The Current Conflict In Syria

[Big_Zucchini]

I notice you haven't answered the question. I agree, it's illogical. Do you think 0 munitions were shot down? If yes, you are, by your own admission, illogical. If no, then where are the fragments?

I believe some munitions were shot down. I just have no concrete evidence for that. My point was that whatever amount they have shot down, it was in the best case a very negligible amount. Not the 90% they claim, nor the 50% Russia sometimes claims, or even 10%. They don't have the tech to achieve good numbers in that regard.
I have no info on the existence of fragments. But I have seen that weapons that tend to leave fragments on their own were shown on media.
There is just no evidence to point that Syria either manages to shoot down any considerable number of munitions, or force any sort of strategy on Israel.

To know that this is the case every or even most of the times they found one, we would need to compare malfunction statistics to numbers displayed by the Syrian media, again some major media analysis. I haven't done it, and in what I have seen of this conflict, relatively few Israeli downed UAVs or munitions have cropped up in the media. If you have some indications that the Syrians are very eager to display these sort of things, that would be interesting. I suspect that finding a downed UAV, especially by civilians or non-military agencies, in the country side as such, would generate considerably more public attention. Cleaning up the results of an Israel missile strike on a military facility, especially one where Iranian proxies or advisers are based, would be kept out of the public eye as much as possible, and that might include remains of downed munitions. It's also possible that the damage of intercept is such that the distinction between a munition that exploded on target and a munition that exploded in mid air due to interception by something like a Buk-M2 missile (for example) would be negligible, significant reducing the propaganda value of such a display.

The Syrian government has no problem blatantly lying to its people. It's not a free country with freedom of press. What matters more is the outside view. Syria frequently claimed it downed Israeli planes. But only when it really happened there was a media buzz.
Spike NLOS missiles were shown, for example.
I can't know for sure what their logic is, but the evidence shows their air defenses are obsolete.

That hasn't been my impression. My take away has been that the Egyptian air force was lackluster at best, and outright incompetent at worst. In the War of Attrition that directly preceded the Yom Kippur war they took horrendous losses, despite having considerable Soviet air (going so far as to have some Soviet pilots flying their aircraft, and an entire Soviet PVO division deployed around Cairo). Even in that war the Israelis lost far fewer aircraft then the Syrians and Egyptians, and only a few of those in air to air combat, the overwhelming majority were downed by GBAD. Take a look here: https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/JEMEAA/Journals/Volume-02_Issue-1/Tovy.pdf Israels problem was that it's tiny and the IAFs available resources were dwarfed by the volume of Soviet military aid to the Arabs.

Israel lost a huge chunk of its air force at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. I believe it was 30% in the starting week.
It's not the Egyptian air force that really mattered. What mattered is that Egypt had operated its air defenses and air force in tandem. Only through such cooperation they managed to inflict losses to Israel. Had they gone on an aerial offensive into Israel, their planes would be slaughtered and the IAF would be unscathed. If they would overly rely on their GBAD, they'd lose a ton of equipment. The repeating point here is that GBAD only works when supported by an air force. If it's not supported, it's as good as ashes.

Specifically against advanced Iranian SAMs? I didn't see any. If you have, do you mind sharing?

This specific incident is an Iranian operated Tor system. Not an "indigenous" system.

Report: Israel targeted advanced Iranian air defense system in Syria strike

Jerusalem conferred with Washington before launching April 9 attack, which killed at least seven Iranian troops, Wall Street Journal reports

www.timesofisrael.com

Certain agreements were made between Israel and Russia about who would be allowed in southern Syria (specifically Deraa and near the Israeli border) with Russian MPs deployed to enforce those agreements. Are we sure it's an issue of Iranian resources and not of political arrangements? I'm far from convinced.

Iranian forces proceeded to threaten Israel and maintained significant presence despite Russian MP patrols. There's only so much Russia can do when Iran operates concealed proxies, not officially affiliated with Iran.

I don't follow. Why would the aircraft need to keep flying in circles?

A delilah missile has a 250km range. To provide TV footage and maintain manual controls with the operator on an aircraft, it must have a line of sight to the operator. To maintain a line of sight at 250km, the aircraft have to stay at 5km altitude at least.
And with a maximum speed of Mach 0.7, or 240m/s, the flight time is 17 minutes. They'd have to fly at an altitude of 5km for 17 minutes whilst still in Israel's airspace to avoid ever entering Syrian airspace, if your assumption of avoiding their airspace is correct.

Do you mind sharing?
Maybe I'm totally lost, but googling that came up with buckets of results about ISIS. Maybe I'm missing your point. Could you elaborate?

isi syria - Google Search

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Repeat thar search but go to the "Images" tab. It should give you a bunch of satellite photos showing targets before and after an Israeli strike.
ISI is a satellite service company that provides media with sat footage of approximately 80% of Israel's strikes.

Any old SAM can threaten them. It's a question of using countermeasures including EW to deal with those SAMs. If an antique S-200 can down an F-16 it's pretty obvious that so can many other things, including more modern assets like Buk-M2s, and Pantsyrs. I don't see why Russian AEW, or various other radars (ship-bourne, GBAD, fighter jet) couldn't be used to give Syria a heads up about inbound Israeli strikes, with Pantsyr and Buk-M2 pickets positioned in ambushes along various likely approach vectors.

Doing so would ignite a diplomatic incident between Russia and Israel, something that none wants. Russia doesn't care about Assad all that much to antagonize Israel. Russia's presence in Syria is too limited, and it cannot reinforce them all that much, despite Russia's massive investment in a wide range of capable EW systems. If it antagonizes Israel, it can find itself in a covert EM war with Israel that it just cannot stand to win due to territorial and numerical inferiority.

This wouldn't provide guaranteed positive control of airspace, in fact it would positively preclude it, but it would allow mobile and more modern though shorter range systems to ambush Israeli aircraft, and cause potential losses. If you have to fly low to avoid the older big SAMs, you become more vulnerable to something like a Pantsyr. Given how frequently Israel flies into Syrian territory, losing aircraft to a tactic of this type is a question of when not if, in my opinion.

Knowing how the IAF and other branches work, assuming the IAF reuse attack paths frequently would be illogical.
The IAF also rarely ever conducts a strike without first plotting an attack path with surveillance aircraft. Accurate surveillance can be done to a great range, tens of kilometers ahead of any short range air defense system.
Modern SARs are particularly effective in that role, although they're an active component.

I would add another important component to this equation. After losing an F-16 the Israelis proceeded to retaliate quite severely, until a phone conversation between Putin and Netanyahu. After which the retaliations stopped and the Israelis appear to have switched their approach to hitting targets in Syria. Is it possible that something along the lines of the above was threatened or implied?

The pattern didn't change. Israeli strikes proceeded and conducted even deeper into Syria and even into central Iraq after that.

This is all speculation and supposition. I don't think you can positively rule out that an alternate flight route was used, either through an unofficial agreement with the Saudis or by exploiting traditional Saudi incompetence.

Doing this once against a very high value target would be logical. But in routine strikes that are conducted on a weekly, sometimes daily basis? No. Too much risk especially when Syrian airspace is considered particularly safe.

The Osirak reactor is a good example of a real scenario where the Israelis chose to operate a certain way under certain circumstances, proving a capability. It's also important to note that apparently at least one of the "mystery" strikes was done by UAVs. Are we suggesting that Israel flew UAVs through the entirety of Syria? I suspect there's more going on here that we don't know.

Again, the Osirak strike occurred at a time when the political climate between Israel and Jordan plus Saudi Arabia was very different from what it is today.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

Are you suggesting that in 1981 the Israelis could carry out a strike like this with complete impunity through Syrian airspace? I'm genuinely curious. In 1982 the Israelies certainly did a number on Syrian air defense at Bekaa. But 1981 was prior to that point, and it took considerable resources and planning to execute that blow. A completely different situation from sneaking by the Saudis.

I suggested the complete opposite of that. Israel would not risk war with Syria, and Syria's air defenses and air force were much more capable than the combined forces of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

First off, I don't see the PR disaster. At all. I'm genuinely unsure what you are referring to.

The S-300 had some mythical status among some circles. After its IOC in Syria in June last year, that changed as the S-300 was deemed useless, which is partially true as Russia forbids Syria, its user, to use a system it officially owns.
It sends a message to Russian allies that they may also be restricted in times of crises,

Second off, you seem to be ignoring the circumstances that surrounded the situation. Israel had carried out a strike in an area, operating very close to a Russian Il-20. Consequently Syrian SAM fire (the same venerable S-200) struck the Il-20 and downed it killing Russian service members, allegedly (according to Russia) because Israeli jets were maneuvering in a way that placed the Il-20 bewteen them and the missile. Russia subsequently alleged that Israel violated some sort of agreement regarding warnings about strikes (to get Russian assets out of the way, but of course to also warn the Syrians). The Israelies responded by stating that warnings had been provided. Russia fired back with a statement that the warning was insufficient (iirc they mentioned a 2 minute warning) to get the Il-20 out of the way. Russia blamed Israel squarely for the incident, and appeared to at least have some merit. The delivery of the S-300PM with Russian IFFs was a direct response to this, and it's location (overlooking the area where this incident took place) clearly indicate that it's meant to be used in a similar situation.

