/FLASH// Iranian jets fire on USAF drone over the Gulf.

[TLAM Strike]

US Drone was in international airspace. The IRGC pilots missed.

http://defensetech.org/2012/11/08/iranian-fighter-jets-fire-on-u-s-predator/#more-18851

[GoldenRivet]

meh



odds are 8 of those drones could pretty much eliminate 80% of the iranian air farce before they knew what the loud booming sounds were anyhow.

[Tribesman]

US Drone was in international airspace.
Unfortunately they have made similar claims lots of times when they were not true.
So unless they can prove it it gets filed with the pile of previous claims.

[Catfish]

Also here: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/iran-fires-us-predator-drone/story?id=17674916

Never use an SU-25 to do the work of a Mig-29 ? :hmm2:
Maybe arm the drones, in the future ?
Don't know how the 3d visibility or possible situation awereness is, of those drones/if the 'pilot' would be able to see the attack in time.

[CCIP]

Honestly I think both sides are posturing here and trying to show that they can go where they please and warn who they need. US drones spying on Iran, or Iran claiming that the Gulf is their territory to control? Both of those things are hardly unlikely. Iran and/or US firing warning shots against each other's units in the Gulf? How many decades have they been doing that for now...

[Oberon]

Honestly I think both sides are posturing here and trying to show that they can go where they please and warn who they need. US drones spying on Iran, or Iran claiming that the Gulf is their territory to control? Both of those things are hardly unlikely. Iran and/or US firing warning shots against each other's units in the Gulf? How many decades have they been doing that for now...

Quite, just business as usual.

[Stealhead]

Actually for a time period of over 10 years after the end of Operation Earnest Will which ended in late 1988 there was very little posturing between the US and Iran from a military standpoint only in the last several years (since around 2003~2004) have tensions risen between the US and Iran.

I would agree that by and large this is "business as usual" between the US and Iran but there was a fairly lengthy period of "peace" so to speak.Of course this may have more to do with world events from late 1988 to the early 2000's more than anything else.If you look at the situation it is pretty obvious why each side feels the way that they do currently it all depends on which side you agree with who you think is correct.Right now Iran has an advantage that it did not have 20 years ago that would be the oil from Iran that several nations rely on.

[Armistead]

Don't see much need to fly drones in international waters...I suspect they may have chased them there.

[Jimbuna]

Honestly I think both sides are posturing here and trying to show that they can go where they please and warn who they need. US drones spying on Iran, or Iran claiming that the Gulf is their territory to control? Both of those things are hardly unlikely. Iran and/or US firing warning shots against each other's units in the Gulf? How many decades have they been doing that for now...

Precisely :yep:

[TLAM Strike]

Don't see much need to fly drones in international waters...I suspect they may have chased them there.

Not sure where this incident happened but Bushneir is a coastal city and the reactor site is very close to the shore.

I imagine the drone was on a standard recon mission off the coast listening and taking photos with its ISAR. Sending a drone is a lot cheaper than a manned ELINT aircraft, and doesn't risk the crew.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Unfortunately they have made similar claims lots of times when they were not true.
So unless they can prove it it gets filed with the pile of previous claims.

Gosh darn diddley, whenever the U.S. is involved in something, it's always so difficult to divine which position you are likely to take. You're so unpredictable!!!

[Dive! Dive! Dive!]

:hmmm:This whole situation with Iran is stickier than freshly laid tar.

I don't think there is a clear solution without making someone,somewhere hostile.

[Oberon]

I think that there's a couple of things to think about here which means that this is, whilst not run of the mill, certainly not a major deviation from the norm.

It was the Guard who intercepted it, not exactly the most rational and calm members of the Iranian military. Ordinarily the standard Iranian military is fairly calm about US aircraft in the region, they have to be, they exist in one of the busiest American flying zone outside of America itself. EP3s, Hawkeyes, drones, and probably aircraft that don't 'exist' have flown or are flying over or near Iranian airspace. If you flipped out over every US drone, you'd run out of missiles. Not only that, but you've got Iranian maritime aircraft and unmanned drones monitoring the US navy in the area, so it's quite a busy airspace. I certainly would not like to be their air traffic control.

Chances are, the IRG thought the drone had crossed into Iranian airspace, or perhaps they just didn't like the way the drone looked at them. These guys are Islamic hotheads, they don't like Americans or American equipment, so if they could think of a reason to shoot at something American they're not going to hesitate.

Secondly, they were flying Frogfoots. Which (Thank God and Allah) is their most formidable aircraft. The Frogfoot has two Aphid AAMs and the cannon, that is their entire Anti-Air armament. It's a Ground attack aircraft, so it's not really up to the role of shooting down aircraft but if they had really wanted to shoot it down, they could have used their Aphids, they can take down Predators, they have done so before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWUR3sgKUV8
Alternatively one could argue that they wanted to save their A-60s for a potential war against America and thought that the Predator would make a simple Gunzo target, in theory it would but then you have to take into account the speed difference in approach between a Predator drone and an Su-25...which, assuming this is a MQ-9 at cruise speed, is about 230mph.
I don't know what the stall speed of a Frogfoot is, I imagine it's not very high given its ground attack role, but it could be a struggle to stay in guns range in an old aircraft with little gun aiming technology above 1970s tech. Plus, I'd wager that the MQ-9 is no slouch in the maneuver department, I don't know what its turning circle is, but I'd put money on it being smaller than a Frogfoots. :yep:

If it was an MQ-9 it would also explain why it didn't shoot back, because they're still working on bolting some Stingers to it, alternatively it could have been a standard MQ-1 under Weapons Tight ROE. Better to have a drone shot down into the sea, than kill two Iranians and risk sparking off a major incident.

There's also the possibility that the IRGAF pilots aimed to miss, and were firing warning shots. This doesn't tally with their reputation as hotheads, but it's a sensible reaction to a perceived airspace violation.
On that note though, it also cannot be denied that there is a possibility that the drone WAS in Iranian airspace, but not deliberately, given that Russia has flogged Iran a fair bit of drone spoofing technology, the drone could have been fed false co-ordinates by the spoofer and strayed over the line, but one would have thought that if this was the case the Iranians would have brought forward flight data from the Frogfoots to prove it, the fact that they haven't does tend to indicate that the incident occurred in international waters as the US has stated.

Not the first time a spy plane has been shot at or hindered on a mission. Remember the Hainan island incident in 2001? Or the harrassment of the Impeccable in 2009, heck, even the Pueblo incident.

At least this time no-one was hurt or killed. That is the beauty of drones, I've got to admit that.