[YNet News] Expert says Turkey was not aware Syrian forces capable of intercepting enemy planes flying under radar. US officials: Damascus...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world...
beefed up missile defense after Israel bombed reactor
Ummm... The aircraft was an F4, which was 1960s (actually late '50s) technology, doing, if I recall, a radar calibration run. If it was shot down with hotshot technology developed by the Medes and the Persians that could be anything from '60s junk on up to whatever's current in Qom. Our guys over Hanoi and similar garden spots used to have enough trouble with SA-2's and SA-3's, which were definitely '50s junk. The F4's were pretty good for shooting down MiG-21s, though...
Syrian news outlets quoted a military expert as saying that the anti-aircraft weapons used to down a Turkish fighter jet last weekend were made in Iran, Al-Quds al-Arabi reported Wednesday.
 ... as opposed to made in the Soviet Union when Khrushchev was the head cheese...According to the Arabic newspaper, the Syrian expert said Damascus purchased an Iranian-made anti-aircraft gun two years ago. He said the gun can be mounted on armored vehicles.
Since the ZSU-23-4 came with its own 'armored' vehicle, that could simply refer to the old standby 14.5mm mounted on most Soviet-era tanks. I was flying in a P2V in 1968 that got holed by a stoopid 37mm that was pre-World War II stuff. The tracking system's the important thing.
The expert said the downed Turkish jet flew at a low altitude so as not to be detected by the Syrian radar. However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk...
the expert said, the Turkish crew was not aware that the Syrian air force was in possession of a weapon capable of intercepting planes flying at such a low altitude.
 When they shot us we were at 8000 feet. They could see us, fergawdsake.
'Syrian system is much more dense'
Meanwhile,...back at the pond, the radioactive tadpoles grown into frogs. Really big frogs, in fact...
the Seattle Times
That's where I always go for authoritative stories on miltech, by Gum...
quoted American security officials as saying that Syria's downing of the Turkish jet showed its military is capable of mounting a sophisticated defense against potential enemies, thus "complicating a Libyan-style intervention."
 At least Libyan-style interventions using antique aircraft. On the other hand, if we took out all the radar sites in Syria there'd probably be some other reason we couldn't possibly stomp the bastards into Hades' back pocket...
The US officials said Syria's air defense systems have been beefed up by purchases from Russia following the bombing a Syrian nuclear reactor under construction five years ago. Foreign media said the attack was carried out by Israel. Has Syria ever actually shot down an Israeli aircraft? None spring to mind...
US military officials were quoted as saying that, at least on paper, the Syrian air defenses appear to be far more robust than those encountered by NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
in Libya and stronger than even Iran's. Â "I can name you worse (systems), but they are in places like China," said an Air Force official.
 Take that, General Tso!
According to the Seattle Times, defense officials and military analysts say defeating Syria's air defenses would require a sustained US military effort that would probably lead to civilian casualties. That's usually the case, especially when the enemy's in the habit of putting AA sites in the vicinity of concentrations of civilians. In the case of Syria I'd expect to see major command posts located in hospitals and kindergartens around Homs and places like that.
| That's ok, then. By the time we turn our attention in that direction, everyone in Homs will be dead or fled. |
 I used to be an intel analyst. I specialized (once Vietnam was over) in Soviet systems. I wasn't an expert in air defense systems, though. Everything I write on the subject is either opinion or scar tissue. I have no idea what Jeffrey White used to do for a living but I suspect it wasn't air def systems.
The experts said the Syrian air defenses are also more tightly integrated than the Iraqi or the Libyan systems, allowing Syrian military officers at disparate sites to share targeting information gleaned from radar.
Whoa! Nobody else can do that... Oh. Wait.