Defending against a large scale Tomahawk strike on land targets?

With the recent news about the US launching some kind of strike against the Syrian government and their Russian allies, some (Dutch) journalists seem to think that the S-300 and S-400 SAM systems are a good defense against a large scale Tomahawk attack.

Given the low flight profile, I doubt that, unless maybe if the S-300 (or any other longer range SAM) system is deployed right on the coast line and especially if they are somehow able to intercept the missiles when they are in the high-level phase of their flight. Which seems an unlikely mistake in my opinion.

I suppose fighters with a good look-down/shoot-down radar are a much better option, especially when coupled to AWACS.

Any thoughts (non-political please) on this matter?

Best defense against cruise missiles is mobility of assets.

Also, dont think it will happen. why? We cant discuss politics but I suspect this is just theatrics to impress the masses and for some politicians keeping their jobs.

It will be interesting to see how to S-400 does in action. Is it really as good as the Russian's would like you to believe?

I want to not to find out.

I accidentally backed up and lost my reply ( Anyway, short version, Russian naval presence is fairly heavy I believe, and the larger ships are armed with Buks and S300s. They'd be in a much better position to intercept a naval cruise missile strike than mainland SAMs would be.

Well the last time it happened, Russian MOD said more than half of missiles didn't hit anything, and those that did, didn't really damage anything key, nor the runway.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-07/first-images-aftermath-inefficient-us-missile-strikes-emerge

But then again, was it even meant to be a serious strike, is another story.

It's all relative, I think. The Tomahawk is a formidable missile, and the Russian air defence network is equally so. Ignoring politics and the likely aftermaths, if the US went for an all-out strike the immediate outcome would be lots of missiles destroyed, but also lots that hit their intended targets. Like Pilotasso said though, it's best we don't find out.

Hmm... I wonder how a large number of semi-autonomous drones armed with a Claymore-like charge would fare?

Launch perhaps 10-12 per incoming cruise missile, AWACS/C^3 aircraft could determine heading + altitude + potential target area. Have the drones maintain a vertical disc (or globe) formation (think “Tholian Web”) at the expected altitude and facing the cruise missile, with overlapping cones of fragmentation.

I don’t know if this level of drone technology is currently in service, but it could be.

Russian MOD press conference LIVE now, talking about number of missiles launched and how many were shot down in the latest 14 April 2018 US strike.

Knowing Russia, they exaggerated by 200%. Note, I did not watch the video :)

...Note, I did not watch the video :)

Maybe you should... many detailed information. :music_whistling:

Because

...but

Well it's exactly what the OP asked, now he got a live demo, but he can decide himself what to believe from these reports whoever they're from, it's just raw data, not my opinion.

It is highly unlikely for most media to broadcast the full versions of these press conferences, that's also another reason to focus on these.

I have extracted out what the Russian MOD representative said: EDIT: Clarification, this is the Russian report on what Syrian forces did, not Russian forces, they supposedly only monitored the situation.

 

• We did not witness any participation by the french airforce.
  
• US Airplanes F-15, F-16 and UK Tornado jets, and US Bombers B1B participated.
  
• No civilian or syrian army casualties according to reports.
  
• 103 cruise missiles total, including tomahawks.
  
• GBU-38 from B1B
  
• F-15 and F-16 used air to surface missiles
  
• Tornados launched total of 8 missiles
  

 

• Syrain Anti-Air based on Soviet produced systems sucessfully repelled attacks from sea based and air based sources.
  

 

• 41 missiles were intercepted using S-125, S-200, Buk, 2K12 Kub "Kvadrat" and ASA systems
  

 

• The airstrike targeted airbases of the syrian airforce.
  
• According to our data ?Dilali? Airport was attacked by 4 missiles, all of them were shot down.
  
• ?Damir? Airport was targeted with 12 missiles, all of them were intercepted.
  
• ?Blair? Airport was targeted by 18 missiles, all of them were shot down.
  
• ?Shairai? Airport was targeted by 12 missiles, all of them were shot down.
  

 

• None of the airfields were damaged.
  

 

• Mezze airport which is not used by syrian airforce, 5 missiles were shot down.
  

 

• 16 missiles launched against Homs airport, 13 of them were shot down, no serious damage occured.
  

 

• 30 missiles were launched against targets close to Barsa and Geremani, 7 missiles were shot down, facilities allegedly having something to do with military-chemical program in syria were partially damaged, these facilities were not used for quite some time, there were no people or equipment there
  

 

• None of the cruise missiles entered the airspace protected by russian air defence systems. No russian air defence systems were used.
  

 

• We believe that this airstrike is not a response to an alleged chemical attack. This is a response to the success of the syrian forces successfully liberating syrian territory from international terrorists. This airstrike was launched on the very day when the special mission of the OPCW was expected to start it's investigation in Duma in the suburb of Damascus where chemical weapons were supposedly used.
  