The restrictions on its use seem to indicate Russia merely wants Syria to use a new radar with a better resolution so it will know to identify Russian planes, not that it wants to give Syria advanced missiles to fire on Israeli aircraft.
It seems to coincide with your theory that the missiles may be intended for Russian units.
You know, "keep the radars and C2, we take the missiles. And everyone thinks we made true on our promise to deliver those long delayed S-300."

Given the presence of Russian service members, the type of system (a domestic PM variant with Russian IFFs) it's my opinion that the systems are likely plugged into the Russian air defense grid on the Syrian coast and are for all practical purposes part of the Russian air defense grid, but a part of that grid that can ostensibly be claimed as "Syrian" if Israeli operations threaten Russian service members in the future.

That is another logical assumption, yes.

In my opinion Russia deployed the systems to be able to fire at Israeli aircraft, if they threaten Russian personnel, and be able to avoid an open confrontation.

Russia needs to expand its aerial presence there to do that. But either way it cannot afford a direct military confrontation against Israel because of its numerical disadvantage.

It seems to me that at the political level Russia and Israel are not interested in a conflict or even a clash. However things can happen in a complex tactical environment, and this gives Russia a flexible response with plausible deniability. If anything it will be the Syrians celebrating a shoot down.

I don't think anyone will be fooling anyone if an S-400 battery starts shooting. Considering the rhetoric and actual policy Israel has against Iran, I don't think it will shy away from hitting targets of a global power if it needs to.
Back when Israel and Russia were mortal enemies, it came to actual shooting. However, realpolitik took over shortly after.

This explains the placement of the systems at Masyaf, the fact that the S-300 has been notoriously silent during recent Israeli strikes, and the fact that Russia was willing to trust Syria with Russian IFFs.

I don't think Russia trusts Syrians with anything, as Syrian competence is in a historical deterioration.

 

[Beholder]

Thanks @Feanor and @Big_Zucchini for your input. The main GBAD assets that got me thinking about this were the Buk M2 and Pantsir systems that Syria now seems to operate in decent quantities. There is also their S300s (eg. in Masyaf) but it is my understanding that these are currently Russian operated and controlled, and have not been used against the IAF as yet.

There is S-300 operated by syrian forces, there is S-400 on russian base operated by RF.
To use S-300 you need specific conditions, they designed to intercept specific targets and protect specific area. Specific missile also need to be used for very long range interception and for over the horizon intercepts you need data in real time from something that see target(and once again specific missile).

In my opinion Russia deployed the systems to be able to fire at Israeli aircraft, if they threaten Russian personnel, and be able to avoid an open confrontation. It seems to me that at the political level Russia and Israel are not interested in a conflict or even a clash. However things can happen in a complex tactical environment, and this gives Russia a flexible response with plausible deniability. If anything it will be the Syrians celebrating a shoot down. This explains the placement of the systems at Masyaf, the fact that the S-300 has been notoriously silent during recent Israeli strikes, and the fact that Russia was willing to trust Syria with Russian IFFs.

Israel destroyed any SAM that made missions problematic. If there is need to destroy S-300, so be it. Currently it's not needed as they not threat enough(probably strikes are simply not near enough, or we really use stand of weapons).
On the other hand continuous supply of AD systems did indeed raised cost of such missions.
Why must we argue on forum something that obvious?
As for how much it rises cost for IAF, no reliable data available. It doesn't matter if they shot down 10% of missiles or 50%, if IAF forced to use twice the number for example, or longer range munitions etc.
I can only tell that no SAM network going to hinder IAF on older planes, let alone with F-35, can't say how much cost raised, neither anyone else can reliably access it.

 

[Feanor]

@Big_Zucchini These are good answers. I will try to respond tomorrow, if there's time. I also appreciate the provided material. Please excuse any delay on my part. This is an interesting conversation, but sometimes the real world interferes.

 

[Feanor]

I believe some munitions were shot down. I just have no concrete evidence for that. My point was that whatever amount they have shot down, it was in the best case a very negligible amount. Not the 90% they claim, nor the 50% Russia sometimes claims, or even 10%. They don't have the tech to achieve good numbers in that regard.
I have no info on the existence of fragments. But I have seen that weapons that tend to leave fragments on their own were shown on media.
There is just no evidence to point that Syria either manages to shoot down any considerable number of munitions, or force any sort of strategy on Israel.

Ok, so your hypothesis was that the Syrian government is extremely eager to show off any quantity of shot down missile fragments, or downed UAVs. You're unable to provide evidence of this (systematic evidence showing what portion of downed munitions/UAVs the Syrians display) but you're confident they're eager. At the same time you believe that some munitions were shot down, have no evidence of any fragments being shown and can square this with a confident belief in the overall insignificance of Syrian GBAD. This doesn't bode well for your argument that there is no strategy being forced upon Israel. Prior to the F-16 downing, evidence of Israeli penetration raids regularly made it into multiple Russian OSINT sources including ones quite sympathetic to Syria, and occasionally made it into non-Russian OSINT sources that I read. Since then - awkward silence. This combined with the logical cut off point, and the context of the shoot-down leads me to believe that something has changed about the Israeli approach to strikes into Syria. I've asked for any concrete evidence you have of the opposite and you, by your own admission, don't have any. So. From what I can tell, Israel has changed their approach to strikes in Syria since the F-16 downing, in my opinion, at least in part due to the actions of Syrian air defense. Nothing you have posted directly contradicts that in any factual manner.

The Syrian government has no problem blatantly lying to its people. It's not a free country with freedom of press. What matters more is the outside view. Syria frequently claimed it downed Israeli planes. But only when it really happened there was a media buzz.
Spike NLOS missiles were shown, for example.
I can't know for sure what their logic is, but the evidence shows their air defenses are obsolete.

What evidence did you have of the obsolescence of their air defenses? I'm not disputing their argument, at least as it pertains to everything delivered pre-2000s. But I'm curious to see what specifically has led you to this conclusion. You still, by the way, have not responded to the particular points I have made here. The Syrian government's claims are certainly not to be taken at face value, but they are not the entirety of the story here. Again you made a particular logical leap based on the total lack of fragments. I'm not sold.

Israel lost a huge chunk of its air force at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. I believe it was 30% in the starting week.
It's not the Egyptian air force that really mattered. What mattered is that Egypt had operated its air defenses and air force in tandem. Only through such cooperation they managed to inflict losses to Israel. Had they gone on an aerial offensive into Israel, their planes would be slaughtered and the IAF would be unscathed. If they would overly rely on their GBAD, they'd lose a ton of equipment. The repeating point here is that GBAD only works when supported by an air force. If it's not supported, it's as good as ashes.

My sources indicate more like ~30% in the entire war. And I see your point, and it does raise a valid question about SyAF operations. It seems to me that they're unwilling to risk jets for questionable gains, especially when they have an ongoing civil war to worry about, but it doesn't change the main issue. GBAD works, period. It's just far more limited in what it can provide when operating without a robust airborne component.

This specific incident is an Iranian operated Tor system. Not an "indigenous" system.

Report: Israel targeted advanced Iranian air defense system in Syria strike

Jerusalem conferred with Washington before launching April 9 attack, which killed at least seven Iranian troops, Wall Street Journal reports

www.timesofisrael.com

I appreciate the share but I have to note the distinct lack of concrete evidence. This shows one Israeli claimed strike against a single Tor-M1 system. If Iran was suffering as badly as you seem to suggest, one would expect more then that. The Tor-M1 is hardly the most modern system (a more modern Tor-M2 is available) and it requires extreme naivete to thing a single TELAR would do the trick, especially since the Tor is quintessential SHORAD.

Iranian forces proceeded to threaten Israel and maintained significant presence despite Russian MP patrols. There's only so much Russia can do when Iran operates concealed proxies, not officially affiliated with Iran.

Do you have any evidence that shows Iranian proxies directly operating in areas where Russo-Israeli agreements prohibited their deployment? Please note, Russians MPs are not exclusively or even primarily tasked with keeping Iranian proxies out of areas. They patrol all over Syria. To the best of my knowledge there are specific locations, like Deraa province, and areas near the Israeli border, that Russia had taken up obligations to keep Iran out of. Do you have any evidence showing that these agreements were violated? After all, just how many Israeli strikes were aimed at targets specifically in that area?

A delilah missile has a 250km range. To provide TV footage and maintain manual controls with the operator on an aircraft, it must have a line of sight to the operator. To maintain a line of sight at 250km, the aircraft have to stay at 5km altitude at least.
And with a maximum speed of Mach 0.7, or 240m/s, the flight time is 17 minutes. They'd have to fly at an altitude of 5km for 17 minutes whilst still in Israel's airspace to avoid ever entering Syrian airspace, if your assumption of avoiding their airspace is correct.

This makes sense, thank you. On the other hand, have we had Syrian air defense firing into Israeli airspace? I'm genuinely curious. I haven't come across information to the effect, but there's no particular reason I should have. If you have, I'd appreciate the info.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Repeat thar search but go to the "Images" tab. It should give you a bunch of satellite photos showing targets before and after an Israeli strike.
ISI is a satellite service company that provides media with sat footage of approximately 80% of Israel's strikes.

