What did Russia gain from the US missile launch into Syria?

The head of the Russian General Staff's Operations Directorate, Sergey Rudskoy, said last week that two failed US-led cruise missiles were captured by the Syrian army and handed over to Russia for inspection.

According to experts, dissecting these relatively intact bullets will give Russia the opportunity to study their features and methods of operation, in order to counter future attacks by the US and its allies, according toPopular Mechanics.

In theory, cruise missiles are disposable weapons, designed to give away little if they crash. But major powers can still extract a wealth of intelligence and technical data from enemy unexploded shells.

The process of dissecting enemy missiles to study and redesign them into one's own weaponshas been used many times by other countries. The Soviet Union once developed the K-13 short-range air-to-air missile based on an AIM-9 Sidewinder that hit the tail of a Chinese fighter without exploding.

During the 1998 US Tomahawk cruise missile attack on a Taliban base in Afghanistan, six missiles strayed into Pakistan. Pakistani and Chinese scientists apparently studied these Tomahawk missiles and applied their research results to their domestic weapons programs.

However, the value of today’s missiles lies not in their design for duplication, but in the weaknesses that can be exploited to counter them in the future. This may be the outcome with the two coalition missiles transferred by Damascus to Moscow.

Initially, the missile will be put into a clean room where engineers can study the guidance system and the rudder. This will allow them to understand how the missile tracks its target. Any new guidance and flight correction methods of enemy missiles will be discovered during this electronic dissection.

The missile's "brain" is then continuously tested to aim and fly towards its target. Thousands of hours of simulations allow the team to change each parameter, testing every little detail of the electronics and control software. British company BAE Systems once tested a missile brain nonstop for more than seven years.

Antennas can be dissected to find weaknesses against jamming schemes, while engines can help determine the infrared signature of a projectile. Location data can also be used to map future defense radars.

Captured missiles are also used to evaluate electronic countermeasures. Engineers can shine a laser directly at the infrared seeker to find its threshold, which can help develop more effective countermeasures and build a database for more realistic simulation scenarios.

Dissecting the cruise missiles captured from Syria will help Russia improve its air defense system in Syria, supporting Damascus and many other countries in developing plans to deal with large-scale cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies in the future, analyst Joe Pappalardo commented.