Originally Posted at Free Market Shooter
Recently, Free Market Shooter published a “cost-benefit” battle damage assessment (BDA), detailing whether or not the cruise missile strike was actually worth it. However, the article itself didn’t incorporate an actual BDA, instead relying on estimates based on both US and Russian reports.
Notably, the Russians reported that the US attack “inefficient”, claiming that only 23 of the 59 missiles hit the Shayrat Air Base in Syria:
Only 23 missiles flew to the Syrian air base and just 6 MiG-23s were destroyed there along with a radar station, spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, said at a briefing. Where the remaining 36 cruise missiles have landed is “unknown,” he said.
However, a quick glance over commercially available satellite imagery shows that the Konashenkov has been caught red-handed peddling some serious fiction with his statement.
Image Sat International, which operates its own satellites, released an article shortly after the missile strike detailing the damage to the Shayrat Air Base. Even their commercially available technology directly contradicts the Russian military statement:
ISI very high resolution satellite imagery was able to reveal the results of the Tomahawk cruise missiles attack on the Al-Shayrat Air Base. According to ISI experts, the total of 44 targets hit. Several targets may have hit twice. Photo and analysis of the attack were carried out within 10 hours of the attack.
An in-depth examination of the damage to the objectives shows that 13 double hardened aircraft shelters (HAS) got 23 hits. 5 workshops got hit. The workshops are not necessarily related to WMD, but to aircraft and their ability to do maintenance and fly.
Ten ammunition storages got hit. Seven fuel reservoirs of the AFB got hit at two sites with eight hits total. Two locations remain untouched. One SA6 Battery utterly destroyed along with its radars and control systems. In total, five SA6 Battery elements hit.
The results show that the target hits were accurate and that the Tomahawks have been used effectively against quality targets. Although 58 missiles hit the base, it seems that the overall damage to the base is limited because the warhead of the Tomahawk is not considered large and weighs about 450 kg.
Furthermore, according to “TJ”, if you review old Google Earth imagery, the Russian UAV footage of allegedly undamaged aircraft were of old aircraft that have been parked at the airbase for over a decade.
This makes it much more difficult to take the Russian military at its word when assessing the future efficacy of US military strikes. Take note, the original article published by Free Market Shooter on Monday echoed similar doubts as to the Russian’s claims:
Note that the Russians have taken issue with the US Navy claims of 59 successful Tomahawk impacts, claiming that only 23 reached their targets. This is fairly difficult to believe, given how effective the Tomahawk weapons system has been over the years. It seems the Russians are echoing these claims after the US made similar (though far better founded) claims that Russian cruise missile strikes in Syria in prior years had a high failure rate, making a veiled attempt to place a similar level of embarrassment upon the US Navy.
It seems that in their “veiled attempt” to embarrass the US Navy, the Russian military has only succeeded in embarrassing itself. The fact that commercial satellite imagery has so easily disproven the Russian claims is testament to the fact that modern technology has made it far more difficult for governments everywhere to blatantly lie about the facts, thinking that they can use their “trusted status” to get away with it, as they have for so many years.
Going forward, we will need to bear in mind the Russian propensity to lie about US military damage assessments in all future content. Then again… it is not as though the US DoD has always proven itself to be a trustworthy source in the past either. Fortunately, the world has more technology and sources like ISI to tell us who is lying, and when.
It all should make you wonder… who exactly are those “pro-Russian rebels” operating in eastern Ukraine?
A better question is: Why the fuck was it bombed at all?
Nice deflection article, though. Very professional.
Russia lied!
Wow!
Who would’ve ever guessed that?
Believes Russia lies.
Believes US never lies.
Dumbass brain dead neo-con bible thumping cheerleader for the Deep State.
You have reason to doubt the validity of the article posted here?
Why?
I have reason to point out you are a hypocritical douchebag.
Does the US government lie?
Have you questioned the clear false flag Syrian gas story? Or do you buy it hook line and sinker.
I know the answer, because you only spew narratives. No critical thinking skills needed for that.
I just never read the anonyhole cowards who can’t be bothered to make up and name and post consistently with it. If it’s not important enough to put a consistent moniker to their comments then they’re not important enough for me to waste time with. They choose to be irrelevant so……fuck ’em. It speeds up the reading of the comments section of each post as the anonyhole cowards proliferate.
Very hard to follow when two wildly different conclusions are all coming out of Alt Right news websites. I guess just be educated and draw no conclusions as to whether it was 23, or 44 or 49?
But as alluded to in the previous post, why did it happen at all? The pendulum swing from drawing and then erasing red lines a few years back, to bombing Syria as a knee jerk reaction without evidence both can be dangerous and make it difficult to put any faith in leadership doing the right thing. I have gone from thinking I made a difference in my opinion or how I voted, to just sitting back and watching it all unfold.
The Russkies lied they always lie. Their Cruise missels were totally ineffective ours were almost 100 percent accurate. This is good news. We need to make many more of these precision strikes on Syrian/ Russian installations since we can do it efficiently and with impunity. Let’s humiliate these Ivans. Very likely we can launch a nuclear premptive attack that will preclude any retaliatory response. We have not been in this position of absolute superiority since 1948. Since Obama was aware that Putin was interferring in the election and such tampering was an act of cyber war on the US, wouldn’t it have been opertune for him and his crack national security team to push the button? Now we are left with superb weaponry in our hands to oppose junk systems of the Ivans. But instead of the first rate skills and intellectual professionals of the last administration we are led by the inept amatuers of the Trump team.
Why anyone would take anything the Russian, or US, govt’s word about such things is beyond me. The US wants the world to believe in, and fear, the awesome power of its weapons, so they will inflate the number of hits and the targets destroyed. The Russians have every incentive to downplay the effectiveness of the strike by claiming the number of hits to be as low as possible, making it look the the US just threw a little temper tantrum and didn’t do much damage. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between each side’s numbers.
Note, I still think this was the wrong thing to do, I’m just giving my opinion on the real numbers.
Both the US and Russian governments lie. Next question.
The satellite imagery is anything but clear about damage done.
A bunch of circles outlines aircraft shelters and what not – those are believable. But actual damage done – I sure don’t see much at all.
More importantly, the credibility of ISI given its heavy Israeli Defense Force roots has to be taken with a boulder of salt – Israel has its own ax to grind with Syria.
Nice strawman, Duane. You set it up there and just tackled the shit out of it, too. The point is not whether the missiles were wasted, it’s that the attack was an illegal act of war in defiance of Congress and of the US Constitution.
I don’t expect the Russian government to tell me the truth. I expect the truth out of my own government. When you can show a comparison between US government spokesmen and Russian spokesmen on the same subject and show that the US officials told the truth while the Russians lied, you’d have a point.