I appreciate the info, I'll look into it when I get home.

Doing so would ignite a diplomatic incident between Russia and Israel, something that none wants. Russia doesn't care about Assad all that much to antagonize Israel. Russia's presence in Syria is too limited, and it cannot reinforce them all that much, despite Russia's massive investment in a wide range of capable EW systems. If it antagonizes Israel, it can find itself in a covert EM war with Israel that it just cannot stand to win due to territorial and numerical inferiority.

You're convinced that a simple "heads up, incoming" from Russia to Syria would lead to a diplomatic incident and one placing Russia on the brink of war with Israel? I find this hard to believe. I suspect Russia has been providing at least some early warning to Syria for quite some time. In my opinion, the very reason for the downing of the Il-20 was that the Israeli military grew tired of Russia warning Syrian targets in advance, provided minimal notice of a strike to Russia, and led to a Russian aircraft getting caught in the cross fire. Granted this is only my interpretation of the events, but it strikes me as awfully plausible given both the events and the conversation that took place after.

Knowing how the IAF and other branches work, assuming the IAF reuse attack paths frequently would be illogical.
The IAF also rarely ever conducts a strike without first plotting an attack path with surveillance aircraft. Accurate surveillance can be done to a great range, tens of kilometers ahead of any short range air defense system.
Modern SARs are particularly effective in that role, although they're an active component

We're confident both that the Israeli airforce conducts penetrating strikes of Syria with impunity over many years, and simultaneously that there are so many possible inbound vectors that they never use one twice? If anything, by sheer dumb luck, a Syrian Pantsyr picket should be able to hit an Israeli aircraft once in a blue moon, with some early warning from Russia, and its own targetting done by EO rather then radar.

The pattern didn't change. Israeli strikes proceeded and conducted even deeper into Syria and even into central Iraq after that.

I'll see what the ISI footage you refer to shows but so far this has not been my impression.

I'll respond to the second half probably tomorrow. Again, sorry for the delay, I'm traveling and my time is not completely my own. Feel free to wait until I respond to the entirety of the conversation before engaging. Or not, as you please.

 

[Feanor]

The S-300 had some mythical status among some circles. After its IOC in Syria in June last year, that changed as the S-300 was deemed useless, which is partially true as Russia forbids Syria, its user, to use a system it officially owns.
It sends a message to Russian allies that they may also be restricted in times of crises,

This is confusing. Anyone who takes a given piece of equipment to have mythical status is suspect to begin with. Immediately doing a 180 from "mythical" to "useless" after one deployment, in which it's not even seeing combat action is idiotic. I suspect people making actual arms procurement decisions (and therefore being in the market for Russian SAMs) would not be looking to those circles for advice. I would be more concerned with the destruction of S-300 elements in Armenia by loitering munitions. This highlights the vulnerability of older versions of the system to relatively cheap modern munitions, and leaves an unanswered question about how vulnerable its more modern versions are. After all there is a reason Russia pairs their S-300/400s with Pantsyrs.

The restrictions on its use seem to indicate Russia merely wants Syria to use a new radar with a better resolution so it will know to identify Russian planes, not that it wants to give Syria advanced missiles to fire on Israeli aircraft.
It seems to coincide with your theory that the missiles may be intended for Russian units.
You know, "keep the radars and C2, we take the missiles. And everyone thinks we made true on our promise to deliver those long delayed S-300."

If anything I would expect the opposite to be true, with possibly the TELs operated by Syrian staff but all the more sensitive C4I components under Russian control. My main point was that the deployment, in my opinion, did not give the Syrians control of an S-300PM system, merely some participation in operating one.

Russia needs to expand its aerial presence there to do that. But either way it cannot afford a direct military confrontation against Israel because of its numerical disadvantage.

Neither side wants a war but if the Israeli military does something to endanger Russian personnel and consequently loses a jet to a "Syrian" shoot down, I don't think the response will be a direct military confrontation. I think the response will be phone calls between Putin and Israeli leadership, and meetings between top military officials in Russia and Israel.

I don't think anyone will be fooling anyone if an S-400 battery starts shooting. Considering the rhetoric and actual policy Israel has against Iran, I don't think it will shy away from hitting targets of a global power if it needs to.
Back when Israel and Russia were mortal enemies, it came to actual shooting. However, realpolitik took over shortly after.

No. Nobody will be fooled if an S-400 battery starts shooting. But they could all save face if the shooting is done by a "Syrian" S-300 battery. Israel could even carry out some retaliation strikes against Syrian targets, possibly ones having to do with Iran. I somehow suspect Russia wouldn't mind all that much.

EDIT: If both sides really wanted to save face Israel could even destroy the offending system, with all of the personnel evacuated in advance and each side making contradictory claims about the casualties caused.

 

[Feanor]

I'll bottom line this discussion. What I have observed based on the information available to me is that there is an apparent shift in how the Israelis have carried out their strikes against Syrian targets. Prior to this information of penetrating raids into Syrian airspace regularly made it into the sources I typically use. Since then, ominous silence. This is coupled with the conversation that took place between Russia and Israel publicly after the Il-20 downing, where Russia accused Israel of not providing sufficient warning of their strikes. It seems to me that the Israeli military has had to adjust how they carry out strikes and possibly faces reduced effectiveness of such strikes (but by how much is of course a mystery). You have consistently claimed the opposite and have shown how it is possible (plausible even) that Israel still carries out such strikes, but you don't have any specific evidence either. I will still endeavor to go over the BDA footage from ISI, when I get a chance but so far I'm unconvinced. I also allow for the possibility that the Israelis have had to adjust their military planning for political as well as military reasons (maybe even primarily political reasons). There is a lot of strange behind-the-scenes with Russia and Israel over the past 6 years and I can't possibly account for all of the potential consequences, arrangements, and deals could have been made. If your entire disagreements boils down to the fact that you think Israel is still carrying out strikes and simply doing it quieter, ok. Fair enough, we may simply have to differ opinions on this (until some event crops up to resolve this disagreement). If you have any other evidence of arguments that I have missed, I would be happy to see them. And of course feel free to reply to any of the points above, and I'll be happy to continue the conversation.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

This is confusing. Anyone who takes a given piece of equipment to have mythical status is suspect to begin with. Immediately doing a 180 from "mythical" to "useless" after one deployment, in which it's not even seeing combat action is idiotic. I suspect people making actual arms procurement decisions (and therefore being in the market for Russian SAMs) would not be looking to those circles for advice. I would be more concerned with the destruction of S-300 elements in Armenia by loitering munitions. This highlights the vulnerability of older versions of the system to relatively cheap modern munitions, and leaves an unanswered question about how vulnerable its more modern versions are. After all there is a reason Russia pairs their S-300/400s with Pantsyrs.

This has an effect on media. Conventional media oversimplifies things in every subject that requires nuance, other than perhaps political events. So you could say it's written by idiots for idiots. And media of course has an effect on people. Israeli media idiotically gave too much weight to Russian sales of S-300 systems to Syria, whilst the army ineffectively tried to calm people down saying it wasn't as big of a deal as the media said.
So now Israeli media is awfully silent about the S-300, and only occasionally says it's not as effective as thought, because it's again mostly written by idiots.

Neither side wants a war but if the Israeli military does something to endanger Russian personnel and consequently loses a jet to a "Syrian" shoot down, I don't think the response will be a direct military confrontation. I think the response will be phone calls between Putin and Israeli leadership, and meetings between top military officials in Russia and Israel.

Losing a jet is no easy feat. For Israel it's much more of a political loss than a material one. So I think if Russia would want deterrence, it would go for much lower profile response, enough to avoid Israeli media coverage, for the most part.

Ok, so your hypothesis was that the Syrian government is extremely eager to show off any quantity of shot down missile fragments, or downed UAVs. You're unable to provide evidence of this (systematic evidence showing what portion of downed munitions/UAVs the Syrians display) but you're confident they're eager. At the same time you believe that some munitions were shot down, have no evidence of any fragments being shown and can square this with a confident belief in the overall insignificance of Syrian GBAD.

That wasn't really my hypothesis. I just continued this argument because you took us in that direction, but I honestly do not see a connection here between missile fragments and downing of munitions. At least not a direct one anyone can prove.
I think Syria's air defenses are obsolete, so I don't think they are unable to down Israeli munitions because of the vast difference in tech.
However, I agreed with you that the possibility that some munitions were downed is, well, possible. I did not say anything concrete. Just that they MAY have downed some, but I was still convinced that IF they had downed anything, it would be a very small, absolutely negligible amount.
No, I do not have evidence for this, but I haven't seen evidence to the contrary. I am taking what I know about the technological difference between Israel and Syria, and apply my own logic here, which does not include any calculation based on media showing fragments.

This doesn't bode well for your argument that there is no strategy being forced upon Israel. Prior to the F-16 downing, evidence of Israeli penetration raids regularly made it into multiple Russian OSINT sources including ones quite sympathetic to Syria, and occasionally made it into non-Russian OSINT sources that I read. Since then - awkward silence. This combined with the logical cut off point, and the context of the shoot-down leads me to believe that something has changed about the Israeli approach to strikes into Syria. I've asked for any concrete evidence you have of the opposite and you, by your own admission, don't have any. So. From what I can tell, Israel has changed their approach to strikes in Syria since the F-16 downing, in my opinion, at least in part due to the actions of Syrian air defense. Nothing you have posted directly contradicts that in any factual manner.

