whether the weapon used to attack Israel was a Russian built BM-27 Uragan or an indigenous Iranian Fajr-5.

The Fajr-5 system is an indigenous Iranian 333 mm artillery rocket that is mounted on Mercedes-Benz 2624 trucks in 4-tube launchers. System has a maximum range of 75 km and rather abysmal accuracy with a 3 km CEP. Combination of a 900 kg class conventional warhead and the low accuracy makes the FAJR-5 more of a terror weapon than any kind of precision battlefield instrument.

BM-27 Uragan (Photo: Russian Propaganda)

The Israeli Air-force had apparently been waiting for a provocation as the resulting counterattack against the launchers and the Iranian military infrastructure was an overwhelming one. Unlike in the response for the February drone incident, the IAF was well prepared with a large strike package that had a sizable SEAD element on hand.

While nothing precise is known about the composition of the Israeli force, it managed to force the Syrian army to turn on the air defense systems Russia had supplied to it. The Syrian army managed to shoot several of the longer range SAM:s against the IAF fighters, but none hit their intended targets. The Israeli’s claim to have struck against most Iranian installation in Syria.

Map of the Israeli strikes (IDF)

The Israeli SEAD element managed to destroy at least some of the SA-2, SA-22, SA-5 and SA-17 launchers and radars during the engagement. It’s noteworthy that the SA-22 aka. Pantsir-S1 systems that are designed to act as a point defense against cruise missiles were unable to defend themselves against the limited number of Israeli munitions sent their way.
Pantsir-S1 (Photo: Spjutnik)

The Russian air-defense systems deployed to protect the Russian expeditionary force in Syria didn’t engage the Israeli strike package. It’s highly likely that Russia was informed about the attacks in advance as the Israeli Prime Minister was visiting Moscow on 9.5.2018.

It’s interesting to see what aircraft the Israeli Air-force used in the attack and  that was the F-35I employed. This also casts a further shadow of doubt over the Russian air-defense systems and their ability to intercept coordinated attacks. On the other hand the level of training and integration of the Syrian army might be too low to effectively use these systems without direct Russian support.

It’s also interesting to see how the Russian-Iranian relations develop as Russia doesn’t seem to be willing to protect Iran or Syria from Israeli strikes. As an open conflict against a high tech nation like Israel could tax the limited number of advanced Russian weapon systems available for expeditionary ops, it's not surprising that the Kremlin seems to avoid that scenario.

As Iran seems to be unable to respond with a symmetric way against Israel, the next retaliation by Tehran is most likely an asymmetric one.

Labels:

Comments

  1. HưngJune 13, 2019 at 2:54 PM

    We call Buddy our 'oops!' We had no intention of getting a third dog, but after we adopted our second dog, Finn, we kept going back to the organization's website to see how many of the other dogs that were up for adoption were still there
    Jogo para menina
    jogo 360 2019
    io games for school

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick guide to identifying the Russian tanks Part 1: main platforms and T-72 variants

As most of the western nations have reduced their inventories to a few or mostly one type of main battle tank model in their active inventories, the myriad of tank platforms and distinct versions employed by the Russian armed forces may feel overwhelming. Here is a quick guide to identifying Russian MBTs. When you come across an image (or the actual thing), follow the steps to identify it properly.



Family of the tankRussian Armed Forces currently operates, or at least storage, the following tank platforms/families: -T-55 (<2000 in storage) -T-62 (2000 in storage) -T-64 (2000 in storage) -T-72 (2000 active duty, 8000 in storage) -T-80 (2000 active duty, 5000 in storage) -T-90 (350 active duty, 600 in storage) -T-14 (20 in field testing)
So how can you identify what type of a tank are you looking at?
There are two features that can be used to distinguishing the tank families: The roadwheel placement and the exhaust ports. The older and smaller T-55 and T-62 have five roadwheels in their suspe…
20 comments
Read more

T-90M ”Breakthrough” the Armata Russia has to live with

The T-14 Armata was supposedly going to be the next main combat vehicle platform that would replace the dozen or so main battle tank versions currently in the Russian service. The development and testing process of the T-14 has been difficult and the manufacturer Uralvagonzavod will deliver the first five pre-production vehicles in the first half of 2020. It’s quite a far cry from the originally planned production run of 2300 Armata’s by the end of 2020.

First newly-built T-90M tanks with redesigned turrets and engines will be delivered for state tests alongside the initial batch of T-14’s. The T-90M, that shouldn’t be confused with the export version upgrade package T-90MS, is actually very capable package with significantly less complicated problems than the more radical T-14.


The T-90M offers the same firepower and mobility with most likely slightly superior optics and situational awareness compared to the Armata. With the conventional layout, many of the camera, display and stabili…
5 comments
Read more

Quick Guide to Turkish Tanks

The Turkish Armed Forces posses the largest tank fleet in Europe, only dwarfed by the Russian reserve stocks beyond the Ural mountains. The Turkish fleet is a mixture of American and German armor with indigenous upgrades.
The Turkish active tank fleet is currently composed of: - 354 Leopard 2A4 tanks - 397 Leopard 1A3 tanks with 170 upgraded to Leopard 1T standard with new fire control system - 932 M60 Pattons, out of which 104 are aging A1 variants, 658 are A3 TTS and 170 are fully modernized M60T Sabra-models, upgraded with Israeli technology. - 758 M48 Pattons with an unknown distribution of M48A3 and M48A5T2 variants.
Out of these tank models the Leopard 2A4 and the M60T Sabra are the most capable ones. Both are clearly superior to the aging Soviet T-72, T-62 and T-55 tanks primarily fielded by the Syrian Arab Army. Both the Leopard 2A4 and M60T have roughly comparable 120 mm main guns, capable of knocking out all armor in the neighborhood.
Both the Leopard 1 and the M48 show the…
4 comments
Read more