Syria: Air strike capabilities significantly reduced after US bombing

By Nedžad Ahatović

President Trump approved limited strikes on Syrian Army targets from which chemical weapons attacks were launched on the night between April 6 and 7. At 02:30 Central European Time, two American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, USS Porter and USS Ross, fired 59 medium-range TLAM-C missiles at the Shayrat air base of the Syrian Air Force. After the American bombing, the air strike capabilities from this base were significantly reduced.

Twenty aircraft on the ground were hit, and dozens of aircraft shelters, fuel, and ammunition depots within the base were destroyed, while the base's missile air defense system was completely disabled.

At the same time, the safety of Russian personnel stationed at this base was not jeopardized at any moment. The Americans even informed the Russian Ministry of Defense three times that strikes would be carried out, so that their personnel could be evacuated in time.

Incidentally, TLAM-C – Tomahawk Land Attack Missile – missiles are the most precise large-caliber conventional missile weapon on planet Earth. These missiles use the Loral Digital Scene-Mapping Area Correlator (DSMAC) system. The DSMAC system works on the principle of digital terrain mapping, which is then processed in detail with special computers to create a very precise digital map or maps of the missile's trajectory, which are then loaded into the warhead's computer. The operator on the ship or submarine can then select one of the offered trajectories and load it into the warhead upon launch, and during the missile's flight, the operator can make manual corrections to avoid countermeasures or change one or more of the missile's flight paths towards the target depending on the situation.

The precision of this system has an impressive tolerance for this weapon of only 10 meters over 1500 km.

TLAM-C missiles weigh approximately 1.2 tons, are 5.5 meters long, with a stabilizer wing span of 2.74 m. With their jet engines, TLAM-C missiles develop a maximum speed of 919 km/h and can fly at an altitude of only 15 meters, while their warhead weight ranges from 450 to 550 kg. The operational range, depending on the variant used, varies between 2500 km for the TLAM-N, which carries a nuclear warhead, to 1300 or 1700 km for the TLAM-C/D, which carry conventional warheads.