There is a parallel situation that I noticed - Israeli military sources have said strikes in Syria have only ramped up in recent months, but Syrian reports of strikes have dwindled down to a near 0.
It could mean one of 3 things:
1)Syrian air defenses are downing 100% of Israeli munitions. OSINT, however, never showed a successful interception in footage.
2)Syrians stopped filming explosions for any reason.
3)The strikes occur now far away from the public. Perhaps an attempt by Israel to conceal the strikes to reduce media attention and allow Syria to save face.

You don't have concrete evidence for your assertion either. We both rely on our observation of things based on OSINT, and we both made different conclusions from said OSINT.

What evidence did you have of the obsolescence of their air defenses? I'm not disputing their argument, at least as it pertains to everything delivered pre-2000s. But I'm curious to see what specifically has led you to this conclusion.

The reference threat for Syrian air defenses, against Israel, is a combination of cruise missiles, SDBs, JDAMs, helicopters, ATGMs, and fixed wing aircraft.
Fixed wing aircraft - S-200 and theoretically S-300. We covered the S-300 issue already so I'll focus on the 200. It's a very old system with very primitive algorithms limited by its hardware. For today's IAF this system is very easy to fool, and more often than not we've seen them launched against non-existing targets, sometimes landing as far as Jordan or Cyprus.
According to Israeli sources, Syrians have fired over 1,000 SAMs at Israeli aircraft, not munitions, in recent years.

Helicopters - Medium and short range AD, plus SPAA. According to a recent publication, helicopters share an unspecified but 'large' portion within the statistics of Israeli strikes in Syria. They also have their own range of EW measures, but despite them being a lot more vulnerable than fixed wing aircraft, none was downed so far.

Cruise missiles, SDBs, JDAMs, ATGMs - Pantsirs. These are very low RCS targets, requiring a modern radar with modern search and track algorithms and advanced filters. The only somewhat modern GBAD Syria has against low RCS targets is the Pantsir, but even then it's an old version that didn't yet take into account the many lessons Russia learned from operating it over the years (like ditching the awfully inaccurate guns).
Given its low numbers and limitation to point defense, it cannot possibly be used effectively. True anti-CM and anti-low RCS defenses require early warning systems and a layered kinetic envelope, neither of which Syria has. Without these, Syria may need to dedicate a quarter of its entire inventory for a single site, to account for shift changes, loading times, reserves, saturation, and engagement procedures (e.g 2 missiles per target). That's not feasible when Syria has so many strategic sites to protect, primarily non-military sites in its capital.
Whatever other SAMs Syria operates, are incapable against such low RCS targets, because the only really half-modern system supplied to Syria in recent years was the Pantsir.
Weird Russia didn't send them old Tunguskas it may want to replace soon...

You still, by the way, have not responded to the particular points I have made here.

That was not my intention. Can you please quote the parts I missed so I can reply to them?

GBAD works, period. It's just far more limited in what it can provide when operating without a robust airborne component.

That depends on how you define the GBAD's missions. If you want GBAD to only make an enemy dedicate more expensive munitions for a strike, then it MAY succeed, but GBAD are expensive systems by themselves, and their own missiles should not be any less expensive than the air-launched munition. Sometimes even more expensive.
If you want GBAD to actually defeat all munitions, then that's an uphill battle because an enemy can always saturate you with standoff strikes.
And if you want to down aircraft, you will need an airforce to back you up.
The only exception to the rule would be C-RAM systems, IMO.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

I appreciate the share but I have to note the distinct lack of concrete evidence. This shows one Israeli claimed strike against a single Tor-M1 system. If Iran was suffering as badly as you seem to suggest, one would expect more then that. The Tor-M1 is hardly the most modern system (a more modern Tor-M2 is available) and it requires extreme naivete to thing a single TELAR would do the trick, especially since the Tor is quintessential SHORAD.

No, I would actually not expect them to send any air defenses. Sending one or two limited systems is definitely a logical step.
With Iran's dwindling resources and large number of deployments, the logical approach, IMO, would be to have its forces dig in and try to reduce the casualties and material loss inflicted by Israel even if it means some processes become longer.
Trying to fight a conventional war with Israel would be a sure loss for Iran, and air defenses are a particularly high profile weapon.
So why send 1 or 2 instead of nothing at all? Perhaps Iran had a plan to ambush Israeli planes into a 2nd shootdown for the PR gain.

Do you have any evidence that shows Iranian proxies directly operating in areas where Russo-Israeli agreements prohibited their deployment? Please note, Russians MPs are not exclusively or even primarily tasked with keeping Iranian proxies out of areas. They patrol all over Syria. To the best of my knowledge there are specific locations, like Deraa province, and areas near the Israeli border, that Russia had taken up obligations to keep Iran out of. Do you have any evidence showing that these agreements were violated? After all, just how many Israeli strikes were aimed at targets specifically in that area?

There's this Hebrew article from a few days ago, talking about Israeli helicopter operations in Syria. It should go without saying that Israel only uses helicopters close to its border, where Iranian forces are technically not supposed to be:

N12 - מאחורי הקלעים של המלחמה בסוריה: "תגובה אחת יכולה לשנות...

הם טסים בחופשיות בשמי המזרח התיכון, משמידים מאות מטרות עוינות מעבר לקווי האויב ולא נחים גם כשהעולם עוצר מלכת • טייסי חיל האוויר, שרגילים לפעול יום-יום במחשכים, מספרים על התקיפות הנרחבות בסוריה

www.mako.co.il

And it would be very logical for Iran to conceal its presence from Russia.

This makes sense, thank you. On the other hand, have we had Syrian air defense firing into Israeli airspace? I'm genuinely curious. I haven't come across information to the effect, but there's no particular reason I should have. If you have, I'd appreciate the info.

The shot down Israeli F-16 was hit over Israel, not over Syria, although the S-200 missile was fired when the F-16 was still in Syria.

In my opinion, the very reason for the downing of the Il-20 was that the Israeli military grew tired of Russia warning Syrian targets in advance, provided minimal notice of a strike to Russia, and led to a Russian aircraft getting caught in the cross fire. Granted this is only my interpretation of the events, but it strikes me as awfully plausible given both the events and the conversation that took place after.

I think you're giving the IAF too much credit. Sometimes mistakes happen, like the downed F-16, and I don't think anyone in Israel wanted to create this diplomatic incident with Russia.
The ingenuity of the IAF is not in its ability to avoid mistakes, but in its ability to cope with the consequences of mistakes, and induce a productive learning process.

We're confident both that the Israeli airforce conducts penetrating strikes of Syria with impunity over many years, and simultaneously that there are so many possible inbound vectors that they never use one twice? If anything, by sheer dumb luck, a Syrian Pantsyr picket should be able to hit an Israeli aircraft once in a blue moon, with some early warning from Russia, and its own targetting done by EO rather then radar.

Of course some are used more than once, but the idea is to repeat them only after using others, or arrange the vectors of attack in a random order. This way the Syrians may know generally where Israeli aircraft may come from, but will still be unable to retaliate because they don't have the means to cover ALL vectors of attack, and they can't tell which one will be used next.
But even if the Syrians manage to successfully predict an attack and its vector, Israeli pilots have quite a few tools to work with. They have protection and early warning and detection on the mission level, formation level, and individual level to give them enough cover. They never go in without surveying the territory, and without extra protection.

 

[Feanor]

Losing a jet is no easy feat. For Israel it's much more of a political loss than a material one. So I think if Russia would want deterrence, it would go for much lower profile response, enough to avoid Israeli media coverage, for the most part.

What kind of response, in your opinion, should Russia go for to deter Israel from conducting any strikes that may endanger Russian military personnel, at both the political and military level?

That wasn't really my hypothesis. I just continued this argument because you took us in that direction, but I honestly do not see a connection here between missile fragments and downing of munitions. At least not a direct one anyone can prove.
I think Syria's air defenses are obsolete, so I don't think they are unable to down Israeli munitions because of the vast difference in tech.
However, I agreed with you that the possibility that some munitions were downed is, well, possible. I did not say anything concrete. Just that they MAY have downed some, but I was still convinced that IF they had downed anything, it would be a very small, absolutely negligible amount.
No, I do not have evidence for this, but I haven't seen evidence to the contrary. I am taking what I know about the technological difference between Israel and Syria, and apply my own logic here, which does not include any calculation based on media showing fragments.

Sorry, the reason I took this to be your hypothesis is because you specifically claimed the lack of fragments as proof of lack of downing. What am I missing here?

There is a parallel situation that I noticed - Israeli military sources have said strikes in Syria have only ramped up in recent months, but Syrian reports of strikes have dwindled down to a near 0.
It could mean one of 3 things:
1)Syrian air defenses are downing 100% of Israeli munitions. OSINT, however, never showed a successful interception in footage.
2)Syrians stopped filming explosions for any reason.
3)The strikes occur now far away from the public. Perhaps an attempt by Israel to conceal the strikes to reduce media attention and allow Syria to save face.

