Russian Armed Forces have started a rotation during the truce in Syria | Bolivie armee bolivienne equipements militaires FR

Defence & Security News - Conflict in Syria

Russian Armed Forces have started a rotation during the truce in Syria

The truce in Syria plays into the Russian air task force’s hands of to a certain extent. The Russian Armed Forces have started a rotation of not only the personnel of Khmeimim air base, but also the military advisors and specialists assisting the governmental troops of Bashar al-Assad.

Russian Su-30 aircraft at the Khmeimim airbase in Syria. © Dmitriy Vinogradov / RIA Novosti

There has been a rather tense situation as far as the special air brigade is concerned. Although the air crews rotating in had trained in Russia prior to their deployment, they had to be given familiarization rides in Syria for them to grasp the situation in the warzone, brush up their weapons application skills, etc. The rotation could not be accomplished quickly against this background. Therefore, the new arrivals were cleared for operations gradually, releasing the outgoing air crews.

The replacement of the aircraft was conducted in a smoother way. The Sukhoi Su-24M (NATO reporting name: Fencer) and Su-34 (Fullback) tactical bombers were subject to replacement first. Their rotation was supposed to begin as far back as late last year, but after Russia’s military-political authorities decided to beef up the air task force, the replacements came to Syria as reinforcements. The Russian Aerospace Force had to prepare extra aircraft, in particular, the first four new Su-24M tactical bombers headed for Khmeimim from Privolzhsky AFB near Astrakhan on February 27.

The rotation of the Su-25 (Frogfoot) attack aircraft fleet at Khmeimim is not planned yet. The close air support sortie rate has dropped sharply of late; hence, there has been an opportunity to maintain them appropriately.

The truce will enable Russian instructors to start training additional units of the Syrian governmental forces and, which is more, militias. The units pulled out from the front line will be manned to capacity and given their due materiel and supplies as appropriate.

Mention should be made that the fragile truce has become a kind of godsend for the maintainers of the Syrian Army and Russian military specialists assisting them. It allows a sharp increase in the combat systems in good running order through fixing and remanufacturing the old stockpiles of the Syrian Armed Forces.

Russian-made T-90S main battle tank in Latakia, Syria.

Late last week, there was a video of a T-90 tank on the Internet, which has been recently handed over by the Russian Army to the Syrian one. The video show as it was hit by a US-made TOW II antitank guided missile (ATGM) supplied to the moderate opposition either by Saudi Arabia or by the United States. The argument whether the tank and its crew survived the hit or not is still under way.

The missile hit the turret’s frontal arc head on near a light of the Shtora-1 countermeasures system. Owing to the explosive reactive armor, which kicked in the way it should be, and to the thickness and design of the main armor, the ATGM failed to destroy the tank, though its detonation damaged the sights and remote-controlled machinegun mount.

Why did the Shtora-1 countermeasures system not work? One version has it that it was plain off. The footage shows that its lights, albeit open, did not emit their characteristic red glow. On the other hand, according to a Russian officer familiar with the T-90, the lamps in the Shtora-1’s lights are not very bright in standby mode, because their service life is rather limited and has to be husbanded. It is impossible to determine whether the Shtora-1’s lights were on or off due to the poor quality of the footage and long distance to the target.

The Shtora-1 reacts to laser illumination. Depending on the type and power of the ‘painting’ laser beam, the system decides whether to dazzle the incoming threat with a light, deploy a smokescreen or traverse the turret with its weapons towards the attacker. The missiles of the TOW II systems are either wire-guided (older versions) or radio-guided (later variants). Actually, the ATGM system has the laser rangefinder as part of the guidance unit, but if the gunner is experienced and familiar with the terrain he operates in, he can do without the laser rangefinder, playing it by ear. In such a case, since the tank is not lased, the Shtora-1 becomes useless, because it cannot even see the incoming threat. As far as it is known, the T-90 is known to have both survived the hit and disengaged under its own power.