Posted on 10/26/2005 9:39:49 AM PDT by Jane_N
SKORENOVAC, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- Col. Zoltan Dani was behind one of the most spectacular losses ever suffered by the U.S. Air Force: the 1999 shooting down of an F-117A stealth fighter.
Now, for the first time since that night six years ago, the former Serbian commander of an anti-aircraft missile battery has consented to speak publicly to Western media about the circumstances surrounding the unprecedented downing of a U.S. stealth plane.
The hit on the radar-evading plane on March 27, 1999, during the 78-day NATO campaign over Serbia, triggered doubts not only about the F-117s, but also about the entire concept of stealth technology on which the U.S. Air Force has based its newest generation of warplanes.
Military analysts debated how the planes would fare in a war against a militarily sophisticated opponent if an obsolescent air defense such as Serbia's could manage to track and destroy them.
In an interview this week with The Associated Press, Dani said the F-117 was detected and shot down during a moonless night - just three days into the war - by a Soviet-made SA-3 Goa surface-to-air missile.
"We used a little innovation to update our 1960s-vintage SAMs to detect the Nighthawk," Dani said. He declined to discuss specifics, saying the exact nature of the modification to the warhead's guidance system remains a military secret.
It involved "electromagnetic waves," was all that Dani - who now owns a small bakery in this sleepy village just north of Belgrade - would divulge.
The F-117 was developed in great secrecy in the 1970s. It entered service in 1983 but was not revealed officially until 1988. It saw its first combat in the 1989 invasion of Panama and was a star of the 1991 Gulf War.
"Long before the 1999 war, I took keen interest in the stealth fighter and on how it could be detected," said Dani, who has been hailed in Serbia as a war hero. "And I concluded that there are no invisible aircraft, but only less visible."
The F-117 was one of only two allied aircraft shot down in the war. The other was an F-16 fighter, which the U.S. Air Force said was also hit by an SA-3. Both pilots bailed out and were rescued by NATO helicopters.
Dani said his anti-aircraft missile regiment, tasked with the anti-aircraft defense of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, downed the F-16.
Several other NATO warplanes were damaged by missile hits but managed to struggle back to bases in neighboring Bosnia, Macedonia or Croatia. At least one is said to have ditched into the Adriatic Sea as it attempted to regain its base in Italy.
Despite NATO's near-total air supremacy, the alliance never succeeded in knocking out Dani's batteries.
The Serb SAMs remained a potent threat throughout the conflict, forcing attacking warplanes to altitudes above 15,000 feet, where they were safe from surface-to-air missiles but far less effective in a ground attack role.
NATO won the war in June 1999, after President Slobodan Milosevic decided to withdraw his largely intact army from Kosovo, following the destruction of numerous government buildings, bridges and other infrastructure targets throughout Serbia.
"The Americans entered the war a bit overconfident," Dani said. "They thought they could crush us without real resistance."
"At times, they acted like amateurs," Dani said, listing some ways the Serbs managed to breach NATO communications security, including eavesdropping on pilots' conversations with AWACS surveillance planes.
"I personally listened to their pilots' conversations, learning about their routes and bombing plans," Dani said.
Dani said that his unit has had annual reunions on every March 27 since 1999 when a cake in the shape of the F-117 is served.
BUMP!
BTTT
But, But, But, this was KLINTON'S MILITARY AND COMMANDERS then....
I also note that he now runs a bakery, not a high end retirement plan in force here.
Bingo!
Won? Last I heard we were still over there and there was still fighting going on between the antagonists.
I also note that he now runs a bakery, not a high end retirement plan in force here.
If he owns the place maybe he enjoys the work.
I got a dollar that says it was a Golden BB.
So the special radar/tracking upgrade involved electromagnetic waves? Wow, what won't they think of next......
IIRC,
the reason the stealth bird was shot down was some turd in the NATO hq called the Serbs and said
"...we have approved a flight from x to where ever takes off at x time TOT is x..."
the Serbs just fired IR homing SAM's along the projected path of the flight. That's called the 'golden bb' approach to air defense. It didn't entail any 'techincal' improvements to the warhead, just not turning on the radar tracking (which in itself was lethal, hello HARM).
I don't recall what happened to the turd, but I hope it involved a protracted Q and A and an anthill.
This is exibit n to the x as to why US military operations should *never* be vetted through anyone else's command/political structure ever, period.
we lost a critical technology advantage because a collectivoleftist euroturd wanted to 'score one' against the US.
Maybe the bakery is a front company used by the CIA to cover his real work! If it worked for Val it should work for anyone!
Please ping the flyboys. (And girls.)
Air to Air Target Engagement Radars are usually X-band (8.2-12.4 GHz) or some in Ku (12.4 - 18 GHz). Target Acquisition Radars are generally around C-Band (5.85 - 8.2 GHz) and some others in the lower S and L bands......
What is difficult to beat, stealthwise is the ability to be stealthy at the LOWER frequencies, not higher very low frequency radars (some OTH) would have a good chance of picking up a stealthy aircraft. What a stealth aircraft should try to avoid is getting tagged by a ground based SAM battery, not in an Air-to-air situation. If he's been tagged in A-A, then he's up $hit creek.
Here is what REALLY happened.
It is an open secret that the US has been developing a new type of passive radar that scans the sky looking for "holes" in the EM pattern. These "holes" are airplanes like the F-117 flying through the EM waves generated by all sorts of sources like TV antennas. (Do you remember how it was publicized that some of the initial targets were TV and radion transmitters?)
Three days into Clinton's little escapade to get impeachment news out of everyones' minds, an F-117 is shot down by supposedly obsolete missiles.
A few days later the Air Force makes a "mistake" and "accidentally" bombs the Chinese embassy.
A fcouple of years later it was revealed that the Chinese were also developing a similar passive radar.
Connect the dots: Chinese lend their passive radar to the Serbs for a real world test. Test results good as it shoots down an F-117. Clinton sends a message attached to a 500 lb bomb to the Chinese embassy that this ain't gonna fly and to withdraw it's passive radars. Maybe it is without his knowledge that the generals act, who knows? China plays the victim but not too much and the US "settles" with a few million dollars in payments.
I think you are mostly correct about this, but my recollection is that there was no need for "some turd in the NATO hq" to be involved. I thought the information was passed to the Serbs by someone living near Avianno AFB in Italy who observed when the F-117s took off and just called someone on the phone to say: "X number of this-and-that type of aircraft took off at Y time, which means they should be getting there at Z."
The change in U.S. military tactics after the shoot-down lends some credibility to this scenario, since their response was so simply have all sorties out of Avianno fly in circles over the Adriatic Sea for an undisclosed period of time instead of flying directly to their targets in Serbia.
Only if you get high enough above the SAM's serviceable ceiling (think U-2 and the troubles the Russians had bringing down Gary Powers-- hadda do it with the big boy - the SA-2). Also, if you fly low enough the SAM doesn't have enough time to manuever to get the angle on you.. Or, you (if you have the CoJones) could just wait, fly along straight and level, and then bank hard at the last minute, then all you have to do is get your sphincter to let loose of the seat.....
Special F-117A Balkans Bump
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