You don't have concrete evidence for your assertion either. We both rely on our observation of things based on OSINT, and we both made different conclusions from said OSINT.

Yes we did. I tend to consider reports of strikes credible either when both sides are talking about them, or when there's footage of damage. I tend to consider claims from only one side without corroborating evidence as inherently questionable, regardless of the side. The vaguer the claims the more questionable they are to me

The reference threat for Syrian air defenses, against Israel, is a combination of cruise missiles, SDBs, JDAMs, helicopters, ATGMs, and fixed wing aircraft.
Fixed wing aircraft - S-200 and theoretically S-300. We covered the S-300 issue already so I'll focus on the 200. It's a very old system with very primitive algorithms limited by its hardware. For today's IAF this system is very easy to fool, and more often than not we've seen them launched against non-existing targets, sometimes landing as far as Jordan or Cyprus.
According to Israeli sources, Syrians have fired over 1,000 SAMs at Israeli aircraft, not munitions, in recent years.

What about Buk-M2s? Are we writing them off entirely?

Helicopters - Medium and short range AD, plus SPAA. According to a recent publication, helicopters share an unspecified but 'large' portion within the statistics of Israeli strikes in Syria. They also have their own range of EW measures, but despite them being a lot more vulnerable than fixed wing aircraft, none was downed so far.

Cruise missiles, SDBs, JDAMs, ATGMs - Pantsirs. These are very low RCS targets, requiring a modern radar with modern search and track algorithms and advanced filters. The only somewhat modern GBAD Syria has against low RCS targets is the Pantsir, but even then it's an old version that didn't yet take into account the many lessons Russia learned from operating it over the years (like ditching the awfully inaccurate guns).
Given its low numbers and limitation to point defense, it cannot possibly be used effectively. True anti-CM and anti-low RCS defenses require early warning systems and a layered kinetic envelope, neither of which Syria has. Without these, Syria may need to dedicate a quarter of its entire inventory for a single site, to account for shift changes, loading times, reserves, saturation, and engagement procedures (e.g 2 missiles per target). That's not feasible when Syria has so many strategic sites to protect, primarily non-military sites in its capital.
Whatever other SAMs Syria operates, are incapable against such low RCS targets, because the only really half-modern system supplied to Syria in recent years was the Pantsir.
Weird Russia didn't send them old Tunguskas it may want to replace soon...

This makes sense. Russia didn't send them old Tunguskas because Russia doesn't have any old Tunguskas to send. There are line Russian units still using ZSU-23-4s. Remember the Pantsyr, despite being a direct development of the Tunguska, actually isn't replacing the Tunguska in the ORBAT. Instead it's got a whole new slot as companion SHORAD for S-300/400 units. Why the ground forces didn't opt for a tracked Pantsyr is beyond me (it's so logical and so straightforward). To make things extra weird, the ground forces did get tracked Pantsyrs for the Arctic brigades and recently announced intentions to acquire them as companion SHORAD for S-300V units which does make sense, but puts the decision to leave MR and Tank BDes without them in an even stranger light. Currently the 57mm 2S38 AAA from OKR Derivatsiya is planned to take the "gun" role in air defense btlns for motor-rifles and tanks, with Verbas taking the MANPAD slot, and Sosna taking the tracked IR SAM slot (Tor-M2s filling the entire second btln). Since production on the 2S38s hasn't begun, there's nothing to replace the "old" Tunguskas or the even older ZSUs.

That was not my intention. Can you please quote the parts I missed so I can reply to them?

Sure. Again it refers to your argument about the lack of fragments being evidence of lack of intercepts, as well as bringing up the situation with malfunctioning UAVs being displayed for the media. Here it is in its entirety. It goes to the relevance of the argument about fragments.

To know that this is the case every or even most of the times they found one, we would need to compare malfunction statistics to numbers displayed by the Syrian media, again some major media analysis. I haven't done it, and in what I have seen of this conflict, relatively few Israeli downed UAVs or munitions have cropped up in the media. If you have some indications that the Syrians are very eager to display these sort of things, that would be interesting. I suspect that finding a downed UAV, especially by civilians or non-military agencies, in the country side as such, would generate considerably more public attention. Cleaning up the results of an Israel missile strike on a military facility, especially one where Iranian proxies or advisers are based, would be kept out of the public eye as much as possible, and that might include remains of downed munitions. It's also possible that the damage of intercept is such that the distinction between a munition that exploded on target and a munition that exploded in mid air due to interception by something like a Buk-M2 missile (for example) would be negligible, significant reducing the propaganda value of such a display.

 

[Feanor]

That depends on how you define the GBAD's missions. If you want GBAD to only make an enemy dedicate more expensive munitions for a strike, then it MAY succeed, but GBAD are expensive systems by themselves, and their own missiles should not be any less expensive than the air-launched munition. Sometimes even more expensive.

It's not the cost of what you shoot down or what you use to shoot it down, it's the cost of what doesn't get destroyed that also matters. Let's take a ~30% interception rate for example (not saying it's real just as a hypothetical). Israel can't be sure which 30% will get shot down, and it either has to overprepare the strike with more then 30% extra munitions, or risk that something survives. Considering we're talking about Iranian assets, possibly high tech ones (UAVs or missiles for example) saving some from destruction could be quite worth it. And larger preparations for a larger strike are easier to spot, and potentially easier to warn against. If Israel has to launch 8 jets instead of 4, that's likely to get spotted sooner, and reported on earlier, giving the Iranians more time to disperse/evacuate. Preventing even some munitions from getting through may save that much more of the Iranian gear. And paying for a handful of Pantsyr missiles (for example) in comparison to losing all of the Iranian assets all of the time to easy and cheap Israeli strikes, is arguably worth it.

If you want GBAD to actually defeat all munitions, then that's an uphill battle because an enemy can always saturate you with standoff strikes.
And if you want to down aircraft, you will need an airforce to back you up.
The only exception to the rule would be C-RAM systems, IMO.

Sure but the scale and complexity of the operation increases, along with cost, preparation time, and potential visibility on the preparation for the enemy. I don't think Syria or Iran can realistically hope to defeat all incoming munitions with or without aircraft in play. I think that unless Iran is willing to bankroll billions of dollars for a re-armament of the Syrian airforce and air defense on a massive scale with top notch Russia gear, it's a non-starter. And the state of Iran's own air force suggests that they need that money at home.

 

[Feanor]

No, I would actually not expect them to send any air defenses. Sending one or two limited systems is definitely a logical step.
With Iran's dwindling resources and large number of deployments, the logical approach, IMO, would be to have its forces dig in and try to reduce the casualties and material loss inflicted by Israel even if it means some processes become longer.
Trying to fight a conventional war with Israel would be a sure loss for Iran, and air defenses are a particularly high profile weapon.
So why send 1 or 2 instead of nothing at all? Perhaps Iran had a plan to ambush Israeli planes into a 2nd shootdown for the PR gain.

I'm not sold on the destruction of the system, given that all we have is a one sided claim, nor on the idea that Iran is suffering quite as badly as claimed. I find the deployment of a single Tor-M1 system highly dubious, and of limited utility under the best of circumstances. I'm also curious that Iran is willing to potentially sacrifice one of them, giving how few they have.

There's this Hebrew article from a few days ago, talking about Israeli helicopter operations in Syria. It should go without saying that Israel only uses helicopters close to its border, where Iranian forces are technically not supposed to be:

N12 - מאחורי הקלעים של המלחמה בסוריה: "תגובה אחת יכולה לשנות...

הם טסים בחופשיות בשמי המזרח התיכון, משמידים מאות מטרות עוינות מעבר לקווי האויב ולא נחים גם כשהעולם עוצר מלכת • טייסי חיל האוויר, שרגילים לפעול יום-יום במחשכים, מספרים על התקיפות הנרחבות בסוריה

www.mako.co.il

And it would be very logical for Iran to conceal its presence from Russia.

This raises some questions about whether they're only firing at Iranian militias or also at Syrian positions when they don't like what they see. Your article for example mentions strikes against Syrian army targets, after catching someone (allegedly terrorists) planting explosives in the Golan Heights.

The shot down Israeli F-16 was hit over Israel, not over Syria, although the S-200 missile was fired when the F-16 was still in Syria.

There's a pretty big difference between launching a SAM at an aircraft part of a strike package inside your own airspace, and it following the aircraft out of your airspace, and actually taking shots at Israeli aircraft inside Israeli airspace that never enter Syrian airspace at all.

I think you're giving the IAF too much credit. Sometimes mistakes happen, like the downed F-16, and I don't think anyone in Israel wanted to create this diplomatic incident with Russia.
The ingenuity of the IAF is not in its ability to avoid mistakes, but in its ability to cope with the consequences of mistakes, and induce a productive learning process.

I don't think they had any intention of creating a diplomatic incident. I think they genuinely thought that by giving Russia a shorter warning window for the strike it wouldn't given Russia enough time to alert the Syrians, and let them evacuate the strike location. I'm informed largely by the conversation that followed. By the way, I don't believe Israel ever denied giving Russia only a 2 minute warning.

