"Russian Navy rolls a "1"" Topic

News sources report that 4 Russian cruise missiles launched at Syria from the Mediterranean Sea missed their targets and hit Iran instead.
That's quite a miss.

Lol! I got the feeling the real purpose of the Caspian Sea strikes was to showcase capabilities, so this doesn't look good for Putin…

Damon.

It's ill wind that blows no good.

Doesn't matter because Russia writes history the way they want: scoring 100% direct hits on ISIS terrorists, no civilian casualties.

It's not as if Iran will dispute it.

I wonder how fast will it take for those cruise missiles to make it to America?

It'not like there are no terrorists in Iran…

So if they launch ICBMs at us they'll only hit Canada or Mexico…

This what happens when you dont train or test and retest your weapons. What looks good on paper and simulations may not work that way in the real world. Just goes to show how bad Russia has gotten since the fall. Let them keep it up for a couple of more months and their arm sales will fall off to nothing.

Pin pricks. Unless they are nukes it is only something to argue about, and start a war over.

I don't think showcasing the missiles was that important. Using them in an actual combat situation also matters. They will use the data from this to improve them.

And its not like any western systems or their operators have a perfect track record either

It seems their problem is QC. Sometimes their stuff works as advertised…sometimes it doesn't.

But like David said, our hardware isn't fault-free either. Did people forget about when a mortar round killed some Marines in training, and we stopped using *ALL* rounds from that particular batch of ammo, worldwide, as a result?

The case that there were 4 misses seems a bit thin no named source. Many reports used invertd commas. Perhaps they missed because of pique that can happen in the fog of war.

From what I read these were launched from the Caspian Sea, not the Med, so they were routed over Iran. My guess is that they had some kind of navigational error and crashed into mountainous terrain before crossing Iraq and then into Syria. Still, having four of them not get anywhere near their target isn't a good sign.

Aw … come on guys … when's the last time them Russkies launched those kind of missiles from the sea ? But generally in most cases, if those missiles makes it to Syria … they are bound to hit something worthwhile. From the West's POV …

Who in Syria legitimately can be considered the "good guys"?
In isolation any of those factions could be considered an enemy.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" should not be the bedrock of your foreign policy.
And if it whacks targets in Iran, well shed no tears there either.

The enemy of my enemy is still probably my enemy, and he'll remember that the first chance he gets.

Where would we have been if we had applied morality to our alliance with Stalin in WW2? In that case, certainly the enemy of my enemy applied, and we acted in our best interests.

Today we want allies, and we only want to support those who have out values. We need to go back to "realpolitik" where our diplomacy is based on what's in our best interest. I'd love to support only those with our values, but that ain't the real world.

Surprised they didn't have a higher than 15% failure rate.

Of course, they can never admit to that type of error, and all their strikes are hitting "ISIS" targets, and not injuring any civilians either.

Man, we need some better propaganda people……

Where is our Borodino Boris when we need him?

Where would we have been if we had applied morality to our alliance with Stalin in WW2?

70-75% of the Germans died on the Eastern Front. The USSR rolled up the IJFs in Manchuria/China in about 6 day once they crossed border. After the Germans were defeated … As far as the Russians are concern … they won WWII … And some may have to agree.

I totally agree. Without the Russians Hitler would either have won, or gone down so slowly that it would have cost untold British and American lives. It was an impossible "alliance" anyway, so imagining the USSR and Hitler's Reich in amicable parity after dividing the spoils is silly. Then once the break came, whenever else it might have come, Russian aggression would have been essential to victory….

Russian influence affected WWII before there was a WWII.

In 1939, the Russians soundly defeated the Imperial Japanese Army in Manchuria at the battle of Khalkin Ghol. They stopped IJA advances to get at Russia's resource-rich far eastern lands using superior air and massed armor tactics. This defeat so shocked the Japanese that they turned their eyes towards the Pacific and adopted an American strategy -never giving the Russians trouble again.

This veteran eastern Russian army, headed by Zhukov, then went on to relieve the siege of Stalingrad and never stopped until Berlin.

Yes, that is a critical battle, and Zhukov got very good experience.

A return to something pertinent to the original topic of this post:

On the surface, claims that four cruise missiles failed to reach their targets should have generated little alarm or concern among either military professionals or those in the media who report on such matters. After all, the United States has been employing naval-fired long range cruise missiles – the BGM-109, or "Tomahawk" – in combat operations since 1991, and the reality associated with operational malfunctions and other technical issues that arise from the employment of technologically advanced weapons systems are known all-too-well. During the Gulf War in 1991, 297 Tomahawks were attempted to be fired by the US Navy. Nine failed to leave their launch tubes, and six suffered booster malfunctions which caused them to fall into the water shortly after launch, representing a 5% failure rate on launch. Of the 282 missiles successfully launched, 245 hit their targets; 37 did not. The Pentagon claims that Iraq shot down between two and six Tomahawks, meaning that between 31 and 35 Tomahawks went "astray", or around 12% of the missiles launched. These calculations are consistent with the Pentagon's claims of an approximate 85% success rate for the Tomahawk during that conflict.

The Trouble with Missiles

Interesting link, Aristonicus! This in particular:

"The United States knows all-to-well the potential backlash that can occur when a cruise missile goes astray – in late March, 2003, the United States was compelled to reposition ships in the Mediterranean and Red Seas when seven Tomahawk missiles intended for Iraq wound up on Turkish and Saudi Arabian soil, prompting both those governments to close their air space to American cruise missiles. Three other stray Tomahawks ended up hitting targets in Iran, prompting the Iranian government to file official complaints with the British and Swiss embassies (the Swiss represent American interests in Iran, given the lack of diplomatic relations between the two.)"