 

• Paraphrase: Due to western requests we decided not to provide S-300 defence systems to Syria in the past ... ... We may reconsider S-300 delivery to Syria.
  

EDIT:

Looks like RuptlyTV english translation error - not 41 but 71.

The official Russian MOD channel's video should be primary source

------------------------

------------------------

Syrian Army representative said they faced 110 total missiles.

Paraphrase: Due to western requests we decided not to provide S-300 defence systems to Syria in the past ... ... We may reconsider S-300 delivery to Syria.

So. without S-300 they shot down about 70%. :thumbup:

NATO were doomed to failure in advance.

https://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201804141321-62ir.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5614707/Syrian-air-defenses-shoot-13-missiles-fired-led-attack-country.html

The United States and its allies waged up to 120 air strikes on Syria on Friday

 

Syrian state TV says 13 missiles fired in US-led attack had been shot down

 

Interesting difference of statements when you look at the Russian one.

No mention of the attacks in Damascus, despite the fact that we clearly have video of that happening.

The US, UK and French did not include statements about airfield attacks, yet the Russians are suggesting that they shot down all 41 or 42 missiles (interesting about the counting discrepancy).

So who's trying to save face the most, Putin, or the Western allies.

There's news today that Russia was warned beforehand where and when the strikes would occur and they did not interfere. In fact it seems they are trying not to get involved at all. Not even a vocal statement of the head of state about it. Just written formal declarations.

There's news today that Russia was warned beforehand where and when the strikes would occur and they did not interfere. In fact it seems they are trying not to get involved at all. Not even a vocal statement of the head of state about it. Just written formal declarations.

Claiming to have shot down 42 missiles is not really “not interfering”.

Claiming to have shot down 42 missiles is not really “not interfering”.

They claim the Syrian Defense did it.

So. without S-300 they shot down about 70%. :thumbup:

 

NATO were doomed to failure in advance.

Russian MOD representative said 41 out of 103 missiles were intercepted, that's 40%, not 70 :music_whistling:

They claim the Syrian Defense did it.

Doesn't matter who was operating them. The point is that there is a claim that 42 missiles attacking Syrian air bases were shot down.

The US/UK/Fr have stated in Western media that only 3 chemical weapon sites were attacked.

So either the US are lying about what they shot at and whether any were intecepted, or the Russians are lying about what was shot at, and whether missiles were shot down.

Clearly one of the above is wrong.

Note that I've not taken sides in this, just pointing out discrepancies between claims of each group.

Doesn't matter who was operating them. The point is that there is a claim that 42 missiles attacking Syrian air bases were shot down.

The US/UK/Fr have stated in Western media that only 3 chemical weapon sites were attacked.

 

So either the US are lying about what they shot at and whether any were intecepted, or the Russians are lying about what was shot at, and whether missiles were shot down.

Clearly one of the above is wrong.

 

Note that I've not taken sides in this, just pointing out discrepancies between claims of each group.

The Russian are saying they didn't try to shoot down the inciming cruise missiles.

The US are confirming that.

So we can assume there was no Russian involvement.

There have been a US press conference, with before/ after pictures of the targets.

From the pictures, it seems that the missiles went threw the defenses :music_whistling:

One more thing, the coalition didn't claim any attack on any air base, so claims they have successfully defended any air base is pointless.

Or maybe the missiles were doing some deceptive maneuver, you can program some way points in such missiles...

Discrepancy detected with number of total missiles shot down:

The english translator from RuptlyTV (RT video agency) said total of 41 missiles were shot down ...

While TASS reports total of 71 missiles were shot down - (btw TASS is like supposedly like AP or Reuters but it's government owned and run, while RuptlyTV is not gov run but only funded, not sure if fully or partial.)

http://tass.com/defense/999760

Russian MOD Presentation Fullcut Non-Live Version - But this one is without english translator audio, because it's from the Russian MOD channel, not ruptly or RT.

I think I have found the moment where the representative says the number, it's at 1:00:12 in the live version and at 2:34 in the final non-live version.

The sound "sedemdeseta-dna" sounds like seventy two (72) to me, but don't take my word for it.

Russian MOD representative said 41 out of 103 missiles were intercepted, that's 40%, not 70

I was just investigating that, looks like translator error.

The US states Syria launched approximately 40 anti air missles after the attack was complete and that no missles were shot down. To think we'd get the truth from either side is naive. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Russian MOD representative said 41 out of 103 missiles were intercepted, that's 40%, not 70 :music_whistling:

71+

Of those 32, most of them hit the sand... :music_whistling:

NATO likes to show destroyed targets but has not yet announced anything specifically. Strange? :megalol: