Days later the Iranians shot down a U.S. Global Hawk drone. This was no ordinary Global Hawk, it was a RQ-4N BAMS-D (Broad Area Maritime Surveillance-Demonstrator) flown into the area of operations just days prior. It had been the proof of concept demonstrator for the new navy RQ-4C Triton maritime surveillance drone, but that program was finished and the demonstrators headed to the bone yard. At the last minute that changed and one was sent to the UAE. Why? It did not bring any new capabilities, it wasn’t needed, there are no units set up to crew the beast, what good could it have done?
I’d run that asset right into the teeth of the Iranian air defense system and record exactly what they do, how long it takes for them to scramble, and how quickly they acquire and shoot me down. How valuable is that intelligence? What are the chances we are customizing our future attack packages based on that intelligence?
BS
No sources cited.
We did similar operations in VN. We also sent drones out to lure Migs to chase them toward our missile ships.
Makes mucho sense.
We take every opportunity to learn how our adversaries will operate, and sometimes we can test them for responses, but we don’t squander multi-million dollar platforms if not necessary. The drone was in international airspace.
No. This story is full of crap. It’s a kooky theory by someone who has no idea what they are spouting.
sounds like a lame post-facto justification by someone who has to account for a very expensive broken item
No sale.
FLASH, PEARL:
Admiral Kimmel Succeeds in Suckering IJN into Exhausting a full MONTH of torpedoes —in just TWO HOURS..!!
This spy vs. spy stuff goes on all the time with electronic and acoustic (submarine) warfare. The game is to get the other guy to tip his hand. And yes, attack packages will be based on the intel that is recorded.
It was just a drone. Not a cruise missile. They would not need much to hit it.
p
While, on the face of it, it might sound like it makes sense, I’d say we didn’t need to waste $150 million to have a very good idea of their response capabilities...we know where their sites are and what sort of equipment they have to work with and even how many people man the sites.