Of course some are used more than once, but the idea is to repeat them only after using others, or arrange the vectors of attack in a random order. This way the Syrians may know generally where Israeli aircraft may come from, but will still be unable to retaliate because they don't have the means to cover ALL vectors of attack, and they can't tell which one will be used next.
But even if the Syrians manage to successfully predict an attack and its vector, Israeli pilots have quite a few tools to work with. They have protection and early warning and detection on the mission level, formation level, and individual level to give them enough cover. They never go in without surveying the territory, and without extra protection.

Perhaps this is enough and Israel is that confident. Perhaps its not.

 

[Feanor]

Sorry I keep splitting my posts, I ran into the character limit.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

What kind of response, in your opinion, should Russia go for to deter Israel from conducting any strikes that may endanger Russian military personnel, at both the political and military level?

I don't know. The IDF does not get deterred, the cabinet does. And the cabinet is not particularly predictable, or at times coherent.

Sorry, the reason I took this to be your hypothesis is because you specifically claimed the lack of fragments as proof of lack of downing. What am I missing here?

My main argument is that Syria does not have the capability to down many missiles.

What about Buk-M2s? Are we writing them off entirely?

Too short ranged to fire on aircraft firing from standoff. And to the best of my knowledge, a resolution suitable for intercepting TBMs and fixed wing aircraft, but not small munitions.
And they cannot really threaten helicopters because IAF helicopters have standoff munitions as well, and the IAF conducts aerial recon over a substantial portion of Syria 24/7. Plus a geographical advantage of course.

Why the ground forces didn't opt for a tracked Pantsyr is beyond me (it's so logical and so straightforward)

Probably don't have enough money to give tracks to every ground vehicle.

To know that this is the case every or even most of the times they found one, we would need to compare malfunction statistics to numbers displayed by the Syrian media, again some major media analysis. I haven't done it, and in what I have seen of this conflict, relatively few Israeli downed UAVs or munitions have cropped up in the media. If you have some indications that the Syrians are very eager to display these sort of things, that would be interesting. I suspect that finding a downed UAV, especially by civilians or non-military agencies, in the country side as such, would generate considerably more public attention. Cleaning up the results of an Israel missile strike on a military facility, especially one where Iranian proxies or advisers are based, would be kept out of the public eye as much as possible, and that might include remains of downed munitions. It's also possible that the damage of intercept is such that the distinction between a munition that exploded on target and a munition that exploded in mid air due to interception by something like a Buk-M2 missile (for example) would be negligible, significant reducing the propaganda value of such a display.

That would require an exact memory of events and mad Googling skills to recall so many potential events for examination in a bombing campaign of thousands of strikes and munitions, spread over 7 years.

It's not the cost of what you shoot down or what you use to shoot it down, it's the cost of what doesn't get destroyed that also matters. Let's take a ~30% interception rate for example (not saying it's real just as a hypothetical). Israel can't be sure which 30% will get shot down, and it either has to overprepare the strike with more then 30% extra munitions, or risk that something survives. Considering we're talking about Iranian assets, possibly high tech ones (UAVs or missiles for example) saving some from destruction could be quite worth it. And larger preparations for a larger strike are easier to spot, and potentially easier to warn against. If Israel has to launch 8 jets instead of 4, that's likely to get spotted sooner, and reported on earlier, giving the Iranians more time to disperse/evacuate. Preventing even some munitions from getting through may save that much more of the Iranian gear. And paying for a handful of Pantsyr missiles (for example) in comparison to losing all of the Iranian assets all of the time to easy and cheap Israeli strikes, is arguably worth it.

That's all nice but what evidence is there that any munition is even being intercepted?
Knowing electronics and RF, I know that air defenses depend on many different factors going right to make a successful interception. And to keep them relevant, developers need to give continuous improvements into the systems in one way or another.
That's not something Syria does, nor does it get from allies like Iran or Russia.
Meanwhile, Israel develops and constantly improves its own means of detection, disruption, concealment, and kinetics.
The gap that was created between Syria and Israel is now almost 40 years for the majority of Syria's air defenses, and about 10 for its newest defenses.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

Sure but the scale and complexity of the operation increases, along with cost, preparation time, and potential visibility on the preparation for the enemy. I don't think Syria or Iran can realistically hope to defeat all incoming munitions with or without aircraft in play. I think that unless Iran is willing to bankroll billions of dollars for a re-armament of the Syrian airforce and air defense on a massive scale with top notch Russia gear, it's a non-starter. And the state of Iran's own air force suggests that they need that money at home.

We do know that at any time Syria fired on Israeli aircraft, it lost air defense systems. It's possible that the IAF always sends extra forces anyway for that exact scenario.

I'm not sold on the destruction of the system, given that all we have is a one sided claim, nor on the idea that Iran is suffering quite as badly as claimed. I find the deployment of a single Tor-M1 system highly dubious, and of limited utility under the best of circumstances. I'm also curious that Iran is willing to potentially sacrifice one of them, giving how few they have.

The incident was followed by satellite imagery of the damage. So we know something was destroyed. If any claim is in doubt it's whether there was even an air defense system in the first place.
But I think there is great utility. First, it's a single system and not a whole battalion, so it's easy to conceal and was considered survivable enough for the mission.
Second, it's possibly seen as attritable enough for the potential gain it would present.
I will repeat my assessment that it may have been used to ambush Israeli aircraft - deploy at some location considered unlikely for air defenses, kept silent until aircraft would be within range, and fire only when probability of intercept was very high.
Downing 1 plane would be a huge political victory for Iran, because if it's downed over Syria then they can capture the pilot fairly easily, and gain immeasurable intel and leverage.

This raises some questions about whether they're only firing at Iranian militias or also at Syrian positions when they don't like what they see. Your article for example mentions strikes against Syrian army targets, after catching someone (allegedly terrorists) planting explosives in the Golan Heights.

A sizable portion of Israeli strikes are aimed at Syrian targets, yes.

There's a pretty big difference between launching a SAM at an aircraft part of a strike package inside your own airspace, and it following the aircraft out of your airspace, and actually taking shots at Israeli aircraft inside Israeli airspace that never enter Syrian airspace at all.

For an incompetent army, perhaps. Syria has the responsibility to abort their missiles when out of their borders. In the end Israel treats both as the same.
When Iranian militias fire on Israel, Israel retaliates against both Iran and Syria.
When Syria's civil war spilled into Israel, Israel retaliated against both the government and the rebels.
When the PIJ fires rockets into Israel, Israel retaliates against them and Hamas.
And the reason is that Israelis don't give a damn if Syrians or anyone else can't do something because they're incompetent. Lack of competence is not its problem.

By the way, I don't believe Israel ever denied giving Russia only a 2 minute warning.

The Israeli stance is that a warning was given 12 minutes ahead, including the exact targeted area, and that by the time Syrians fired their missiles, IAF planes were long gone.
Israel had only one version throughout the whole incident. Russia had at least 3, IIRC, and they all conflicted with one another.

 

[Feanor]

Probably don't have enough money to give tracks to every ground vehicle.

I'm afraid you misunderstood what I was saying. Russian ORBAT for Motor-Rifle Bdes includes 2 air defense btlns, an air defense missile btln, and an air defense gun-missile btln. The first uses Osa/Tor systems, and as new Tor-M2s are being purchased, older Osa SAMs are available for cannibalization or donation to suitable partners. The second uses a mix of 3 systems, one battery uses MANPADS (new Verba MANPADS are being procured again freeing up some older systems), the second uses the Strela-10M3 tracked IR SAM (it's replacement is the Sosna and is not yet in service, thus older Strela-10M3 systems are not being freed up, but enough were produced in the USSR for spare SAMs to be relatively plentiful), the third uses a mix of ZSU-23-4 Shilkas, and 2S6 Tunguskas. The logical replacement for both systems is a tracked Pantsyr. Or wheeled if you like. However instead the MoD has run an entire separate OKR Derivatsiya producing a 57mm AAA gun called the 2S38, no radar, no missiles, just a 57mm gun (upgraded S-60 in point of fact) and IR guidance.

1) the 2S38 is not in service, and since older ZSU-23-4s still are, there would not be any spare Tunguskas for donation (though the 2S6M was in production fairly recently, and could be purchased)
2) the replacement for both the ZSU-23-4 and the Tunguska is a system superior to the former but in my opinion clearly inferior to the latter. And the 2S38 is currently planned on the BMP-3 chassis, so on tracks, cost notwithstanding.
3) the Pantsyr is a continuation of the Tunguska in design and concept, and is its natural replacement. There's a version of it available on the same GM chassis as the 2S6.
4) The Ground Forces have purchased tracked Pantsyr systems on the DT-30 tracked chassis for the arctic brigades.
5) The Ground Forces have announced plans to purchase the Pantsyr on presumably a tracked chassis to accompany the S-300V4s (it would make little sense to shell out cash for heavy tracked chassis for giant missile defense systems but accompany them with wheeled companion SHORAD)

Hence my complete disapproval of the entire 2S38 program. I think that at best they could have combined the 57mm and the Sosna missiles on a single platform. If they're that married to having a gun system. Having a Pantsyr battery in addition to the Tor btln in each MRBde would greatly boost their air defense capabilities, with MANPADS and Sosnas providing some IR SHORAD. Having a separate gun battery of 57mm AAA without even a radar is...

