Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

AP: Iraq shoots down US drone(unmanned) recon plane...
MSNBC

Posted on 12/23/2002 7:23:01 AM PST by RCW2001

MSNBC reporting off the AP wire

First reports...searching for copy.


TOPICS: Breaking News
KEYWORDS: iraq; materialbreach
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-93 last
To: Poohbah
>...unless the military engages in some truly boneheaded personnel and operations policies.

Yes. And the Packers
win the Superbowl unless
Favre engages in

truly boneheaded
interceptions and fumbles.
Would you bet he won't?

81 posted on 12/23/2002 2:15:47 PM PST by theFIRMbss
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: theFIRMbss
By truly boneheaded policies, I mean the kind that sound good to the guy proposing them right up the moment when they're splashed onto the overhead projection screen in Microsoft PowerPoint, in front of the flag officers, whereupon the guy realizes that he looks like an idiot...
82 posted on 12/23/2002 2:19:08 PM PST by Poohbah
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: finnman69
Iraqi anti-aircraft gunners 1
US No Fly Zone Bombing Missions 10,000

Actually it was an Iraqi aircraft that darted into the no fly zone and downed the drone. Bad form on the part of the AWACS (or Navy E-2C) crews. No ice cream for them when they get back to base, or their carrier.

That said, the base this aircraft flew from should be toast about now, including all aircraft and all facilities, except those of the latter we think we might need later.

83 posted on 12/23/2002 3:00:42 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: hchutch
Recommend we re-think this whole UCAV notion. I'm NOT sold on this plan. The loss rates of recon UCAVs would cripple manned squadrons

1> Drones are cheaper than manned aircraft.
2> I rather lose twice the value of drones, which would be a bunch of drones, rather than a single pilot or crew. Replacing drones is easy, replacing pilots is hard, impossible if they happend to be one of your loved ones.
3>Might not hurt to add an auto jink mode to the control systems.

84 posted on 12/23/2002 3:06:36 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: hchutch
Although, I'd rather look into a recon variant of the F-16C Block 50. Give it two Slammers, two HARMs, and a centerline camera pod.

F-15E variant might have more promise. Add the camera pod, and it could still carrry the two Slammers, two, HARMs, two 'winders, and a couple of cluster bombs, "just in case". With the FAST packs, it would also have the legs to actually get to something interesting to take a picture of, without requiring any or so many tankers.

That platform probably would have bagged the Iraqi fighters, completed the mission, and gone home.

No doubt, as would a recon equiped F-18D variant.

85 posted on 12/23/2002 3:15:22 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: AzJohn
The no-fly zones were set up after the 1991 Gulf War to prevent Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from using his aircraft over northern and southern Iraq.

Of course AP fails (as ususal) to mention why the No-Fly zones were set up in the first place. It was to prevent Saddam from using his air force to suppress the expected revolts. It worked in the Kurdish north, which is no longer under Saddam's control, but not in the Shia south, were he was able to use the helicopters allowed under the agreement, supposedly for humaritarian reasons due to the larger number of destroyed bridges and roads, to suppress the Shiites in the swampy south.

86 posted on 12/23/2002 3:21:05 PM PST by El Gato
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: blam
The Iraqi's may be trying to set up a SAM trap to shoot down the aircraft
that they know will retaliate.

So send them a W-88 instead.

87 posted on 12/23/2002 3:28:03 PM PST by ASA Vet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: TexasRepublic
Time for massive retaliation!

Attack on Iraq Betting Pool

88 posted on 12/23/2002 5:46:20 PM PST by Momaw Nadon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: unspun
"I hope these things have multiple transponders so as many pieces as possible can be found and destroyed before it gets picked up and sold to China and Russia." Too late for that. Firebee drones that were shot down/malfunctioned over China during the late 60's early 1970's were instrumental in China's own drone construction. Near copies of them are being offered by China on the world market.

