Call me an unrepentant, untrained civilian, but they didn't actually seem to come as close to what they were aiming at as NATO ordinarily do.

Russian cockpit video 'shows Syria air strikes' - BBC News

Or may be NATO is only releasing the good ones.

deptrai,

Thanks, from a better informed curious bystander. Nice bit of kit by the looks of it.

Smudge :ok:

Phil_r, depends on wether they were dumb bombing or using smart weapons. The pod view doesn't necessarily mean they were using smarts. Imho of course, there will be better qualified answers soon.

One of the videos shown on BBC this morning appeared to show the use of a cluster weapon (several small bursts over quite a large area)..... are they back on the menu these days?

Looks like an airburst. No need to 'hit' the target with the bomb itself if you set it for an airburst. The 'bad' guys fall down over a much larger radius than with a contact or delay detonation.

The US, Russian and China did not sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Here is a list of those countries that have

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conven...States_Parties

Already the US and UK are bitching that Russian anti-terrorist strikes in Syria are attacking the 'wrong' terrorists.

Sounds a bit like British Rail and "the wrong type of snow".

But the ones they are striking are those backed, funded, and equipped by Turkey, Saudi and other Sunni Gulf states.

This could ugly, fast.

At least one or two of the terrorist outfits there is funded and trained and supplied by the godalmighty US of A, so yes, there may be trouble ahead.

'One of the videos shown on BBC this morning appeared to show the use of a cluster weapon (several small bursts over quite a large area)..... are they back on the menu these days?'

I think the 'small bursts' were shrapnel, the actual bomb burst is just off the bottom of the screen.

Russia apparently using OFAB-250 fragmentation bombs:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQOazC_VAAEJvJV.png

There is no evidence of them going after any ISIS targets.
They are bombing the USA/Saudi/Turkish backed anti Assad rebels who are the ones actually fighting him.

Using non precision bombs in civilian areas will only create more refugees.

Ref http://www.cat-uxo.com/#/ofab-250-270-bomb/4583666019
 

The OFAB 250-270 (OФAБ 250- 270) is a thick cased High Explosive Fragmentation bomb designed to produce a large quantity of lethal fragments effective at long distance and blast overpressure for destructive effect at shorter distances.

The bomb casing is internally grooved to assist break up into optimum sized fragments and is 25mm thick at the central parallel section of the bomb.

The rounded nose section is considerably thicker to add strength.

The tail cone, which is explosive filled, is sheet steel no more than 4 mm thick.

The bomb has two fuze wells, one in the nose and one in the tail into which are normally fitted impact and inertia/impact fuzes (respectively).

There are eight fins welded onto the tail section into which are fitted two strengthening rings, one inner, and one outer.

The nose section has a hollow steel “Kopf “anti-ricochet ring welded on (this ring often breaks off on impact with the ground).

The bomb has two centrally located suspension lugs, and on the opposite side a single suspension lug and may be found fitted with either a nose or a tail fuze or occasionally with both.

The charge /weight ratio of the bomb is approximately 35/65.

That's going to ruin your day.....

More than 50 Russian aircraft involved now:
TASS: Military & Defense - Russia destroys IS headquarters in Al-Latamna suburb with ground bomb
That ramped up quickly.

Putin has ordered the conscription of 147,000 troops from October 1 according to the Kremlin press service.

:confused: Uh, is he thinking of a "boots on the ground" approach in Syria? Need to mull that over, I don't see how an injection of Russian troops makes this mess any better, and particularly on the home political front for him.

*scratches head*

Need to give this the old 48 hour waiting period.

It's not only Russia putting "boots on the ground." According to the news here Iran is already sending ground forces in and Lebanese Hezbollah forces will be joining them shortly.

This could get very interesting very fast. Be interesting to see how Obama handles this one.

Bob C

Israeli SIGINT activity:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQPt4fEUYAAr3k7.jpg

Are they going to join in?

2 Eclectic


You wrote: "There is no evidence of them going after any ISIS targets.
They are bombing the USA/Saudi/Turkish backed anti Assad rebels who are the ones actually fighting him.
Using non precision bombs in civilian areas will only create more refugees. "




Who told you that? CNN? BBC? Were they flying wing-to-wing with Su-24M?
BTW, looks like the propaganda you referred to was pushed through the Net before the planes took off.


But in general, IMHO, Russian AF could hardly do more than the US one did, i.e. next to nothing. Chasing jihhadists dispersed in the desert at night time by warplanes proved to be inefficient since Afganistan campaigns.

AV, but boots on the ground, something NATO is now shy of doing, can bring better results.

AV
There are many non BBC sources.
eg
Homs Media Centre: https://www.facebook.com/Homs.Media.Center
Syrian Human Rights Observatory: Syrian Observatory For Human Rights | Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

And on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/JulianRoepcke
https://twitter.com/RamiAlLolah
https://twitter.com/markito0171
https://twitter.com/NorthernStork

And many more!