Originally Posted by
A_Van
It was said here by the Russian media that the Russian military were informed shortly before the strike and they were assured that the parts of this base where their personnel might be located would not be hit.
Military wise I wonder why that many missiles were launched (59)? Are Tomahawks so ineffective?
The effectiveness of TLAM is well proven over decades of use. Airfields are large targets and hardened facilities need at least a warhead each, with larger ones needing more.
Missile attrition rates en-route to target would have been an unknown factor though. Russia (and therefore Syria) were pre-alerted so able to bring their IADS to bear in order to protect their base. Early reports suggest that the assembled defensive systems had little effect on the inbound strike. If this is to believed then this is a surprisingly ineffective display by Russian air defence systems.