USAF Predators have been falling into enemy hands for some years now. At least on of the Predators lost over Iraq last year was pictured with the fuselage near intact. Predators that were lost/shot down over Bosnia in the mid-1990s and over Yugoslavia in 1999 are now on display in the Yugoslav Aeronautical Museum.

Images of USAF Predators in the Yugoslav Museum

http://www.aeronautics.ru/img002/yu-air-museum001.jpg

http://www.aeronautics.ru/img002/mu-predator-1.jpg

89 posted on 12/26/2002 2:59:17 PM PST by Tommyjo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: hchutch
"The Predator must have seen something important if Iraq scrambled a fighter plane and broke the no-fly zone. Most of the time, Iraq is content to just send off AAA."

The no-fly zones are not patrolled 24 hours a day and never have been. The Iraqis are fully aware of this and make their fighter aircraft incursions when they know that their are no manned combat air patrols about. They have been doing this for years now and the numbers of Iraqi fighter aircraft incursions amount to the hundreds over the past couple of years alone.

A Pentagon briefing during 2000 highlighted the situation:

"The Pentagon said Thursday that six Iraqi aircraft violated that country’s southern no-fly zone Sept. 4 while allied aircraft took the day off, but officials refused to confirm reports that at least one Iraqi jet continued on to penetrate Saudi airspace.

Iraqi aircraft have violated the northern and southern no-fly zones more than 150 times since Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, the last major allied attack on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s military forces, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said at a briefing Thursday.

Most of those violations have been quick, defiant dips into and out of the zones, established in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War to constrain Iraqi military aggression in the region.

Quigley acknowledged that six Iraqi aircraft were involved in five separate violations of the southern zone on Sept. 4, flying "unequivocally south of 33 North," the latitude boundary line of that zone. He declined to be more specific.

But he admitted that Saddam’s air force has become adept at exploiting occasional gaps in allied air patrols over the zones.

The Iraqis were able to penetrate deeply into the southern no-fly zone and into Saudi Arabia last week because Saddam’s air-defense radar network, despite taking a near-constant battering from allied aircraft for almost a decade, apparently still is able to closely track those coalition air patrols.

"The Iraqi air-defense system clearly sees when the coalition is flying, and we were not flying that day," he said. "I can only assume that they felt this was an excellent opportunity to violate the southern no-fly zone. "Typically, the Iraqis do not fly when we are flying," he said. "They’re not looking for a fight with coalition aircraft. They have not put themselves into a position where coalition aircraft can engage them. They are looking only to try to reassert sovereignty over Iraqi airspace and, I guess, to show us that they still can." Coalition aircraft patrol the Iraqi zones "most of the time," Quigley said. "But we do have no-fly days, for a variety of reasons."

The United States has adopted a sort of rolling response policy to Saddam’s provocations in which attacks on various Iraqi military assets come "at a time and place, and in a manner, of our own choosing," Quigley said. Such attacks could be well-removed, both in time and distance, from the area where the Iraqi provocations originate and are not launched on a one-for-one basis. "We try not to keep a particular box score," he said. "It’s not necessarily tit for tat, or an immediate response."

90 posted on 12/26/2002 3:09:01 PM PST by Tommyjo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: Tommyjo
Thanks for the info. That's what makes FreeRepublic such a good service. Well, as for our future drones, we better have self-destruct built in.

America is certainly less safe than it was, during the "good ol'" Cold War.
91 posted on 12/27/2002 9:18:44 PM PST by unspun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies]

To: Tommyjo
The United States has adopted a sort of rolling response policy to Saddam’s provocations in which attacks on various Iraqi military assets come "at a time and place, and in a manner, of our own choosing," Quigley said.

Does this mean they might take out the planes on the ground at the airbase they flew from?

92 posted on 01/01/2003 3:35:24 PM PST by F-117A
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 90 | View Replies]

To: F-117A
Anythings possible. A Predator armed with Hellfire missiles has in the past week attacked an air defence site situated in the Southern No Fly Zone.
93 posted on 01/02/2003 1:16:47 PM PST by Tommyjo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-93 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson