Russian military intervention and aid to Syria #6

Solncepek wrote:

KiloGolf wrote:
Airbus sat image of Syria's Al-Shayrat AB on 8 Nov...

Mate, today is 11. of December...

Yeah I know, if you have anything more recent please post it.

"The Fourth Division of the Syrian army has been equipped with at least 6 modern T-90MS Tagil tanks, provided by the Russian Federation. Their function is to help the Syrian Arab Army advance in the southern province of Aleppo.

The exact date of their deployment in Syria is shrouded in mystery. Some say they have been on the ground since early September, other sources indicate their presence as a new development thanks to recent agreements between Damascus and Moscow, including rumors of a delivery of the S -300 to the Syrian Arab Republic."



Wait wut?

Source: http://russia-insider.com/en/syrias-arsenal-gets-major-boost-t90-tow-killer-tanks/ri11778

There are at least 8 Su-34 in Hmeymim now.

Judging by serial numbers some claim S400 in Syria could have been actually armed with 48N6.

Missile transporter in Syria.

Militarov wrote:"The Fourth Division of the Syrian army has been equipped with at least 6 modern T-90MS Tagil tanks, provided by the Russian Federation. Their function is to help the Syrian Arab Army advance in the southern province of Aleppo.

The exact date of their deployment in Syria is shrouded in mystery. Some say they have been on the ground since early September, other sources indicate their presence as a new development thanks to recent agreements between Damascus and Moscow, including rumors of a delivery of the S -300 to the Syrian Arab Republic."



Wait wut?

Source: http://russia-insider.com/en/syrias-arsenal-gets-major-boost-t90-tow-killer-tanks/ri11778

The fcuk? Sure Soviet Auxiliary Army it is. Happy hunting to the boys if true.

But really, if the Russians commit ground troops, I'm not against. At all. To those who claim Afghanistan 2.0, maybe they should check again. Right now it's Somalia in Syria. If this can become Afghanistan circa 1988, it would be a damn progress.

KoTeMoRe wrote:.......................................................
The fcuk? Sure Soviet Auxiliary Army it is. Happy hunting to the boys if true.

But really, if the Russians commit ground troops, I'm not against. At all. To those who claim Afghanistan 2.0, maybe they should check again. Right now it's Somalia in Syria. If this can become Afghanistan circa 1988, it would be a damn progress.

IMHO it is a stupid idea and a sure fire way to lose all support for this war at home. This is Syrian land, let Syrians bleed for it.

KiloGolf wrote:

Solncepek wrote:

KiloGolf wrote:
Airbus sat image of Syria's Al-Shayrat AB on 8 Nov...

Mate, today is 11. of December...

Yeah I know, if you have anything more recent please post it.

That must be the SAF upgrading that base if this is what Moscow said on Wednesday via RT

We really do need an up to date photo, like the US/NATO has.

The Russian Defense Ministry has quashed rumors about setting up another military base in Syria. There is “no operational need” to establish a new installation as Russian warplanes can already easily reach the farthest parts of Syria, an MoD spokesman said.

Last week reports emerged about a Russian task force preparing to be deployed at Shayrat military airfield in Syria’s Homs province. “You don’t need to be a serious military expert to understand that it takes only a 30-40 minute flight to the furthest Syrian location from the [existing] Khmeimim military airfield hosting the Russian Air Force,” Major General Igor Konashenkov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told a media briefing on Wednesday.

“There is no operational need to deploy a new Russian airbase on Syrian territory,” Konashenkov added.

S300 in SAA hands?

Max Italy wrote:

S300 in SAA hands?

Its actually tractor for spare missiles.

It certainly would not hurt to deploy a bunch of Ka-52s to Kuweires to act as close air support to forces nearby.

What about Deir Ezzor BTW? Maybe it would be possible to deploy reinforcements and start a new offensive on Raqqa from there?

Now Assad denies it, so perhaps this is going to be an upgraded SAF base with 'visits' by the largest RuAF planes and helicopters but no large semi permanent Russian presence.

President Assad has refuted information about a second possible Russian military base in Syria and said that President Putin has not asked for anything in return for Russian military assistance in fighting against Daesh; the comments came in an interview the Syrian leader granted the Spanish news agency EFE.

President Assad has given a lengthy interview to the Spanish news agency EFE where he touched upon various topics. Here are the highlights of his conversation.

He refuted any information on the possible opening of Russia’s second military base in Syria. “No, that’s not true, and two days ago, they denied this allegation. If there is, they would have announced it, and we would have announced it at the same time, so no,” he said.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151211/1031604808/assad-interview-russia-base.html#ixzz3u1mBUoh7

KoTeMoRe wrote:
But really, if the Russians commit ground troops, I'm not against. At all. To those who claim Afghanistan 2.0, maybe they should check again. Right now it's Somalia in Syria. If this can become Afghanistan circa 1988, it would be a damn progress.

It's already exponentially better than the Soviet-Afghanistan theater, for '5' very good reasons:

1.) ECM assets are way better/flexible and more useful than they were in the Afghan theater, in which now they could do everything from jamming Jihadi comms, jamming spy satellites to prevent tactical and strategic sitrep, to masking movements of your allied counter-insurgency.

2.) The assets and tactics to counter insurgency orientated asymmetrical warfare is several times better than they were in the 1980's. Everything from vastly improved ERA, PPS, APS, significantly better thermal imagery,to developing and deploying BMPT's alongside your armored columns and better developed BMS with the help of UAV's/micro-UAV's and UCAV's. There's also standoff ATGM's fitted with HE-Frag warheads (Kornet-M) mounted on your Tiger-M trucks, which are capable of destroying jihadist makeshift bunkers/positions from 10 km's away. There's Richarg-AV ECM and DIRCM's which should be useful in defeating Jihadi manpads. And last but not least there's also anti-mine/IED ECM systems developed and deployed that when working in combination with each other they are capable of defeating anti-tank mines/IED's with significant stand off range of 300 meters, covering an area that is 600 meters in diameter:

https://www.russiadefence.net/t3199p870-russian-ground-forces-news-2#125771


3.) Russia has millions of Shia practitioners at their disposal from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, who live indigenous within the warzones and who are determined because their families, lives and livelihoods are at stake.

4.) When things are said and done, and if proven successful, Russian companies will likely be the biggest winners in everything from arms, hydrocarbon, and reconstruction contracts/projects, and don't rule out the EU financing it because it'll probably prove to be much cheaper, practical and more popular to rebuild Iraq/Syria than it would be to house, integrate, and financially support the migrants while undergoing financial austerity budget cuts.

5.) It's much cheaper to operate the Russian armed forces compared to the Soviet armed forces because of the Ruble devaluation, and let's just look at the value of the Soviet Ruble and the Russian Ruble in respect to the U.S. Dollar in their respective time periods:

Back in the late 1980's the Soviet Ruble had nearly 'double' the value the U.S. Dollar had, keep in mind the 1980's U.S. Dollar is significantly more valuable than the U.S. Dollar circa 2015, then lets contrast that with Russian Rouble circa 2015.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/31/world/soviet-military-budget-128-billion-bombshell.html

There's also a study conducted by CRI "Electronics", (a Russian based research institute and think thank with a main focus on technology and industrial production) that believes that the Ruble devaluation should increase military supply procurement from '20-60%':

https://www.russiadefence.net/t2358p255-state-armaments-program-2011-2020#118685


....With those '5' points being stated, I still don't agree with a major Russian ground force deployment.  

PapaDragon wrote:
IMHO it is a stupid idea and a sure fire way to lose all support for this war at home. This is Syrian land, let Syrians bleed for it.

I agree 100%, a much better idea would be to 'turn up the heat' in Yemen and in southern Turkey, and utilize ECM assets to mask the presence and movement of the Houthis and the PKK Kurds respectively. I remember reading '1' month ago a news article from Lebanon, that due to the quagmire the GCC vermin were experiencing in Yemen, Turkey was forced to airlift '1000' ISIS rats to help their fellow vermin in Yemen. Clearly if you want to diminish the threat of Sunni Jihadi's in Syria/Iraq, one way to go about it is to make the southern borders of the GCC/Turkey completely inhospitable for their military forces.

Russia supplies weapons only to Syrian government army, not to Free Syrian Army — Kremlin

Earlier, Vladimir Putin said that the operation of Russia’s air group in Syria promotes consolidation of efforts of both government troops and the Free Syrian Army

MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. Russia is supplying weapons to Syria’s government troops but not to the Free Syrian Army, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, commenting on President Vladimir Putin’s statement on Russia’s support to the Syrian moderate opposition.

"No, Russia is supplying weapons to the Syrian Arab Republic, to Syria’s legitimate authorities," he said when asked whether Russia supplied arms to the so-called moderate opposition in Syria.

Earlier on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a board meeting of the Russian defense ministry that the operation of Russia’s air group in Syria "promotes consolidation of efforts of both government troops and the Free Syrian Army." "Now, a number of its units numbering more than 5,000 and the regular forces are conducting an offensive against terrorists in the provinces of Homs, Hama, Aleppo and Raqqah," he said. "Apart from that, we offer them air support, as we support the Syria army helping them with weapons, munitions and materiel."

"Dialogue is maintained and contacts are conducted with certain representatives [of the moderate opposition - TASS]," Peskov noted. "Moderate forces who have been found to have no relations with terrorists can be partners in the dialogue and such dialogue is taken into account in the course of the Russian air force operation in Syria."

Russia’s Aerospace Forces launched pinpoint strikes against the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra targets in Syria on September 30 after the Federation Council upper parliament house unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request for the use of the armed forces against terrorists in Syria. The Russian air group in Syria comprises more than 50 warplanes and helicopters, including Su-34 and Su-24M bombers, Su-25 attack aircraft, Su-30SM fighters and Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters. Air strikes are delivered at military hardware, communications centers, transport vehicles, munitions depots and other terrorist infrastructure facilities. The military operation is conducted at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Russia has repeatedly said it does not plan to take part in any ground operations in Syria.

4 additional Su-34 deployed in Hmeymim Airbase



http://bmpd.livejournal.com/1622099.html

Mi-35's have arrived in Latakia



start of video (00:10 - 00:18)

SAA soldier with toys behind him

Cyberspec wrote:Mi-35's have arrived in Latakia

Yes, it is.

Militarov wrote:
SAA soldier with toys behind him

If they'd have SAA crews, I'm worried that they would just leave them behind when they'll get attacked by 5-10 slippers-wearing terrorists with AK. Or will park them in the open field and go smoke some hooka...

magnumcromagnon wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:
But really, if the Russians commit ground troops, I'm not against. At all. To those who claim Afghanistan 2.0, maybe they should check again. Right now it's Somalia in Syria. If this can become Afghanistan circa 1988, it would be a damn progress.

It's already exponentially better than the Soviet-Afghanistan theater, for '5' very good reasons:

1.) ECM assets are way better/flexible and more useful than they were in the Afghan theater, in which now they could do everything from jamming Jihadi comms, jamming spy satellites to prevent tactical and strategic sitrep, to masking movements of your allied counter-insurgency.

2.) The assets and tactics to counter insurgency orientated asymmetrical warfare is several times better than they were in the 1980's. Everything from vastly improved ERA, PPS, APS, significantly better thermal imagery,to developing and deploying BMPT's alongside your armored columns and better developed BMS with the help of UAV's/micro-UAV's and UCAV's. There's also standoff ATGM's fitted with HE-Frag warheads (Kornet-M) mounted on your Tiger-M trucks, which are capable of destroying jihadist makeshift bunkers/positions from 10 km's away. There's Richarg-AV ECM and DIRCM's which should be useful in defeating Jihadi manpads. And last but not least there's also anti-mine/IED ECM systems developed and deployed that when working in combination with each other they are capable of defeating anti-tank mines/IED's with significant stand off range of 300 meters, covering an area that is 600 meters in diameter:

https://www.russiadefence.net/t3199p870-russian-ground-forces-news-2#125771


3.) Russia has millions of Shia practitioners at their disposal from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, who live indigenous within the warzones and who are determined because their families, lives and livelihoods are at stake.

4.) When things are said and done, and if proven successful, Russian companies will likely be the biggest winners in everything from arms, hydrocarbon, and reconstruction contracts/projects, and don't rule out the EU financing it because it'll probably prove to be much cheaper, practical and more popular to rebuild Iraq/Syria than it would be to house, integrate, and financially support the migrants while undergoing financial austerity budget cuts.

5.) It's much cheaper to operate the Russian armed forces compared to the Soviet armed forces because of the Ruble devaluation, and let's just look at the value of the Soviet Ruble and the Russian Ruble in respect to the U.S. Dollar in their respective time periods:

Back in the late 1980's the Soviet Ruble had nearly 'double' the value the U.S. Dollar had, keep in mind the 1980's U.S. Dollar is significantly more valuable than the U.S. Dollar circa 2015, then lets contrast that with Russian Rouble circa 2015.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/31/world/soviet-military-budget-128-billion-bombshell.html

There's also a study conducted by CRI "Electronics", (a Russian based research institute and think thank with a main focus on technology and industrial production) that believes that the Ruble devaluation should increase military supply procurement from '20-60%':

https://www.russiadefence.net/t2358p255-state-armaments-program-2011-2020#118685


....With those '5' points being stated, I still don't agree with a major Russian ground force deployment.  

PapaDragon wrote:
IMHO it is a stupid idea and a sure fire way to lose all support for this war at home. This is Syrian land, let Syrians bleed for it.

I agree 100%, a much better idea would be to 'turn up the heat' in Yemen and in southern Turkey, and utilize ECM assets to mask the presence and movement of the Houthis and the PKK Kurds respectively. I remember reading '1' month ago a news article from Lebanon, that due to the quagmire the GCC vermin were experiencing in Yemen, Turkey was forced to airlift '1000' ISIS rats to help their fellow vermin in Yemen. Clearly if you want to diminish the threat of Sunni Jihadi's in Syria/Iraq, one way to go about it is to make the southern borders of the GCC/Turkey completely inhospitable for their military forces.

All of those factors aside, I believe the biggest flaw in calling Syria a "New Afghanistan" is that Syria lacks extreme topography. What few mountains there are, are more like hills, and are already controlled by the SAA forces. The SAA themselves have actually been highly effective in this terrain.

In Afghanistan, the terrain simply favors guerrilla forces. Mechanized forces have no choice but to operate on predictable routes, or face the Taliban infantry in 1 to 1 exchanges on foot. This provides an environment were mining routes, and setting ambushes can inflict serious and consistent loses on the superior force. Villages are almost impossible to cordon, and even if you secured them, the Taliban who occupied the village simply waits in the nearby mountains for the troops to move on. The rugged terrain is just too challenging of an obstacle to control.

In Syria, it's the opposite situation. It's like an archipelago of villages and small, unitary hills in a sea of emptiness. The infantry laden guerrillas, not the mechanized army, is forced to operate from predicable points that can be easily cordoned. The vast emptiness becomes a killing field instead of a safe heaven. The likelihood of Russia getting "bogged down" in this sterile environment is next to nil, there's no reason too believe otherwise.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:
But really, if the Russians commit ground troops, I'm not against. At all. To those who claim Afghanistan 2.0, maybe they should check again. Right now it's Somalia in Syria. If this can become Afghanistan circa 1988, it would be a damn progress.

It's already exponentially better than the Soviet-Afghanistan theater, for '5' very good reasons:

1.) ECM assets are way better/flexible and more useful than they were in the Afghan theater, in which now they could do everything from jamming Jihadi comms, jamming spy satellites to prevent tactical and strategic sitrep, to masking movements of your allied counter-insurgency.