That would require an exact memory of events and mad Googling skills to recall so many potential events for examination in a bombing campaign of thousands of strikes and munitions, spread over 7 years.

My point exactly. I don't see how to arrive at the conclusion that the Syrians are so eager to display all pieces of downed munitions that we can trust this as an indicator of munitions downed as a statistic.

That's all nice but what evidence is there that any munition is even being intercepted?

Good question. It's why I started by asking you if you think whether any were shot down. One possible though in my opinion unlikely explanation is that none were shot down. At all. More likely, I think, is that the cleanup from Israeli airstrikes is being done out of public eye. A third possibility is that the damage from an intercept by something as bulky as the older SAMs Syria operates wouldn't leave enough fragments to be worth displaying. But either way if it's reasonable to think that some were shot down, and we see literally no fragments, then the lack of fragments is not a reliable indicator of anything, without additional information.

Knowing electronics and RF, I know that air defenses depend on many different factors going right to make a successful interception. And to keep them relevant, developers need to give continuous improvements into the systems in one way or another.
That's not something Syria does, nor does it get from allies like Iran or Russia.
Meanwhile, Israel develops and constantly improves its own means of detection, disruption, concealment, and kinetics.
The gap that was created between Syria and Israel is now almost 40 years for the majority of Syria's air defenses, and about 10 for its newest defenses.

I honestly don't know what exactly Russia has been doing with Syrian air defenses. I know that discussions have cropped up on Russian forums claiming that Russia did some sort of work to upgrade the Syrian air defense grid and make it function but what exactly this entails is unclear. It's possible that they provided upgrades to some of the radars, possibly even some newer radars that aren't being flaunted. I think its safe to say that no upgrades Russia would be willing to perform without gigantic cash payments from Syria can make the difference between stopping an Israeli raid or not. But I think its not inconceivable that it can increase the risk of a shootdown, especially, again, if Russia is providing some sort of early-warning.

 

[Feanor]

We do know that at any time Syria fired on Israeli aircraft, it lost air defense systems. It's possible that the IAF always sends extra forces anyway for that exact scenario.

I.e. if the Syrians weren't firing at all, then they wouldn't need to send those extra forces? It sounds an awful lot like what I was saying earlier.

The incident was followed by satellite imagery of the damage. So we know something was destroyed. If any claim is in doubt it's whether there was even an air defense system in the first place.

That's exactly what I'm doubting. If the Iranians were serious, why not just fund another "Syrian" Pantsyr purchase and this time opt for the S2 or SM variant? They could get dozens of systems, legally, from Russia, and drastically improve their ability to down Israeli PGM and possibly even aircraft if used in ambush like you suggest. The Tor requires a radar and so requires revealing the system electronically, at least briefly, to fire. The Pantsyr can use EO for a completely passive shootdown. They're also a system that already exists and easier to mix in with the existing force of Pantsyrs. Deploying a single Tor-M1 seems worse then nothing.

But I think there is great utility. First, it's a single system and not a whole battalion, so it's easy to conceal and was considered survivable enough for the mission.
Second, it's possibly seen as attritable enough for the potential gain it would present.
I will repeat my assessment that it may have been used to ambush Israeli aircraft - deploy at some location considered unlikely for air defenses, kept silent until aircraft would be within range, and fire only when probability of intercept was very high.
Downing 1 plane would be a huge political victory for Iran, because if it's downed over Syria then they can capture the pilot fairly easily, and gain immeasurable intel and leverage.

So you allow for the idea of a downing by a single Tor-M1 deployed by Iran but completely dismiss the possibility of a downing by the entire Syrian air defense grid, with possible Russian indirect support? I'm having a hard time squaring these two points. Or are you saying that the Iranians mistakenly thought they could do this, but in reality you can confidently state that there was basically no chance?

For an incompetent army, perhaps. Syria has the responsibility to abort their missiles when out of their borders. In the end Israel treats both as the same.

How do you figure this? In my opinion there is a significant political difference between downing an aircraft actually inside your airspace, and firing into neighboring airspace. Also, with Israel, according to you, conducting penetrating raids into Syrian airspace and bombing targets at will including Syrian army targets, you still think that Syria has a responsibility not to fire into Israeli airspace? This strikes me as a massive double standard. If the lack of a ceasefire enables Israel to strike targets in Syria at will (tacit agreements and support from other parties notwithstanding) then by the same logic Syria should in principle be able to fire into Israeli airspace to engage jets firing standoff munitions into Syria. But there might be a good reason why they don't - under the table agreements with Russia for example.

The Israeli stance is that a warning was given 12 minutes ahead, including the exact targeted area, and that by the time Syrians fired their missiles, IAF planes were long gone.
Israel had only one version throughout the whole incident. Russia had at least 3, IIRC, and they all conflicted with one another.

Sorry, it's been a couple of years, but I went through Russian news reports from this time looking for Russian government statements and I did not find any 3 versions. I found one. Shoygu stated the very same day that the shootdown hit the news that Israel provided inadequate warning time. Details of the incident including Russian claims about Israel performing dangerous maneuvers near the Russian aircraft are not a different story. They're the details of the incident that were not immediately made public, possibly not immediately and fully understood until a review was done. The briefing below is the official Russian MoD briefing including what appear to be radar screens.

Шойгу возложил вину за сбитый Ил-20 на Израиль

Сергей Шойгу возложил на Израиль вину за сбитый над Средиземным морем Ил-20 российских ВКС и гибель экипажа. В разговоре с министром обороны Израиля Агвидором Либерманом он подчеркнул, что Россия оставляет за собой право на ответные шаги

rg.ru

I attempted to find the Israeli statement you reference about 12 minutes of warning time but was unable to do so. What I found was as follows:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1042014898845302784

Israeli delegation to present findings in Moscow over downed Russian plane

Benjamin Netanyahu said Syrian forces were to blame and offered Russia "all necessary information" to investigate.

www.jpost.com

Russia: Israel provided false information regarding downing of Il-20

“The Israeli military either allowed criminal negligence or lacked professionalism."

www.jpost.com

IDF rejects Moscow claim of ‘criminal negligence,’ vows to keep targeting Iran

Military responds to Russian defense ministry's accusation that it's responsible for Syria downing spy plane, says those involved know the facts

www.timesofisrael.com

I'm not a fan of twitter in general, nor the Jerusalem Post, but I have not been able to find, in the limited time I spent just now, the official statement from the IDF itself, in its entirety, regarding this incident. If you can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated. What I found fits with what I remember. Russia made very particular claims about the details of the incident whereas Israel merely blamed the Syrians and claimed their jets were out of the area at the time of the downing.

 

[Boagrius]

Latest developments:

TEL AVIV: Israel launched its largest military strike in years against Syria last night shortly after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported a significant increase in Iran’s stockpiles of nuclear material, with levels of enriched uranium now 12 times those agreed in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Israelis used gliding bombs and “other weapons” to destroy eight targets from the Golan Heights to Damascus, including an Iranian military complex near Damascus International Airport, a military site which acts as a housing complex for senior Iranian officials, as a command post for Division 7 of the Syrian army and trucks which acted as launchers for advanced surface-to-air missiles.

Israeli sources told BD the Hot Line between Tel Aviv and Moscow was used to warn the Russians “seconds before it began.”

“IDF warplanes attacked military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force and the Syrian army tonight (Nov. 17) in Syria. The attack damaged warehouses, command posts and military complexes, and batteries of surface-to-air missiles,” the IDF said in a statement.

To get a clear idea as to why Israel acted, sources here say that the tension between Israel and Iran has reached a peak as Teheran gave the order to expedite the uranium enrichment process that brought them “inches from the bomb,” as one source said.

Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported that Syrian air defenses intercepted the “Israeli aggression” in the south of the country and destroyed a number of missiles. Israeli sources say the Syrians unsuccessfully used their Pantsir air defense systems to neutralize the stand-off weapon systems used by the Israeli Air Force.

Amos Gilead, former who was head of the IDF’s intelligence research division, told BD that Syria lets Iran operate in its territory “Israel has to do everything to avoid an even larger presence in Syria . And that will result in similar attacks if Syria will not understand the message.”

Israel Kills 10 Iranians In Large Air Strike Against Targets In Syria - Breaking Defense

TEL AVIV: Israel launched its largest military strike in years against Syria last night shortly after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported a significant increase in Iran’s stockpiles of nuclear material, with levels of enriched uranium now 12 times those agreed in the 2015 Joint...

breakingdefense.com

 

[Big_Zucchini]

1) the 2S38 is not in service, and since older ZSU-23-4s still are, there would not be any spare Tunguskas for donation (though the 2S6M was in production fairly recently, and could be purchased)

I understand. Thank you.

the replacement for both the ZSU-23-4 and the Tunguska is a system superior to the former but in my opinion clearly inferior to the latter. And the 2S38 is currently planned on the BMP-3 chassis, so on tracks, cost notwithstanding.

