Russia is claiming to have shot down a Brit Storm Shadow

 

Russian Air Defenses Destroy Kiev's UK-Supplied Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles https://t.co/dPdpfPhZiS pic.twitter.com/DRmaCbsUlb

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) May 27, 2023

I'm definitely not a missile defense guy but I always thought that cruise missile made little sense UNLESS you sent a metric shit load of them at a target.

From my chair air defense on land seems to be much more difficult than at sea.

Take an assault against a fixed target on land.  It can't move.  You can pile up defenses to protect but then those defenses become targets.  It can get expensive but a coordinated attack against a range of fixed targets stand a better chance of success than the same against an old fashioned surface action group.

Against an SAG you're facing air defense destroyers that are all equipped with long and short range air defense missiles.  They can move at speed.  They're able to mask their emissions and send out decoys etc...

If Russia did destroy a Storm Shadow then that's bad news for Ukraine.

That means Russia has doped out the missiles metrics.  Ukraine only has a limited supply.  Even worse they probably running short of delivery aircraft.

If Russia pivots towards making a concerted effort to knock down the "archer" instead of the "arrow" then they can effectively nullify the Storm Shadow poste haste.

Question.  Can the F-16 even carry the missile?