ORIGINAL: katukov
ORIGINAL: Iron Mike Golf
@katukov: Missile model also implies missile age. And that can go to malfunction rate. And the article does not say who's stocks the missiles come from. Just that the Saudis are delivering. So, if they are old, another good question is "Who has maintained them?"
Someone watched all those videos with the TOW launches and here's some statistics.
32 were launched against the tanks. 10 without any doubt destroyed the tank ( 31% ), 9 missed ( 28% ) and 13 hit the tank but a kill cannot be confirmed ( 40 % ). In those cases the tank was probably damaged/immobilized. Of course some of those were actually kills, but it's also worth keeping in mind, that the rebels don't post online some portion of the misses. This statistics is interesting from the point of view of RS, because Syrian forces field vintage T-55, T-62, T-72A/M models. It seems that the ATGMs manage to score a certain kill in about 30-40% of the cases.
TOW are very deadly.. If the TOW operator is safe.
In egyptian-Israel war, the anti-tank missiles were first very deadly (like what you report)... unless the Israel tank operator learned to fire machine-gun immediatly at the missile departure area. The effiency quickly drop to almost 0%. You can't really concentrate on guiding a missile when under heavy machinegun fire ^^ (even poorly aimed)
It seem Syrian Arab Army Tank operators haven't mastered that. (Or can't see the missiles departures ): In any case, that need combat-ready, cold-blood, well trained tank operators (as any tank operator should be ^^)
A small map, with signaled TOW fires (red dots) and russian airstrikes (white stars) in a sector near alaouïte land:
Many other maps: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... rikes.html
Note the russians have merged all "pro-Assad" brigades and militias in the new "4th SAA army corps" (75.000 soldiers in training now) and started to train and command it. Expect these guys ready in 2 more months.
https://www.facebook.com/syrianmilitary ... 673981982/
This war has just begun... (I don't really expect anything from the actual "peace talks": it's just bargaining some time)