2.) The assets and tactics to counter insurgency orientated asymmetrical warfare is several times better than they were in the 1980's. Everything from vastly improved ERA, PPS, APS, significantly better thermal imagery,to developing and deploying BMPT's alongside your armored columns and better developed BMS with the help of UAV's/micro-UAV's and UCAV's. There's also standoff ATGM's fitted with HE-Frag warheads (Kornet-M) mounted on your Tiger-M trucks, which are capable of destroying jihadist makeshift bunkers/positions from 10 km's away. There's Richarg-AV ECM and DIRCM's which should be useful in defeating Jihadi manpads. And last but not least there's also anti-mine/IED ECM systems developed and deployed that when working in combination with each other they are capable of defeating anti-tank mines/IED's with significant stand off range of 300 meters, covering an area that is 600 meters in diameter:

https://www.russiadefence.net/t3199p870-russian-ground-forces-news-2#125771


3.) Russia has millions of Shia practitioners at their disposal from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, who live indigenous within the warzones and who are determined because their families, lives and livelihoods are at stake.

4.) When things are said and done, and if proven successful, Russian companies will likely be the biggest winners in everything from arms, hydrocarbon, and reconstruction contracts/projects, and don't rule out the EU financing it because it'll probably prove to be much cheaper, practical and more popular to rebuild Iraq/Syria than it would be to house, integrate, and financially support the migrants while undergoing financial austerity budget cuts.

5.) It's much cheaper to operate the Russian armed forces compared to the Soviet armed forces because of the Ruble devaluation, and let's just look at the value of the Soviet Ruble and the Russian Ruble in respect to the U.S. Dollar in their respective time periods:

Back in the late 1980's the Soviet Ruble had nearly 'double' the value the U.S. Dollar had, keep in mind the 1980's U.S. Dollar is significantly more valuable than the U.S. Dollar circa 2015, then lets contrast that with Russian Rouble circa 2015.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/31/world/soviet-military-budget-128-billion-bombshell.html

There's also a study conducted by CRI "Electronics", (a Russian based research institute and think thank with a main focus on technology and industrial production) that believes that the Ruble devaluation should increase military supply procurement from '20-60%':

https://www.russiadefence.net/t2358p255-state-armaments-program-2011-2020#118685


....With those '5' points being stated, I still don't agree with a major Russian ground force deployment.  

PapaDragon wrote:
IMHO it is a stupid idea and a sure fire way to lose all support for this war at home. This is Syrian land, let Syrians bleed for it.

I agree 100%, a much better idea would be to 'turn up the heat' in Yemen and in southern Turkey, and utilize ECM assets to mask the presence and movement of the Houthis and the PKK Kurds respectively. I remember reading '1' month ago a news article from Lebanon, that due to the quagmire the GCC vermin were experiencing in Yemen, Turkey was forced to airlift '1000' ISIS rats to help their fellow vermin in Yemen. Clearly if you want to diminish the threat of Sunni Jihadi's in Syria/Iraq, one way to go about it is to make the southern borders of the GCC/Turkey completely inhospitable for their military forces.

Actually there's only one big reason to commit troops (and they're there, as you can see a whole T90A company in what looks Aleppo area). There's real people backing the Russians this time, people who want to survive, who've been fighting almost 5 years against those "moderates".

On a purely operational level, the Russians need to make examples. There needs to be a time-out on the BS JAN/ISIS pulls on the SAA. A single battalion in a well localized area can do wonders. Especially since the Russians don't care about ROE, nor are exactly keen on sparing terrorists for ecology reasons...

ult wrote:

Yes, it is.

Well about time....do we know how many?

Unfortunatley not Mi-35M"3" with vitebsk. Would be great opportunity to test it in combat and market Mi-35M as it is to further dominate helicopter market.

Just how quickly could Russia seal of Syrian borders with a taskforce of its own? Time would be critical, as I imagine the Empire across the way would go full-loco 100% proxy war and pour as many weapons as possible through Sultan-stan and Saudi land, as well as Golan Heights and Jordan, PR be damned. Are we talking a month-two months with a sizable taskforce? Or longer? The larger the fielded force obviously the longer it takes to deploy. Borders locked = no Afghan 2.0 and given the geography as has been mentioned a couple of times already, it's far more achievable.