I believe that the Derivatsiya is a better alternative to the Tunguska if used properly.
There is definitely place for a fully passive system in the age of stealth, and it can be vastly augmented by sharing a datalink with less survivable radar-operating systems.
The guns alone do not have a very long range, so an optical system aided by some automatic scanning makes a lot of sense. But with programmable fuzes they can be extremely lethal within their operating range.
Honestly I'd be far more worried if Russia started sending Derivatsiya systems to Syria than something like the Pantsir or a shiny new S-400.

Hence my complete disapproval of the entire 2S38 program.

Missiles already exist in many forms. I don't think there needs to be a missile between the Tor and Strela, considering the Tor is quite short ranged.
There is room for a fully passive gun system that can maximize the potential of the gun. A coupled missile could be nice, but it would be a MANPADS at best, which is not a better alternative.

It's why I started by asking you if you think whether any were shot down. One possible though in my opinion unlikely explanation is that none were shot down. At all. More likely, I think, is that the cleanup from Israeli airstrikes is being done out of public eye. A third possibility is that the damage from an intercept by something as bulky as the older SAMs Syria operates wouldn't leave enough fragments to be worth displaying. But either way if it's reasonable to think that some were shot down, and we see literally no fragments, then the lack of fragments is not a reliable indicator of anything, without additional information.

Then we can leave the discussion about fragments here. I believe that in the typical airstrikes, no missiles are downed. Naturally some will be duds, and just because I have learned to never say anything decisively, I said it's possible some missiles were downed, but only in a negligible number.

We can look at other very high profile examples like the American strike on the Shayrat airbase in 2017, or the multinational strike against alleged CW facilities in 2018.

In 2017, the US launched in 1 strike a total of 59 Tomahawk missiles.
US claim: 58 missiles struck their targets, and an additional 1 malfunctioned. Approximately 20 aircraft were destroyed/damaged. The airbase lost its ability to refuel and rearm planes.

Russian claim: 23 missiles struck, 6 Syrian aircraft destroyed, flights resumed shortly after, and only extremely minimal damage.

Pro Assad media: 15 planes destroyed, plus several tankers caused blasts.

SOHR: A dozen hangars, a fuel depot, and an air defense unit.

Later on ISI published satellite images showing 44 targets were hit, including some that were struck multiple times, including a 5-element SA-6 battery.
Photos surfaced online showing more at least 10 distinct aircraft were destroyed.


In 2018, the US, UK, and France conducted a large scale strike involving naval ships and aircraft, against 3 distinct Syrian targets.

Coalition version: 105 missiles were fired. All targets were destroyed and none was intercepted. All missiles appeared to have been either conventional cruise missiles or stealth cruise missiles.
Syria launched 40 SAMs but only after the attack ended, resulting in no effect.

Syrian version: Most of the missiles were downed. A total of 13 near al Kiswah.

Russian version: 71 missiles out of 103 were downed.

SOHR: 65 missiles were downed but considerable damage was inflicted.

Although not spoken of, IIRC, the Barzah compound which was hit by approximately 70 missiles, may have had an underground bunker, which may explain that large amount of JASSM missiles with a penetrating warhead.


Overall, we can see that Syrian and Russian sources are very inconsistent with each other, and when faced with concrete visual evidence, are often found to be untrue.
So there is just no reason to believe them when they claim something, after low profile strikes that do not always generate visual representation of things.

 

[Big_Zucchini]

I honestly don't know what exactly Russia has been doing with Syrian air defenses. I know that discussions have cropped up on Russian forums claiming that Russia did some sort of work to upgrade the Syrian air defense grid and make it function but what exactly this entails is unclear. It's possible that they provided upgrades to some of the radars, possibly even some newer radars that aren't being flaunted. I think its safe to say that no upgrades Russia would be willing to perform without gigantic cash payments from Syria can make the difference between stopping an Israeli raid or not. But I think its not inconceivable that it can increase the risk of a shootdown, especially, again, if Russia is providing some sort of early-warning.

Probably nothing special.
In 2017 we've heard this:

It's Official, Russia and Syria Have Linked Their Air Defense Networks

The formal arrangement adds more complexity for the United States and its allies in the already complicated conflict.

www.thedrive.com

Then, a year after saying Russia integrated its air defenses with those of Syria, a Syrian S-200 battery shot down a Russian Il-20 plane.

I.e. if the Syrians weren't firing at all, then they wouldn't need to send those extra forces? It sounds an awful lot like what I was saying earlier.

No. You ALWAYS need redundancy. The IAF always sends more planes than the bare minimum needed, as a contingency plan.
But that is also not equivalent to launching double the munitions. A single munition costs more than getting a few more planes up in the air.

So you allow for the idea of a downing by a single Tor-M1 deployed by Iran but completely dismiss the possibility of a downing by the entire Syrian air defense grid, with possible Russian indirect support?

Yes. All Syrian air defense systems are constantly tracked, among many other types of assets.
There are several ways to track them consistently, but if you bring a new system from another theater entirely, bring it in disassembled, and assemble it below radar, then you can disguise it for a prolonged period of time quite effectively.
What it would have over Syrian AD is that Israelis weren't supposed to know about its existence at all.
But it did know, because of some classified factors I'm not at liberty to talk about.

The technical aspect by which Iran COULD attempt to use the system to fulfill its purpose, was already explained, and will be further expanded on below.

That's exactly what I'm doubting. If the Iranians were serious, why not just fund another "Syrian" Pantsyr purchase and this time opt for the S2 or SM variant? They could get dozens of systems, legally, from Russia, and drastically improve their ability to down Israeli PGM and possibly even aircraft if used in ambush like you suggest.

Because they would again be highly visible to Israeli intelligence.
Technically, these systems have unknown anti-EW, and so the effect of Israeli EW on them is unknown. But we do know several such units were already destroyed.
It is possible Russia built them "light", having no anti-EW capabilities other than computerized ones, but keeping them effective in an EW-heavy environment by linking them with higher tier air defenses and dedicated EW systems which Syria doesn't have.

The Tor requires a radar and so requires revealing the system electronically, at least briefly, to fire. The Pantsyr can use EO for a completely passive shootdown. They're also a system that already exists and easier to mix in with the existing force of Pantsyrs. Deploying a single Tor-M1 seems worse then nothing.

Iran does not have Pantsirs in large quantities to spare. The Tor however does fulfill a niche that local air defenses can already fulfill, and is strategically less important to Iran as it invests in more modern, longer range systems. Depending on one's doctrine, a Pantsir could be a Tor replacement.
Anyway, think of this as a 2nd F-117 shootdown.
You deploy your system under cover, not tracked (or so they might think) by Israeli intelligence because it's not Syrian, in a site Israel might use in the following months, dig in and try to avoid detection at all times. And only when the unit gets a visual ID, start up the system and fire.
Plenty of places to conceal it.

How do you figure this? In my opinion there is a significant political difference between downing an aircraft actually inside your airspace, and firing into neighboring airspace. Also, with Israel, according to you, conducting penetrating raids into Syrian airspace and bombing targets at will including Syrian army targets, you still think that Syria has a responsibility not to fire into Israeli airspace? This strikes me as a massive double standard.

That's not some international law. It's just the dynamics between Israel and Syria. Many countries may have red flags for one another that others would definitely tolerate.

I'm not a fan of twitter in general, nor the Jerusalem Post, but I have not been able to find, in the limited time I spent just now, the official statement from the IDF itself, in its entirety, regarding this incident. If you can point me in the right direction it would be appreciated.

The Times of Israel is a very reliable source. It's politically non-aligned and is also very professional. Unlike JPost for example, which often shoves opinions into factual reporting, creating a mess.
But the best reports on the incident came from TheWarZone.
First report on day 1:

Russian IL-20 Surveillance Plane Went Down Off Syrian Coast During Israeli Missile Barrage (Updated)

The Il-20 disappeared as Syrian air defenses responded to an Israeli strike. Russia has insinuated that a French frigate may have been involved.

www.thedrive.com

Second, better formed report:

Russia's Claim That Israeli F-16s Used Their Doomed Il-20 Spy Plane As Cover Doesn't Add Up

It's not clear how the Kremlin might respond after the embarrassing incident in which Syrian forces accidentally shot down the Russian aircraft.

www.thedrive.com

The first Russian version was that a French frigate fired the missile that downed the Il-20 plane.

The second version, appearing in the picture posted on TWZ, showed a route taken by the IAF of arrival, missile drop, and immediate departure, taking place between 22:00 and 22:10. Russia mentioned specifically GBU-39 bombs.

The final version tells Israeli planes dropped their munitions at 21:40 and proceeded to patrol.
At 21:51 Syrian AD started firing.
At 22:03 the Il-20 was hit.
At 22:40 Israeli planes left the area.

A few notes:
1)GBU-39, alleged by Russia to be used, have no man in the loop capability, so aircraft don't need to patrol unless they want BDA. To do BDA, they have to fly close to the target, not 100km away, especially during night time.
Sats do BDA if needed.
2)Even at maximum range, 10 minutes to glide 100km is about as much as it can possibly take. Waiting 11 minutes to start firing S-200 missiles at something that should have already hit by then, would be ineffective.
3)12 minutes between starting of Syrian AD firing and an impact on an Il-20 shows Syria fired a large number of munitions.
4)If the Il-20 was a decoy, Israeli planes should have left immediately after it was hit, not more than half an hour.